ABC/Disney Shuts Down Blog Exercising Fair Use

An anonymous reader writes "A blogger named Spocko had his blog shut down by ABC/Disney lawyers because he had posted clips from an ABC Radio-affiliated program and commented on their content, as well as informed show advertisers of what exactly they were paying for. Spocko merely pointed out the content that station KSFO was broadcasting, and as a result Visa pulled their advertising from the station. More companies were reportedly considering pulling their ads. A YouTube video summary is available. From the Daily Kos article: 'How'd he do it? He did it the way it's always done - by working within the law, identifying points of weakness, exploiting them and being absolutely tenacious ... It appears to me as if Disney is attempting to bully a little guy in an unethical manner. Any media lawyer worth the air she breathes knows that Spocko's use was well protected.'"

Comments

Re:I seem to recall

[Curunir_wolf]

I contend that the correct response to this statement would have been involuntary entry to an organ donation programme.

Isn't that the kind of talk that Spoko was complaining about?

Re:SLAPP Reborn

[ScrewMaster]

Let alone the fact, that were it not for Disney's legal army, copyright terms would not currently stand at 99 years. That company has done far more damage than it is worth. Far more, and as for that little bastard Mickey ... I hope somebody traps his ass. And not with one of those mamby-pamby "humane" traps, either. I want the life quickly squeezed out of him, so we can toss his moldering carcass on the scrap-heap of history.

Re:Slashdot readers come out in force

[Wildfire Darkstar]

I will be hard-pressed to contain my humor, however, when some conservative goes to a company for advertising on a show like "Will and Grace", for example, and Slashdot readers will be sure to criticize that corporation for withdrawing ad dollars.

That's just it, though. Criticizing a corporation for withdrawing its advertising from a particular program is not really the issue. If all that ABC/Disney was doing in this case was criticizing, they'd be well within their rights. Sending threatening legal notices to the person or persons responsible for persuading the corporation that it might not be in their business interest to continue to spend advertising dollars on the program is emphatically not within anyone's rights.

Put more bluntly, this is a straw man argument. The right-vs-left politics are a sideshow, and they're distracting from a more serious issue at the heart of this mess. The question shouldn't be whether or not the blogger Spocko is a liberal, or whether ABC/Disney is conservative. If Spocko violated ABC's copyright, he should be reprimanded/made to stop. If, on the other hand, ABC/Disney is merely using legal threats to silence a critic who has not violated the law, then they need to be reprimanded/made to stop. This is true, regardless of the political orientation of anyone involved. Period. Whether or not you agree with the actual substantive arguments of Spocko or of ABC's hosts is immaterial.