Mayor Ardis Defends Police Raid, Complains That Parody Twitter Account Used Up All The Free Speech

from the i'd-find-something-else-to-spend-the-reelection-fund-on dept

As we recently covered, Jim Ardis, the absurdly thin-skinned mayor of Peoria, IL, got the boys in blue to raid a house over a parody Twitter account that portrayed him as a.) a possible drug user, b.) a possible patron of the world's oldest profession and c.) "trill as fuck." Peoria's Finest have never been finer, deploying seven plainclothes officers to nail a dangerous tweeter whose Ardis-mocking account had been shut down by Twitter weeks before. Bonus: drugs were discovered during the raid, which meant the cops could at least declare victory over marijuana use, if not the internet itself.

Now, the fact that the account was already suspended suggests Ardis had previously contacted Twitter about the unflattering parody. So, this next move was overkill. Why would a mayor do such a thing? Because Mayor Jim Ardis believes the First Amendment is zero sum.

"I still maintain my right to protect my identity is my right," Ardis said in an interview with the Journal Star before the council meeting.

"Are there no boundaries on what you can say, when you can say it, who you can say it to?" Ardis said. "You can’t say (those tweets) on behalf of me. That’s my problem. This guy took away my freedom of speech."

Presumably prior to this awesome show of force, the mayor had been forced to sit quietly with his hands folded on his desk. But now that he's stomped on someone else's First Amendment rights, he can finally freely speak.

But those official bootprints across the back of five Peoria residents aren't going to leave lasting marks. The Peoria Journal Star reports that no charges will be brought against the Twitter account holder.

A review of state law indicates the account holders of now-shutdown Twitter account, @peoriamayor, didn’t break the law because the actual crime alleged, “false personation of a public official,” has to be done in person, not over the Internet or other electronic media, said State’s Attorney Jerry Brady.

"At this time, no, because subsection (b) doesn’t include the use of electronic media," he said.

There are also questions as to whether the unrelated drug charge will stick because, well, it's completely unrelated. The warrant used to raid the house appears to be on legally shaky ground already, and its supposed purpose was to effect arrests and seize evidence related to a Twitter account, not root around until something better presented itself. But it could be weeks before that part is sorted out. The States Attorney says it's not uncommon for search warrants and affidavits to take "several days to weeks" to arrive at his office. (Must send these via trans-Atlantic steamer, I guess...) One imagines documents related to this case will take longer than usual.

Meanwhile, the population of Peoria, along with the city council, is extremely angry that Ardis abused his position. A long, heated discussion of this incident included members decrying Ardis receiving preferential treatment from the Peoria PD, as well as generally lamenting how his actions have turned Peoria into a national laughingstock.

Ardis, however, seems unfazed. He still firmly believes he did nothing wrong. The problem here is everyone else, starting with the media.

"You’re the ones responsible for getting full information, but not to spin it in the way you want to spin it," Ardis said to a Journal Star reporter. "To make us look stupid."

"It’s your responsibility to put actual information out there and cover both sides. Not to opine. And that didn’t happen. Clearly, that didn’t happen."

Hey, Ardis. Only one person can make you look stupid, and he's that person up there claiming the First Amendment can't be evenly divided among several people. The actual information is out there. And it all adds up to Ardis not being able to take a joke, ordering cops to arrest people he doesn't find funny, and complaining about "suddenly" being universally reviled.

Filed Under: defamation, free speech, illinois, impersonation, jim ardis, parody, peoria, satire

Police Raid Apartment, Seize Electronics Related To A Long-Suspended Twitter Account Parodying Town's Mayor

from the from-overkill-to-backfire-in-record-time dept

It doesn't matter how you look at this situation. This is an abuse of power. No matter how much benefit of a doubt you give the protagonists -- even if you cut the Peoria, IL police so much slack you're both falling over backwards (to borrow a Sparks lyric) -- this situation looks like the end result of an overly-close relationship between city politicians and local law enforcement. How else would you explain the following?

Illinois police seized computers and mobile phones while raiding a house whose owner was suspected of parodying the town mayor on Twitter.

In all, five people following the Tuesday evening raid were taken to the Peoria Police Department station for questioning, local media report.

The Twitter account, which had all of 50 followers, and had been already shut down by Twitter "weeks ago," became the flash point for a police raid that involved seven plainclothes officers and the detainment of five people - two of whom were cuffed at their place of employment.

