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Electronic Frontier Foundation Sues Uri Geller
reversible physicist writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued spoon-bender Uri Geller for using 'baseless copyright claims' to silence critics who question his paranormal powers. Brian Sapient posted on YouTube a 14-minute excerpt from the 1993 PBS NOVA program 'Secrets of the Psychics,' in which skeptic James Randi says Geller's spoon-bending feats were simple tricks. YouTube took down the video after Geller complained — his lawyers claim that 10 seconds of the video are owned by Geller. A shorter excerpt of the video is still up on YouTube."
There is no spoon!
He thought he could bend copyright laws too!
Theres a bit more on this on http://www.badpsychics.co.uk/ and its forums. Well worth a read IMHO!
My web domain.
During these 10 seconds he placed the spoon in a clamp and started hammering at it vigorously?
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
This is an excellent illustration of how people can abuse things like copyrights to attempt to prop up their own dubious practices.
Clearly Uri Geller has no "psychic" abilities whatsoever and yet he has built his career on claims that he does and this is how he earns his money. Rather than offering scientifically measured demonstrations of his "powers" he attempts instead to simply keep his critics silent. Obviously this is totally reprehensible behaviour which shares some similarity with the behaviour of record companies whoes original purpose is rapidly diminishing and are also using copyright laws to prop themselves up.
I don't think the answer is necessarily changing the laws of copyright ( except correcting the ludicrous length of time protection can be claimed ) but making sure that people claiming it's protection are doing so properly. It would appear in this case there are no copyright violations since Mr Gellers material is only be critised and excerpted which is perfectly legal. Instead I advocate the slaughter of anyone, individuals or entire companies who attempt to abuse copyright laws in this manner. This should send a strong message that the public do want their rights trampled on and will not let individual members suffer bullying and intimidation for larger individuals or companies.
OK, copyright law is one thing, but frauds like Uri Geller do whatever they can to keep anyone from showing their tricks. He's no more than the tent evangelist that has shills in the audience or people who listen to conversations so the perp can somehow know something personal about their next mark.
Geller is only one step away from the televangelists that want you to lay hands on your TV and feel the power... and then send in your contribution.
I am not a lawyer but 10 seconds for the purpose of criticism is surely fair use?
My little Linux and tech blog
Randi has a copy of the full videos on his website
http://www.randi.org/uri/index.html
when they sang 'bend your words like Uri Gellers' spoons'.
If it does go to court it will be interesting to see how he travels to defend it.
iirc he is on the US no fly list plus a couple of terrorist watch lists... (something to do with organisational affiliations I think)
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Should'nt he had seen it coming and sued before it got to youTube. Or better still use them to wipe it off the servers
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
No indeed. He is a great man whom aliens have seen fit to bestow the ultimate of powers - spoon bending. All hail our galactic overlords and their glorious Earth bound representative!
Clearly Uri Geller has no "psychic" abilities whatsoever
I'll thank you not to post baseless, unprovable defamatory statements about Mr. Geller. His 'Orange Dot' (see google) was almost certainly the single most amazing thing ever done in the sphere of psychic activity. Seriously, which is more likely:
Proposition A: Uri Geller does have psychic abilities
Proposition B: A high proportion of the human race, if you print an orange dot in a newspaper and tell them touching it will make their dreams come true, will take it *very seriously indeed*.
I think you'll agree the latter proposition is simply ludicrous. Therefore it behooves anyone who'd consider themselves a free thinker to consider proposition A.
Incidentally, I myself possess something of Mr. Geller's gift. While he is able to energize a large orange dot on high-quality newsprint, I can only perform the lesser feat of energizing a small black dot on the flimsy medium of a cathode ray tube or TFT. I have focused my spirit energy on this dot and it is now fully energized. Empty your mind, gaze on the dot and let the spirit energy fill you and uplift you.
Here is the Dot: .
Reach out. Touch it. Imagine you are floating on a bed of marshmallows(*). Who knows? Your dreams might just come true!
(*)Genuine quote from Uri Geller, used here as "fair use" as I know Mr. Geller would never stoop to abusing copyright law.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
1) Different search results for different countries. Reality distortion field.
2) Hide energy usage from public utility records. Enable gross corruption.
