Australian PM Has Parody Site Shut Down

babbling writes "The Australian Government has shut down a parody website that mocked Australian Prime Minister John Howard. The website featured a satirical speech that 'apologised' for the Iraq war. The site was down for two days before a phone call from Melbourne IT advised the owner that it had been shut down 'on the advice from the Australian Government'. A mirrored PDF copy of the "apology speech" is available."

Comments

Re:Parodies, "fair use" and Melbourne IT

[tpgp]

In fact, Melbourne IT's procedures are so slack that they infamously transferred the panix.com domain to a third party without authorisation last year.

Not just that. They've also been accused of facilitating 419 fraud.

So, don't just blame the "Australian government" for this, as it's unclear who exactly intervened.

Better: Blame the "Australian government" for this, along with Melbourne IT. John Howard has lied to the Australian Public again and again.

He's currently under investigation for his role in collusion with Saddam's regime under sections.

It doesn't look like satire to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, I'm not Australian, and I may not be catching their humor.

However, the PDF document looks "offical" enough to possibly be the "real thing".

If this is satire, it's not translating well. It's no surprise the government wanted it taken down.

Chilling.

[TripMaster Monkey]

Well, I've looked at the PDF of the satire website, comparing it with the real deal, and I have to say that the two are extremely similar....virtually identical with the exception of content. In this light, the reason offered by Bruce Tonkin, the chief technology officer of Melbourne IT, holds a bit of water:

"If we receive a complaint from an intellectual property basis claiming that a website directly infringes the rights of another site we would check it, and if it is a direct copy we would suspend the site," he said.

Upon closer observation, however, this reason leaks like a sieve. The parody websise is not a direct copy...far from it, since the content is radically different. This reason also conveniently glosses over the rather important fact that the Melbourne IT was ordered to yank the website by the Australian Government.

Mr.Tonkin goes on to say:

"To us it looks like a phishing site."

Phishing??? Phishing for what??? This claim is patently ridiculous.

The reason Melbourne IT yanked the website is pure and simple: they were told to by the Government.

Our fundamental human rights are being slowly whittled away...not only in America, but around the world. There is no save harbor. There is nowhere to hide from the oppression. Concerned citizens have to make a stand now...not because it is the right thing to do, but because they have no other option, finding themselves with their backs against the wall.

Only ourselves to blame

[davem2]

Australians have no legal guarantee of free speech and we've never demanded one. All Western Governments have been clamping down on human rights since 9/11 and people keep voting them back in.

Problems with this issue

[rjstanford]

Go and read the PDF. Now assume that its been sent to you, as-is. Nothing whatsoever on that indicates in any way, shape, or form that it was a work of Satire, that those words did not come from John Howard. Its not as if it was posted on The Onion, or another similar site, that clearly indicates it is not official.

Now look down at the bottom. There's a copyright link which, like a lot of other links on the site, actually leads to the official website's copyright page. By doing that, and by not having anything anywhere on the page that identifies the authors in any other way, they may well have actually assigned copyright (I'm not familiar with the intracies of Australian copyright law). In that case, as the copyright owners (if not the authods), they were completly within their rights to insist that the piece be removed.

There's satire, and then there's impersonation. To me, for something to be protected even if satirical there would have to be some way, other than a personal evaluation of the content of the attributed text, for them to be able to tell that they're not looking at a "true" website. It can be evocative of the original, but should not be too easily mistaken for it. In the same way that, in the 'States, Saturday Night Live can use the presidential trappings for a "Press Conference" but if they were to broadcast a) without a laugh track, and b) using a body double instead of a "regular" actor, and c) react accordingly - they'd get in trouble too.