If the mayor felt there was something wrong with this "impersonation," he had plenty of other options available that wouldn't have resulted in this egregious show of force. For one, he could have contacted Twitter and asked for the account to be suspended. (And, for all we know, he did. [UPDATE: see below.] The account hadn't been active for "weeks" by the time the raid took place.) Second, he could have pursued this through civil action (if he felt the account was defamatory, etc.). There was no reason to involve the police in this -- unless, of course, this was the sort of thing the Peoria Police enjoy doing.

Justin Glawe at Vice has a followup on this story which highlights the Peoria Police Department's shady misconduct record.

Peoria is a town of 116,000 people. It has some problems with crime and also some problems with the police, which you can get a sense of if you follow my work or the work of Matt Buedel, the Journal Star crime reporter who broke a several stories last year detailing misconduct within the police department, including an attempt to catch a city councilman in a prostitution sting. The Illinois Attorney General’s Office ruled that an internal report regarding some of those acts of alleged misconduct should be released, but the city and the police department refused. (That report was apparently “lost” by Settingsgaard, and somehow ended up in the hands of a panhandler who, coincidentally, I used to work at a gas station with and know to be a pretty serious drug addict.)

The prostitution sting involved 12 task force officers staking out a Red Roof Inn overnight in hopes of catching Dan Irving, a city council candidate, with a prostitute. This sting ran the day after a close primary election. (Irving went on to lose the general election.) The overnight stakeout was ultimately fruitless as Irving never arrived at the motel with or without a prostitute.

Evidence exists that the Peoria Police Department is willing to be politically motivated. These officers trashed rooms and grabbed every device with an internet connection (including some Xboxes), proclaiming they were linked to an "internet crime." Although no one's been charged yet (other than an unrelated marijuana possession charge -- hooray for the fortuitous results of a bogus police search), the chief of the Peoria Police has dug deep enough into Illinois law to find something to use against the person running the long-suspended, inside joke of an account.

Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard said the department was investigating misdemeanor charges of impersonating a public official, which carries a maximum one-year jail term and $2,500 fine. The chief, according to the Southern Illinoisan, said it "appears that someone went to great lengths to make it appear it was actually from the mayor."

Really? "Great lengths?" How many Twitter users would have believed the following was issued by the Mayor or his office?

Beyond that, the account bio was changed on March 10th to indicate the account was a parody. A couple of weeks later, it was suspended. Three weeks after that, Peoria police corral five people and their electronics in order to stop something that was already dead and never popular.

Now, news of this has spread nationwide, and as Justin Glawes points out, it has led to the generation of several more fake Peoria Mayor accounts. The colossally stupid effort has done little more than given the nation a reason to dig into the misdeeds of the Peoria Police and an indication of just how thin Mayor Ardis' skin is.

UPDATE: Confirmed: Mayor Ardis was behind the raid. The search warrant obtained by Peoria's Journal Star notes that Ardis approached the police department and told officials there he wanted to find out who was behind the Twitter account. He also told the PD he wished to pursue criminal charges. Warrants were also served to Comcast and Twitter in order to obtain additional information. [h/t to Jim Romenesko]

Filed Under: illinois, impersonation, intimidation, jim ardis, parody, peoria
Companies: twitter

Aretha Franklin Doesn't Get Satire: Plans To Sue Satirical News Site Over Joke Story

from the sock-it-to-me dept

You would think that, at some point, people are finally going to get that there are such things as satirical news organizations and that they're not serious in what they write. Yet it seems not a week goes by in which someone isn't either fooled by a parody story or railing against it as some kind of funny-demon that ought to be destroyed. The latest to be caught up in this web of barely-veiled humorous deception is the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who has threatened to sue satirical news site News Nerd over a fictional story about Patti LaBelle opening up a can of aged whoop-ass on her.

“The stories were not presented as satire or humor,” Franklin said through her publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn. “It was presented as a serious news story intended to depict me in a slanderous and derogatory way — defamation of character.”

And for that, she's suggested she wants $10 million whole American dollars. The story that was not presented as satire or humor, according to Franklin, included such totally not funny or satirical lines as:

Onlookers say Labelle quickly removed her wig and earrings as she approached Franklin. Aretha, knowing that the removal of earrings is a tell-tale sign that a fight is about to ensue, attempted to prepare herself for the confrontation. Franklin was quickly struck with a Mayweather style right and left and stumbled backwards, landing awkwardly.