3) Force collections currently in the public domain to be their property after scanning. Hijacking ownership.
4) Pull clips from youtube based on complaints rather than content. Stifle free speech and commentary.
We love google. Google has always been good. Google will always be good. Google is not microsoft. Two legs good. Four legs bad.
If he is actually a psychic why does he feel in the need of destroying criticism?
He had a T.V Reality show here in the last season, and some of his tricks had been revealed including magnets he had pulled off his head and got caught. He's nothing more than magician.
Uri Geller is a joke on youtube
it should give you a proof or so just search there : Uri Geller.
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
...I'm sure he saw that lawsuit coming. =D
His spoon covered cadillac, however, is laughable.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Well I, for one, welcome our spoon-bending overlord.
Using copyright to silence critics. Makes me think of the Church of Sc... Holy *sh1t* my [Copyright law applied]-meter just went off!
"I'm not the psychic you're looking for..."
every time he predicts a team will win or asks you to touch his famous orange dot to help a team to win - they inevitably lose! Now that is talent.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
I've always *dreamed* of having a fingerprint on my monitor...
I shall now make this article waste a few minutes of my life. But on a rebounding note, I shall sue Slashdot for using 10 seconds of my time and bandwidth in getting me to make a pointless response.
Infiltrated dot Net
Another spoon bender on TV.
Penn and Teller did a show once where they showed the spoon bending trick, and other tricks that Geller does without mentioning his name. They just said "phonies" use those tricks to show that they're "psychic". They even said that they won't mention his name because he sues everyone. It was plainly obvious that they were targeting Geller since at the time of the show, Geller was suing some mathematician - can't remember his name now..
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Or you may get your scient&%**!%%%% -- %^%@@* ... holy crap they are at it again !
Read radical news here
I am a supporter of EFF but having read the compaint, I am (as usual) a little confused. It says that both Geller and his company are based in the UK (paras 4 and 5) and then goes on to say that the court has jurisdiction (para 8). Isn't this going to end up rather like the SpamHaus case but possibly with better management from the UK end?
I can see how the EFF might prevail with relief A (declaratory judgment) and possibly B (injunctive relief) although its not clear what would happen if Geller broke the injunction. Would that be a criminal offence for which he could be extradited? But reliefs C to F all seem to boil down to Geller handing over some money. What is going to happen when the court rules against him and he ignores them?
So far as I can see, YouTube shouldn't have had to accept a DMCA takedown request from outside the USA in the first place. Perhaps they didn't have to? Does the DMCA say anything about this? What's to stop some bored teenager from (for example) China sending dozens of takedown notices every day in the certain knowledge that no-one can stop him?
This is great news! I love how EFF solves the worst problems with my donations.
There you go! That's how you bring peace to the world. Now, I need to tell this to the State Department.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
None of your pretty pictures work, troll.
Post something relevant to the conversation, or GTFO.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Its Euro 2006 (Soccer, for those that dont know) and Scotland have a Penalty against England (deadly rivals, for those that dont know that either) Gary McAlister steps up to take the shot, and just before he kicks the ball it moves slightly, causing him to fluff the shot, losing us the game, and our entry to the finals. Mr Gellar later reveals that it was him who moved the ball, using the power of his mind. Now either he really could move the ball, and that makes him a cheat, or he just said he did, and the ball just moved by itself due to the way it was sitting, and then he's a liar. Anyway, I can bend a spoon with my bare hands, why dont you bend something impressive, like a steel girder.
Never rub another man's rhubarb
Thank you for your question -- it's true that because of the 'psychic burnout' caused by energizing the dot I forgot to actually give licensing information.
The dot itself is copyright me (kahei) 2007. Obviously, I do not claim that the copyright extends to ANY use of the '.' character -- only to the published work whose text is '.'
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I was recently watching a google video of an old special featuring Geller moving a compass "with his mind". At 9 min 47 sec you hear a distinct click as he places his fingers below the handrail, which I presume is the sound of two magnets snapping together --- the magnet in his fingers and the magnet attached to underneath the handrail. Even if that isn't the case, there were many cut-aways which provided ample time for him to palm a magnet to and from the waistband of his shorts, for example.
