Slashdot Mirror
Canon Tries To Shut Down "Fake" Canon Blog
Thomas Hawk writes "An interesting twist over at the Fake Chuck Westfall Blog. Fake Chuck (like Fake Steve before him) has a blog out parodying Canon's real Technical Information Advisor Chuck Westfall. It seems that Canon and their lawyers over at Loeb & Loeb are none too fond of all the fun that Fake Chuck and DSLR geeks everywhere have been having at their expense and have sent Fake Chuck's blog hosting company, WordPress, a notice to take the blog down. Canon's lawyers cite that Fake Chuck's blog is 'calculated to mislead recipients,' even though the blog has 'fake' in the title, 'fake' in the URL and 'fake' just about everywhere else in the blog. What in the heck is wrong with Canon? Do they really think that trying to shut down a parody blog is going to make their new 5D Mark II ship any faster?" After Fake Chuck removed the Canon logo from his site, WordPress is standing behind him and has rebuffed Canon's demand.
This post has fake all over it, so you can't mod it down.
Is there no fake Microsoft blog? If so, I'm guessing no one believes what they write anyway.
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
I dont't have one, but it seems the 5D Mk II is already out. On Geizhals, an Austrian price comparison website (Google translation), numerous retailers list it as available. At €2380 (the cheapest one that actually has it in stock) it's not exactly cheap, but then again, most professional DSLRs aren't.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
More free press for Canon. The real intention all along. Good job.
What?
Companies would realize that not liking someone's views doesn't give them the right to censor the person.
WTF has any of their products got to do with this? I smell a shameless plug.
The Streisand effect has now hit the Fake Chuck blog. I wasn't aware of the blog but thanks to Canon's own doing more people will be aware of it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
...I'm a complete moron!
--Fake MWoody
The take down letter asked for 4 things:
1. Stop using the Canon logo.
2. Remove references to violence.
3. Remove references to Chuck's family.
4. Changes to the look and feel of the blog so it would not be
confused with actual Canon corporate sites.
It wasn't a totally unreasonable blanket take-down demand, and as such Fake Chuck will easily be able to comply and continue as a source of satire and humor.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sam Johnston <samj-at-".net>
Date: Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 9:31 PM
Subject: Thanks for the heads up about your blog!
To: Chuck Westfall <cwestfall@cusa.canon.com>
Cc: Toni Scheinder <toni@automattic.com>, "Douglas E. Mirell" <dmirell@loeb.com>
G'day Chuck,
It's not every day that something truly entertaining comes to my
attention but thanks to my mates at Slashdot[1] and your mates at Loeb
& Loeb with their (surely fake?) letter[2] I was drawn attention to
your refreshingly entertaining fake blog[3]. Anyway I'm sure I'm one
of many who have immediately added your blog to my reader - it's truly
amazing what a bit of viral marketing can do for you!
Kodos to the guys at Automattic too for identifying the letter for
what it was so quickly and taking appropriate action - those guys
rock!
Eagerly awaiting your next post,
Your [virtual] friend,
Sam
1. http://fakechuckwestfall.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/982873542.pdf
2. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/15/1830217
3. http://fakechuckwestfall.wordpress.com/
Who is fake canon, or chuck for that matter and why should I give a shit? If DSLR wasn't mentioned I wouldn't have a clue this is something to do with photography.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
... they just have a sense of malice
I had to issue a takedown notice last year when I discovered that a fake business had stolen the identity of our legitimate business. As a result, we could have been raided by the police and had our equipment taken by them, which could have driven us out of business. The initial response of the website host was to go away. Before I could respond to this, which would have involved a High Court injunction, they obviously took legal advice and I suddenly got a grovel. So I am sympathetic to legitimate takedowns. As you say, part of this one was legitimate. But L&L should have done better than have it drafted by a paralegal, and simply insisted that the genuinely infringing material be removed or fixed, and requested as a matter of courtesy that the blog confine itself to technical matters. Despite their claims to the contrary, lawyers are frequently not the shiniest apples in the barrel.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
since using it in obvious parody is protected fair use.
Lawyers who do this kind of crap need to feel some of the heat, too.
Have at 'em:
http://www.loeb.com/
http://www.loeb.com/Firm/Contact/
...I wonder how OSDN/Red Hat/Mozilla/EFF would react if I set up a similarly themed fake blog. For instance, a fake EFF blog extolling the virtues of proprietary software. I don't know if they would try a C&D (I doubt it), but I don't think they would be particularly happy about it.
captcha: flattery (imitation being the sincerest form)
Two words: whitewashed turd. And let's be honest. This is really Pelosi's stimulus bill. Good thing it was crammed through with only 11 or so hours for Congressmen and their staff to read an 1100+ page document so that Pelosi could make her flight to Rome on Friday night. Ah, the privileges of being Queen Cunt...
Are we absolutely sure this isn't fake news?
is probably Canon corporate policy, not a fake blog.
My experience with Canon printers has been good. They are very well constructed, using actual metal parts where it makes sense, they aren't the typical plastic shells surrounding mostly air one sees in the great majority of consumer printers.
I will not buy a new Canon printer.
