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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?
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.
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.
It's been available at Amazon for a while now, with several different retailers offering it and already over 50 customer reviews posted.
...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.
Because this is one of their flagship products and it has according to early reports performed a bit sub-par?
Canon
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
---------- 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/
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.
[......] already over 50 customer reviews posted.
Looks like Canon's marketing dept have been busy then!
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?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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
I agree that it has been performing sub-par for many people, but I don't think the failure rate on that Antarctica trip is the right thing to point to. See my earlier comment at http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1128757&cid=26869539 for my analysis.
There are reports of earlier Antarctica trips on that site from previous years, with similar tallies of failed cameras. It doesn't tell you a whole lot other than that if you use your camera in extreme conditions it wasn't necessarily designed for, you have to expect that it may have problems.
The bigger issues (that haven't supposedly been fixed by firmware) - as discussed on the fake blog - are noise even at low ISOs and auto-focus performance. These are disappointing problems for this camera, especially the noise. This is marketed as a low-noise camera, even at high ISOs, yet many are saying the original 5D is better in that regard (I haven't looked into it too much myself, I can't afford an upgrade from my 40D anytime soon anyway.)
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*