Sometimes I wonder if Geller is not merely a simple con man. There must be at least a few partially insane individuals who deceive people with one part their mind and believe their own words with another part of their mind. (As distinct from professional magicians who do not seriously claim supernatural powers.) The wise sage George Costanza expressed it well: "It's not a lie, if you believe it."
Don't you see it?!?! This is all so clear!
Spoon-bending is part of Xenu's revenge! If he can't take over Teegeeak the way he intended, then he's at least going to starve us out of existance! It's diabolical!
(Posted as an AC for obvious reasons -- note that Mr. Geller uses the same tactics as his "Clear" Scientologist overlords.)
Uri Geller should get bent
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Uri Geller is to spoons like Gallagher is to watermelons. They both don't have large audiences. Just some back water gin mills.
*Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot*
My first guess was because of the large number of people here who are misspelling his last name (Geller) as Gellar. However, even if you use the correct spelling, that search turns up Slashdot as the second (or third) hit. Using the incorrect spelling now puts Slashdot on the top of the list. Behold the power of Slashdot...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
YouTube receives a ridiculous number of DMCA notices every day. It's only the really stupid ones (when frauds like Scientologists and Uri Geller try to silence criticism) that make it to slashdot.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Regardless of whether Gellar is a hoax, regardless of his motives in his takedown of the video, the issue here is that is an example of how some people use the DMCA in conflict of copyright laws. It appears that a documentary used a 10 second clip of one of his performances. His lawyers are claiming that is a violation of the DMCA and pushed YouTube to remove the whole video because of this 10 second clip. I haven't kept up with the DMCA but have they changed it so that Fair Use is clearly defined? Under Gellar's logic, most news shows and other shows like "Talk Soup" or "The Daily Show" are violating the DMCA when they show clips of movies and TV shows as they often show more than 10 seconds.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The tape themselfes are owned by the channel on which it was shown, and AFAIK they released the show for fair use on its full length. Heck, the same tape is on randi.org. Geller cannot pretend to own the copyright on the tape, which is all the DMCA authorize him to take down. As for the trick, I do not see how you can coypright that, since there is prior art in the previous century.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
seriously when he goes off at these frauds it's sexy. if he was younger, less hairy and a woman i'd fuck him.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
and then read again....
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Here's the EFF link: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_05.php#00524 4
Sorta offtopic, but on the topic of that video of which the clips in question come from:/P>
I watched it in school a while ago, and while I am very happy that the commercial tricksters are debunked by no doubt, I can't help but notice a hint of arrogance, or a vendetta against anything "paranormal" as Rhandi he knows for a fact everything is false. Everything like "commercial psychic" "amazing psychic peformer" etc is of course false, but I agrreed with the clip where Rhandi is in a class and he is told by a student to the effect that you may know about the commercial claims, but the existance of anything real in the field of paranormal is neither provable, or disprovable with our research and technology... I mean, we only use something like 10% - 15% of our brain, what does the rest do? How do we know that other great things can be done by using the rest of that brainpower? On the other hand, how do we know that we will only marginally benefit from that increase, and gain no so-called "supernatural" powers?
Unanswered questions, but we shouldn't act so sure outside of what we are looking at, meaning that Mr. Rhandi should be certain only with the performers in which he is debunking IMO.
> I mean, we only use something like 10% - 15% of our brain, what does the rest do?
That's a frequent misunderstanding: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm
The best part: Have you ever heard a doctor say, ". . . But luckily when that bullet entered his skull, it only damaged the 90 percent of his brain he didn't use"? Of course not.
The difference is that even if there is no deity, the majority religions still provide useful and positive services to their members.
Not just to their members, but to society in general.
My wife took some philosophy classes in college. One of them was a class on ethics. She came home one day, frightened.
The discussion topic was about the nature of ethics. What are they, where do they come from, etc. One of the things that came out in class was that the majority of people in the class thought that ethical behavior came from God. If you were an Athiest, you could not be ethical.
Yes. Seriously.
Now, the other side of that coin is that these people are behaving ethically because they believe the Big Invisible Man is watching everything they do. If he wasn't watching - well - all bets are off. They would have no ethics, since their source for ethical behavior would be absent. They'd be in the streets buck naked sawing other people's heads off.