If you aren't now laughing, check yourself into the nearest mental health center and ask them what happened to your sense of humor. If you don't immediately realize that this is fictional, we, the people, politely request you promise us never to procreate and thereby poison the gene pool with your lack of basic comprehension and common sense. Or you could, you know, just check the bottom of any News Nerd page you might land upon, where it reads:

The stories posted on TheNewsNerd are for entertainment purposes only. The stories may mimic articles found in the headlines, but rest assured they are purely satirical.

And that should take care of that. It's worth noting that no actual law suits yet appear to have been filed, so perhaps Franklin's likely-frustrated lawyers have talked some sense into her. On the other hand, Franklin has been known in the past to demand respect, and that you think about what you're trying to do to her. Meanwhile, the story has gone viral because of course it has, countermanding her wish entirely.

Filed Under: aretha franklin, defamation, joke, parody, patti labelle, satire, whooosh

Rep. Polis Asks Treasury To Ban Dollar Bills, Mocking Senator's Request To Ban Bitcoins

from the you-win dept

Last week, we wrote about the technologically clueless grandstanding Senator Joe Manchin's bizarre request to the Treasury Department and the Fed that it figure out a way to ban Bitcoin. Almost everything in Manchin's letter was ill-informed, right down to his ridiculous assertion that we need to copy Thailand and China (who haven't really banned Bitcoin) to get ahead of this "trend." Of course, as we noted, along with a whole bunch of factual inaccuracies, almost all of Manchin's complaints applied equally to cash.

So, in response to a totally technologically clueless elected official, up steps Rep. Jared Polis, perhaps the most technologically knowledgeable elected official out there, with a counterproposal. He basically rewrote Manchin's letter, but replaced Bitcoin with the dollar bill, highlighting the sheer absurdity of Manchin's request.

I write today to express my concerns about United States dollar bills. The exchange of dollar bills, including high denomination bills, is currently unregulated and has allowed users to participate in illicit activity, while also being highly subject to forgery, theft, and loss. For the reasons outlined below, I urge regulators to take immediate and appropriate action to limit the use of dollar bills.

By way of background, a physical dollar bill is a printed version of a dollar note issued by the Federal Reserve and backed by the ephemeral “full faith and credit” of the United States. Dollar bills have gained notoriety in relation to illegal transactions; suitcases full of dollars used for illegal transactions were recently featured in popular movies such as American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club, as well as the gangster classic, Scarface, among others. Dollar bills are present in nearly all major drug busts in the United States and many abroad. According to the U.S. Department of Justice study, “Crime in the United States,” more than $1 billion in cash was stolen in 2012, of which less than 3% was recovered. The United States’ Dollar was present by the truck load in Saddam Hussein’s compound, by the carload when Noriega was arrested for drug trafficking, and by the suitcase full in the Watergate case. 

Unlike digital currencies, which are carbon neutral allowing us to breathe cleaner air, each dollar bill is manufactured from virgin materials like cotton and linen, which go through extensive treatment and processing. Last year, the Federal Reserve had to destroy $3 billion worth of $100 bills after a “printing error.” Certainly this cannot be the greenest currency.

Printed pieces of paper can fit in a person’s pocket and can be given to another person without any government oversight. Dollar bills are not only a store of value but also a method for transferring that value. This also means that dollar bills allow for anonymous and irreversible transactions.

The very features of dollar bills, such as anonymous transactions, have created ubiquitous uses from drug purchases, to hit men, to prostitutes, as dollar bills are attractive to criminals who are able to disguise their actions from law enforcement. Due to the dollar bills’ anonymity, the dollar bill market has been extremely susceptible to forgers, tax fraud, criminal cartels, and armed robbers stealing millions of dollars from their legitimate owners. Anonymity, combined with a dollar bills’ ability to finalize transactions quickly, makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse fraudulent transactions.

