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

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> X-Sender: declan () mail well com
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> 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.)
>
>
>
>
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