Chamber Of Commerce Drops Lawsuit Against Parodists The Yes Men, Who Ask The Chamber To Reconsider
from the please-re-bring-it dept
Roughly four years ago, activist group/prankster demigods the Yes Men held a press conference where they presented themselves as spokesmen for the US Chamber of Commerce and announced the Chamber had done an about-face on climate change. Everything was going well until an actual representative of the CofC crashed the Yes Men's party, exposing them as impersonators. A good time was had by all, except the Chamber of Commerce (and some duped reporters), the former of which immediately ran off to lawyer up.Things escalated quickly.
The Chamber's first move was to fire off a DMCA takedown notice aimed at the Yes Men's Chamber of Commerce-aping website (www.chamber-of-commerce.us [no longer live]). This first attempt went nowhere quickly, although it did draw the attention of the EFF. Realizing copyright infringement might not be the best card to play, the Chamber shifted strategies and sued the Yes Men for trademark infringement. All of this took place in about 72 hours.
Nearly four years later, the Chamber of Commerce has decided to drop its suit against the Yes Men. The legal system in this country can be many things, but "speedy" isn't one of them.
The Chamber seemed pretty sure of itself four years ago. It was confident enough to rush into a lawsuit and a round of Streisanding to punish activists who briefly made them look ridiculous. But a push back by the EFF (and David Wright Tremaine LLP), citing use of trademark in criticism as protected speech, possibly caused the Chamber to reconsider seeing this one through.
Most entities who suddenly find a lawsuit against them dropped, especially one pursued by a much larger organization with deeper pockets, will take a few deep breaths and welcome the chance to go back to a more normal life, one free of pending legal action.
Not the Yes Men.
Soon after learning of the lawsuit's dismissal by the Chamber, the group fired off a response detailing their disappointment in the Chamber's unwillingness to see this thing through.
Washington DC, June 13, 2013 – The Yes Men today implored the U..S. Chamber of Commerce to reconsider their recent decision to withdraw the lawsuit they filed nearly four years ago, in a press conference on the steps of the lobbying giant itself.Perhaps it's this sort of "can do" attitude that encouraged the Chamber's withdrawal from the battlefield. It's certainly not as though the organization suddenly learned to laugh at itself and adopt a more laissez faire approach to criticism-via-impersonation. More likely, it realized it was in for a tougher battle than it originally imagined and quite possibly didn't want to expose more of its inner workings than was strictly necessary.
"Just as their case against us was finally heating up again, the U.S. Chamber decided to drop it," said former defendant Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men. "The U.S. Chamber knew this was our chance to challenge their silly claims and, since they claimed we had 'damaged' them, investigate the details of their finances through the discovery process. It's the height of rudeness to deprive us of this great opportunity."
"The U.S. Chamber's lawsuit represented the only time in 17 years that anyone has been stupid enough to sue us," said former defendant Mike Bonanno. "This was the chance of a lifetime, and we profoundly deplore the U.S. Chamber's about-face."
The Yes Men had such great plans for the Chamber, too.
"In just the last fifteen years, the hoaxsters at the U.S. Chamber have spent nearly a billion dollars lying to children and adults, and generally lobbying for corporations and against humans," said Bichlbaum. "This lawsuit gave us a chance to help reveal the U.S. Chamber's many hoaxes to the public."It's a sad day at the Yes Men HQ, but hope still springs eternal. The group is planning a little legal action of its own.
The Yes Men are considering a lawsuit against the U.S. Chamber for depriving them of the opportunity to expose them. "Tell 'em to put their damn helmets on," said Bonanno, echoing Tom Donohue's words upon launching the U.S. Chamber lawsuit in 2009.I'm not sure where the Yes Men are heading with this, but it promises to be entertaining. Of course, they still need some legal help and this new angle has yet to find a lawyer that's willing to play the part of the straight man in a courtroom farce.
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Filed Under: dmca, parody, pranks, satire, trademark, yes men
Companies: us chamber of commerce
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So it's not being censored, making his original point bullshit. Surprise, surprise. What else can the John Steele fanboy do but bullshit?