So, let me be the first to say Hooray For Organized Religion! Thank you for keeping our streets safe. From ourselves.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This is an argument that religious people use very often, but I think it's fallacious.
Religion, when badly used, is more dangerous than any weapon. Religious people should accept the responsibility for all the bad effects that religion can bring. If religion can be used to convince people to kill, maim, perform terrorist acts, then everybody who preach or practice religion has a share of responsibility for that.
To claim that not all religions are bad is akin to the argument defended by gun nuts that guns can have lots of good uses. If there existed no guns, there would be no crimes committed with guns. If no religion at all existed, there would be no religious fanatics at all. There could exist other kinds of nutjobs, but it would be rather difficult to convince an atheist to commit a suicide terrorist act, for instance.
From TFA:
If you want to debunk irrational beliefs, there are far more important targets to go after. Christianity, Judaism, Islam...
This guy knows where his towel is. A voice of sanity in a chorus of confused monkeys.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
I got a threatening letter from Uri's "lawyer" for hosting a video of him on a British hidden camera show. He is seen bending the spoon with his hands when he thought nobody was looking.
The letter is now one of my most prized possession.
> So far as I can see, YouTube shouldn't have had to accept a DMCA takedown request from outside the USA in the first place. Perhaps they didn't have to? Does the DMCA say anything about this? What's to stop some bored teenager from (for example) China sending dozens of takedown notices every day in the certain knowledge that no-one can stop him?
:/ Any idiot can file these things, it's just not always a good idea and it's not always legally proper, either. Depending on the ToS for that site, you may not have much recourse even if they submit to an improper DMCA notice (but you might want to check with a lawyer, anyhow, if you think you have a case, especially to file put back notices).
Probably nothing, sadly
As for jurisdiction, by filing the DMCA Takedown Notice, I can only think that he availed himself of the US courts, so that gives them jurisdiction. After all, even if you have a better case like SpamHaus did, you'll run into trouble if you start out representing yourself in a US court only to turn around and claim they have no jurisdiction.
My understanding, and please know that I'm not a lawyer, would be that Uri's use of US law on US parties gives him sufficient ties to the US for the case to proceed here and that Federal court is proper because copyright law is a federal law and they also have diversity jurisdiction (assuming I remember that right; I think he & YouTube are in different states, at least, so that should give diversity, I'm not sure if foreign parties can also give rise to it, but they probably can). Either of those reasons alone, IIRC, is sufficient to put this matter before a Federal court. Of course, I had exactly one class on court procedure back in college and that was years ago, so I might also not know what the hell I'm talking about, here.
I don't know how well they can enforce injunctions against him and such, though. My best guess would be that it'll make it clear that YouTube doesn't have to listen to him. I have no idea if or how the EFF would be able to collect any money from him, though, but they may end up doing something like filing a separate lawsuit in the UK, asking the courts there to recognize and enforce any judgment granted against him in the US should they win.
In short, they're the lawyers here, not me. I have to believe they have some idea what they're doing and certainly a better idea than I do. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that the court will probably accept jurisdiction. After all, if you go after a US person by serving a US company pursuant to a US law, well...
now that's real magic!
- js.
It was my impression that Randi and the Skeptical Inquirer folks mostly went after those people who claimed scientific authenticity, or claimed to display supernatural powers in real time.
I am unaware of any major religion which would fit the bill above: matters of faith are clearly not scientific (and mixing the two is a bit like mixing motor oil and olive oil: they're both quite a bit better apart). It would surprise me tremendously if the LDS church (or their members) would describe their garments as "magical." Certainly that isn't the description Jews give of the undergarment they wear (tallit katan)...
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
Beige isn't just a color; it's a state of mind. Try not to be such a predictably unimaginative literalist, PC user.
Uri Geller may not sue you for that, but what about all the people whose sarcasm detectors just exploded? Did you ever think of THEM? Well?? DID YOU???
>FEED TROLL
You have fed the troll. It gains 500 pounds.
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Ok, you've quoted part of my post. So...anything to add, or did you just like that part, or what?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
.. or he would have seen this one coming :)
What a goon..
Insert
Well thanks, I never realized that!
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
**BEING** an elite ninja death squad.