IP: Humorless Mastercard lawyers threaten rec.humor.funny newsgroup

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>X-Sender: declan@mail.well.com
>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2
>Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 08:30:01 -0700
>To: politech@politechbot.com
>From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>
>[This isn't the first time rec.humor.funny has run afoul of the 
>censorhappy and humor-impaired. See my note at the end. Partial (long) 
>list of Mastercard trademarks: http://www.mastercard.com/legal.html --Declan]
>
>*********
>
>Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 08:22:19 -0600 (MDT)
>From: David Butterfield <David.Butterfield@Sun.COM>
>Subject: Mastercard vs. RHF
>To: declan@well.com
>
> >From bt@templetons.com (Brad Templeton)
>Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
>Subject: Mastercard threatens rec.humor.funny over satire
>Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 19:30:00 PDT
>
>
>Two years ago, rec.humor.funny published a sick satire of the Mastercard
>"Priceless" ads (There are some things money can't buy, for everything
>else there's Mastercard) based around the Columbine tragedy.  I won't repeat
>it here, since it was pretty sick and offensive, though you can find it
>on the web site at:
>
>         http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Apr/columbine.html
>
>Today we received a "cease and desist" letter from Mastercard's lawyers
>demanding that the parody be removed from our web site, falsely claiming
>it violates their trademarks and copyrights, in spite of the well
>established rules protecting satire and parody from such attacks.
>
>The letter can be found at
>
>         http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/price.html
>
>Here, however, is my response...
>
>--------------------------------------------
>
>         Web site hosting for anybody:           $10/month and up
>
>         Threatening letters to people who satirize you, hoping
>         they won't know the law:                $500
>
>         Reputation as giant corporation required to intimidate
>         small publishers:                       $billions
>
>         Supreme court decisions protecting parody and
>         satire from accusations of copyright and
>         trademark infringement...               Priceless
>
>
>         There are some rights money can't buy.  For everything
>         else, there's Mastercard's lawyers.
>
>--
>Selected by Jim Griffith.  MAIL your joke to >Selected by Jim Griffith.  MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com.
>
>Join and contribute to the Electronic Frontier Foundation today.
>
>This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/01/Apr/mcrhf.html
>
>**********
>
>Excerpt from:
>http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/eff/pub/Censorship/Academic_edu/CAF/batch/apr_18_1993.txt
>
>  For example, in 1988 this joke was published:
>
>     A Jew and a Scotsman have dinner.  At the end of the dinner the
>     Scotsman is heard to say, 'I'll pay.' The newspaper headline next
>     morning says, 'Jewish ventriloquist found dead in alley.'
>
>In response to this joke, MIT student Jonathan Richmond challenged
>rec.humor.funny. His challenge led to newspaper articles in Waterloo,
>Ontario and a ban of rec.humor.funny at the University of Waterloo.
>News of the incident reached Stanford University and, about two months
>later, Vice-President for Information Resources Robert Street banned
>the newsgroup (with approval of President Donald Kennedy.)
>
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
>You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact.
>To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
>This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/