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That's an admirable ideal, to be sure, but it does lead to all sorts of comment pollution that derails attempts at intelligent discussion, so I'm glad a banning finally took place. I mean, if you refuse to clean house, the dust bunnies just start piling up, and even the kindest parent has to punish his/her children lest they grow up to be spoiled and entitled.
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Frankly, I wish Mike did block those posts, since it qualifies as legitimate spam.
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It was fun to be united against him for a while, but it did get old since his noise interfered with the grownups talking.
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Let's hope the Chamber can't take the verbal bashing and come back. That way they can be fully exposed.
Yes Men all the way!
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I doubt Mike has block him regardless though, it would be too big of a point for them not to be presenting evidence of wrong-doing by Mike (And we know how much they like to harp on points like that). More likely they are just acting like they're banned and sling new insults at Mike
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Cause of action?
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Besides, sometimes the report button feels useless because all it does is hide the comment. It fixes the symptoms, but leaves the disease healthy enough to return. You gotta wonder sometimes how many new readers come here, see the trolls, then decide to read some other blog so they won't have to deal with them.
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Re: Cause of action?
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Techdirt really needs a 1) to hide all comments replying to stupid trolls and 2) a hellban system, where the user can't see that they're banned, but no one else sees your stupid fucking comments except mods
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There is a chance some readers might be put off returning due to the Trolls but most of the time that would only be near the start of an article, in general the community is pretty good at flagging only the spamming comments (I don't think any of the ones I've ever checked have not deserved it)
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You are very abrasive and quick to use ad hominems instead of proper arguments, so don't expect ANY compassion from the people who frequent here and actually contribute.
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Hopefully we'll see further developments here ;)
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just a reminder to kampers...
in short, they are scum, NOT your friendly neighborhood bidnessman...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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NAT users would also not be happy about it, some NATs are thousands strong.
You could of course use a combination of browser fingerprint, IP, pixel id, unique referrer url identifier to zero in on one individual behind a NAT, but its a lot of work and it wouldn't be 100%.
An even knowing I will feel dirty after saying this, AJ does have the right to say whatever he wants even if it is nonsense and some people oddly do agree with the guy so a better option could be to use metadata and cookies, the metadata to classify posts and cookies to remember preferences saying to hide those type of comments for ya, it wouldn't affect others and make the website look like you want.
Do not block it, tag it.
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The theory is that the trolls are friends of Mike's (or Mike himself) keeping the discussion tilted in the right direction by making it seem like only an idiot would side with the MPAA/RIAA/NSA and only morons hate Google.
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You are not being censored, fool.
Anyone with a shred of intelligence would realize that unregistered comments with a link would be more likely to be caught in the spam filter.
Your comments DO eventually show up - just like this one did.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#axzz2WnGkfeJj
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It's also arguably irresponsible NOT to block/blacklist them: it demonstrates a lack of consideration for those who are trying to contribute (even if the quality of their contributions vary, and I'm sure for most of us, that's true). There's just no reason to subject the readers/commenters on this site to this kind of filth day after day.
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Me, too. But everyone has off days, even the Yes Men.
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i'd have an issue if the government tried to stop him from speaking, but if after the pages and pages of butthurt moaning someone here decided to kick him out of their yard, i've got no issue with that.
if someone stands on your front porch and gibbers incessantly at you, i'm ok with turning the hose on them. If i thought that privilege was being abused by the admins, i'd go read another website. Could be all those years of moderating boards in the asshole of the internet, but some people really do want nothing but to shit up the joint, and my beliefs in liberty nowhere require me to put up with them. I trust masnick and techdirt to use the kill switch as a last resort, because of their actions to date.
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Are there sites with interesting discussions that don't have trolls?
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Actually, that's incorrect. Any comments with links get caught up in the spam filter. I should know since I've wound up having my comments moderated for a while after leaving comments with links in them while I'm signed in.
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