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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."
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
It kind of bugs me that these "skeptics" like Randi will go after these two-bit hucksters, but not touch the real frauds selling organized religion to suckers.
You think Uri Gellar little scam can touch the massive hocus pocus peddled by guys like the Pope or other so-called "religious leaders"? At least Gellar is somewhat entertaining and doesn't expect me to give him 10 percent of my income and the nicest few hours of a Sunday morning, and he doesn't promise I can wish away all the bad things in the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. And he doesn't try to make people feel guilty about sex.
Religion is the last bastion of political correctness. Now we're all supposed to look the other way when a candidate for president wears magical underwear and not ask him how he can believe that stuff about the golden plates in the desert and all. No wonder we end up with guys like Bush.
No, Uri Gellar, cheap flim-flam he may be, can't hold a candle to someone like this guy in Colorado, Ted Haggard, who's preaching "family values" and having prayer meetings with the President during the day and snorting crystal with male prostitutes in the evening.
You are welcome on my lawn.
One again the slashdot mods showing they are unable to handle a point of view which differs from their own.
If you dont aggree with a post, try and be constructive and say why you disagree. Dont just mod the post as a troll because it offends your christian sensibilities.
Personally I gree with the parent poster. At least you can safely laugh at Uri Gellar in the knowledge that all he can bend is spoons. There are much more worring people out there who can bend other peoples minds into doing their bidding.
I dont read
Still more can be found here, on Damn Interesting, which provides an entertaining read on the things he claims to have done, and the efforts to debunk them. From what I've read, they haven't ALL been debunked.
Technically, neither has Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, and I'll put about the same probability of truth on each.
Uri Geller *always* has two spoons. Not hard to figure out his 'magic powers' when he only lets you examine one of them
monk.e.boy
Open source, flash charts
Uh... "Organized religions don't pretend to be able to demonstrate the paranormal, and so there's nothing concrete or repeatable for anyone like Randi to disprove."
You're not catholic are you? Exorcisms, Transubstantiation (bread into flesh, wine into blood), resurection, heaven, hell, the rapture (wait, that's evangelicals), saints (need a miracle to be a saint remember, and what's the definition of a miracle?)
Course if you're a Mormon, how about the magic underwear? Or john smith's magic hat?
Quakers (and southern baptists, and a few others) still speak in tongues when the "holy spirit" takes them over. They've even been known to... well... quake with feeling for the lord.
The devil? God? Creationism? The great flood? The concept of sin? Passover? Easter? Reincarnation? Any of these things ringing a bell?
However, you are at least partially right, over the centuries cults (erm, religions) have gotten very good at claiming things that are hard to disprove. However you might want to check out Richard Dawkins' new book "The God Delusion". You're also right, people tend to be easily fooled into believing nonsense, look at how many devout christians of various faiths there are in the US. Hell, the president believes the the jury is still out on evolution. For that matter a CBS survey back in 04 found that 45% of the people who voted for Bush and 24% of the votes for Kerry wanted creationism taught in schools instead of evolution. That's a crap load of people that think evolution is BS. (There's also 3 republican presidental candidates (for now) that state they do NOT believe in evolution.