Copyright Law Used to Shut Down Site

driptray writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian mining industry group has used copyright laws to close a website that parodied a coal industry ad campaign. A group known as Rising Tide created the website using the slogan "Rising sea levels: brought to you by mining" in response to the mining industry's slogan of "Life: brought to you by mining". The mining industry claimed that the "content and layout" of the parody site infringed copyright, but when Rising Tide removed the copyrighted photos and changed the layout, the mining industry still lodged a complaint. Is this a misuse of copyright law in order to stifle dissent?"

Comments

Stifle?

[Aladrin]

"Is this a misuse of copyright law in order to stifle dissent?"

If it is, it totally failed! I'd have -never- heard of this if they hadn't done this. Now it's got more publicity than the little website could have handled, had it been up. (Does this count as a pre-slashdotting? ie: Site goes down before it's on slashdot.)

Before, should I happen to see something about this in passing, I'd have said 'Pfft. Activists.' and carried on. Now I -know- the mining industry wants this hushed. Suddenly, it seems a little more interesting and probable.

Ahhghhhh!

[cascadingstylesheet]

Stop tacking these 3rd grade essay questions on the end of each post!

It's not like Slashdot had no discussion happening before you started doing that, you know :)

Re:well..

[digitig]

It may well be legal in Australia, too; this looks like an ISP that rolls over and dies whenever a complaint is lodged. Nowhere does it say that the Minerals Council demonstrated a copyright infringement, it just says that they complained and the host took the site down. It hasn't gone to court, and it looks to me as if the Minerals Council is just hoping that Rising Tide won't have the resources to mount an effective legal challenge. I understand that such things happen in the USA, too.

Re:Is it?

[Headcase88]

"It has to be clear that the site is a parody, and not the actual site."

If someone can't tell the difference after reading a small sample of each site, then apparently the mining industry needs to hire better PR representatives.