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Canon Tries To Shut Down "Fake" Canon Blog

Posted by kdawson on from the what-part-of-fake-do-you-not-understand dept.

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.

11 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Guess business is kinda slow by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More free press for Canon. The real intention all along. Good job.

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    What?
    1. Re:Guess business is kinda slow by Anthony_Cargile · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With the lack of interest I would have for starting a blog centered around a key individual of Canon as opposed to Nikon/Motorola/etc., I wouldn't doubt it if the whole thing was staged just for publicity like this, after somebody at Canon saw the "fake steve jobs" fiasco. It probably isn't likely, but hey you never know these days.

  2. You'd think by now... by DeadPixels · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Companies would realize that not liking someone's views doesn't give them the right to censor the person.

    1. Re:You'd think by now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...that the above poster would have noticed the 'fake' in the author's pseudonym.

    2. Re:You'd think by now... by Chabil+Ha' · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Risking being off-topic, but seeing these all the time since the new "Web 2.0" upgrades to the slashcode has now drawn out the 'troll'.

      Please! Put the 'moderate' *button* back. Simply putting taking action on an index change on the drop down list makes it so that people can accidentally mod the wrong way. It's only by good fortune that there are some people who decided to post something in response to remove the moderation. By putting the button back to confirm the selection, you avoid the mess of people posting to remove moderation and posts like these to beg for that simple piece of functionality be put back.

      The Karma Whores will love you for it.

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      We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
  3. Thanks to Canon and Slashdot by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  4. Bad lawyers by Kupfernigk · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The take down letter made other, unreasonable demands. As I've posted before, it's often the case that from the plaintiff point of view, the weaker the case the stronger the language, and contrariwise for the defendant. This was a weak case so L&L tried to boost it with strong language demanding that Wordpress cease to allow the fake CW to publish any blogs. Wordpress detected it was a weak case and offered the minimum actually needed to comply. And now, people who had no idea that some people think Canon DSLRs are not very good, and have inadequate QA, are suddenly informed on the subject.

    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.

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    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  5. Re:5D Mk II by WillKemp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    [......] already over 50 customer reviews posted.

    Looks like Canon's marketing dept have been busy then!

  6. Re:What? by hyades1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The story's not about photography. It's about a major multinational corporation using its lawyers and money to bully into silence bloggers who point out its failures.

    You didn't get that?

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    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  7. 3 words... by pig-power · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thank You Wordpress

  8. Re:the biggest threat to Canon profits by kimvette · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When Canon started chipping their cartridges I finally took the plunge and bought a Xerox color laser printer. I haven't looked back since.

    FUCK the whole cheap printer/expensive ink business model.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50