Canon's PIXMA IP3000/4000/5000/6000 printers had the easiest to refill cartridges around. I've got an IP3000, which I bought for $60 with a $20 rebate when new. (and yes, Canon did actually send me the rebate money) Well, it's aging and developing enough signs of wear that I'm thinking of replacing it.
There are a few IP3000s left that were never sold in sealed retail boxes. The price at Amazon starts at $209. The cheapest used IP3000 available at Amazon starts at $110. People in the know would rather chance a used printer than buy a new Canon printer.
How often do you see computer peripherals go up in price years after they are manufactured to the point where they are far more expensive than comparable new ones? The demand for the old ones comes down to drastically reduced cost of ownership. I've been printing for the last year on $30 worth of high-quality fourmilabs bulk ink, and my printed photos have never looked better.
If Canon were to make a new line of printers with chipless cartridges, I'd be happy to pay $100+ for one. If they made one that could be used directly with bulk ink, I'd be delighted to pay $150.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Thank You Wordpress
Since the site is marked 'fake' it clearly is a parody. There may be grounds to argue that references to his wife and child are unacceptable because they might not be public figures, but the guy he's parodying clearly is. His own lawyers in the letter have conceded he is a public figure. Thus the standard for defamation is much higher than with a private party. While I'm not a lawyer, based on supreme court decisions such as New York Times v. Sullivan and Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, no reasonable person could believe this was from the guy or that what is being said was anything but parody and satire. They have to show that the material was known to be untrue and was posted for malice, or was done with reckless neglect for the truth, and that someone could believe it to be true.
Thus the claim of defamation and almost all of the claims they are making are on their face at best obviously incorrect as negligence, or quite possibly intentional lies.
Given this to be the case, his lawyers should know this, and their threats in their Cease & Desist letter may be intentional misinformation given by mail or communications system for the purpose of causing others to expend money or resources over reliance upon their misinformation. Thus the lawyers bluster and hyperbole may constitute mail and/or wire fraud in interstate commerce (it mentions it was both mailed and faxed) since either they knew that, based on current court decisions, that it was false, or should have known that it was. Thus their threat letter may, in and of itself, either give rise to a fraud claim, or might be grounds to have his lawyers prosecuted for mail and/or wire fraud.
I'm waiting for someone to someday nail some lawyers who make claims in C&D letters that they know to be false.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Isn't that the name of that evil gollum-attorney in Cryptonomicon? :P
That's a pretty good description of what I like about my PIXMA IP3000. I think what you're talking about started the model year after the x000 seriies.
Tech Public Policy stuff
HP too. I have a Hewlett-Packard CP1700 Color Ink Jet Printer. The refilled cartridges are 1/3 the price of new ones. I bought a 100baseT JetDirect card for it on eBay for $20, and now I have a great printer that is economical to use - up to 13x19 sized paper. If I see another one on eBay or Craigslist, I'm going to buy it also.
After I took the "watch battery" out of the printer, it no longer told me that there was "a problem" with the refilled cartridges. They now last for what seems like forever, and this printer prints fantastically.
Fuck a new HP printer - they're shiny like Vista, and just as DRM laden. No thanks!
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Is this really news? Who cares? It is a frivolous suit lodged against a site about someone most people have never heard of and don't care about.
People think stupid stuff. All it takes is that x% of people too stupid to grasp the concept, to then pass the 'information' on to their friends. Give it another iteration or two, and it starts to become a problem. Human beings readily accept the easiest to digest and most palatable information available to them. Canon is just trying to head that shit off.
Think about it this way; you have someone like Jack Thompson, devoting his every waking hour to convincing people that videogames are solely responsible for the breakdown of society. Bullshit, of course. But a percentage of people take it seriously enough to tell someone else, whether or not these people have any idea what in the hell they're talking about is irrelevant, with only a little help, such ideas can silently seep into common knowledge until a majority of people believe-- or at the very least, take seriously --such things.
To put it another way, if you're subjected to someone yelling about something loud enough, long enough, sooner or later it's going to have an effect.
I'm not saying Canon took the right tact, I mean the blog looks fairly harmless, I'm just saying I can think of a few reasons they'd want to do something about someone taking pokes at them in such a way.
For the record, I'm fairly brand-agnostic. Though I haven't used a Nikon SLR since the days of film.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
What part of viral and gorilla (sick) marketing do we not get?
Watch our for that Andrew Loeb, he is a goddammed nutcase.
good on wordpress for standing behind the blogger after removing the logo. you don't see enough of this. eww rah.
I'm about to buy a new camera. It was between Canon and someone else. Seeing this, the someone else wins. Boycott the morons.
Fuck Chake Westfall!!!
It is one thing to be a critic of Canon, but another thing to create a site that personally abuses and harasses a Canon employee.
The Fake site is utterly tasteless in that Fake has made his attack so damned PERSONAL.
Chuck has been helping photographers for years and has been an exemplary representative of his company. Other camera manufacturers should be so lucky and wise as to have such a person responding to their customers.
Chuck does not deserve this abuse and harassment. Photographers should stand up for him now, and WordPress should shut down this idiot Fake for abuse and harassment.
The whole point and effect of the site is to VICTIMIZE an individual. That is just despicable mean-spirited crap. I wonder whether Fake would be receptive to having his own real name and image used in this way? Would YOU??