Many of our foreign counterparts already understand the wide range of problems that physical currencies can have. Many physical currencies have enormous price fluctuations, and even experience deflation.  20 years ago Brazil had an inflation rate of 6281%.  In 4 years (2001 to 2005), the Turkish Lira went from 1,650,000: $1 to 1.29 to $1. In 2009, Zimbabwe discontinued it’s dollar. Before it was eliminated, the Zimbabwe dollar was the least valuable currency in the world and their central bank even issued a $100 trillion dollar banknote. A person would starve on a billion Zimbabwe dollars and it took an entire wheelbarrow full of $100 billion dollars in notes to purchase a loaf of bread.

The clear use of dollar bills for transacting in illegal goods, anonymous transactions, tax fraud, and services or speculative gambling make me wary of their use. Before the United States gets too far behind the curve on this important topic, I urge the regulators to work together, act quickly, and prohibit this dangerous currency from harming hard-working Americans.

Sincerely,

Jared Polis
Member of Congress ​

This is, to put it mildly, absolutely hilarious. I imagine that we'll see some traditionalists bitch about a Congressional rep using satire to mock a colleague, but that's just silly. This makes the point better than any boring letter or speech would ever do. And, considering that Rep. Polis has no problem wearing this on the House floor, I get the feeling he really doesn't care at all what "traditionalists" think of his actions around Congress.

Filed Under: bitcoin, currency, jared polis, joe manchin, parody, satire

Police Chief Testifies Against Legalizing Marijuana With Parody Newspaper Article

from the weeding-out-the-jokes dept

They say that really well done parody is close enough to the truth to be funny. That's certainly correct, but it can occasionally create some problems, as we've seen in the past. Parody can anger the target of the scorn, it can lead to charges of defamation, and parody news stories can occasionally infect even the, ahem, most fair and balanced cable news stations. I guess the point is that not everyone has enough of a sense of humor to find some parody funny, or even to realize that it is indeed parody.

The latter is the case with this story about Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop, who had diligently prepared before testifying before a state panel on the potential for legalizing marijuana.

In researching his testimony against two bills before the Judicial Proceedings Committee, Pristoop said, he had found a news article to illustrate the risks of legalization: 37 people in Colorado, he said, had died of marijuana oversdoses on the very day that the state legalized pot.

“When he said it, everyone in the room dropped their laptops,” Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery) said in an e-mail.

Proving, of course, that stupid can in fact cause physical harm and property destruction. See, the problem is that Pristoop's source for his marijuana massacre was The Daily Currant, which is a comedic parody magazine. The article and its claims were a joke. So, it appears, were Pristoop's efforts at vetting the sources he found on the always treacherous interwebz. Similar grades should be assigned to Pristoop's abilities at admitting error.

“I apologize for the information I provided concerning the deaths. I believed the information I obtained was accurate, but I now know the story is nothing more than an urban legend,” Pristoop said. “This does not take away from the other facts presented in opposition to legalization or the good work of the Maryland Chiefs and Maryland Sheriffs Associations.”

An urban legend is a fictional story circulated through a community that might be a tad unsure of whether it is indeed fiction. Ghost stories, in other words, or the threat of high school seniors hazing incoming freshman. Those are urban legends. The Daily Currant's article was a joke made up whole cloth for the purposes of making people laugh. Anyone with a modicum of interest and education into the health risks associated with marijuana use would know that immediate death simply isn't one of them.

Fortunately, others in the police departments of Maryland have a better handle on this whole humor thing, as evidenced by Maj. Scott Baker.

“His numbers are up in smoke,” Baker acknowledged Wednesday — a sly tip of the hat to Cheech & Chong’s 1978 stoner movie.

Funny, I was going to make a comment about how Pristoop's facts were half-baked...

Filed Under: annapolis, marijuana, michael pristoop, parody

AT&T Exec Claims EFF's Mocking NSA Logo Creates A 'Chilling Effect'

from the and-if-anyone-knows-about-chilling-effects... dept

For quite some time, the good folks at EFF have offered awesome NSA Spying Hoodies with their brilliantly re-imagined NSA logo: You might notice the AT&T logo in the middle there. That's not there just for show. Many years before the world knew of Ed Snowden, an AT&T technician by the name of Mark Klein literally walked in the front door of the EFF's old offices, and revealed how the NSA was installing hardware directly on AT&T's premises to tap directly into the internet backbone, in order to collect basically all internet traffic.

This is the same hoodie that Snowden himself used to wear around the NSA office in Hawaii where he worked (his coworkers thought he was being ironic). Either way, the logo is pretty well known by now.

Not surprisingly, last week during the RSA conference, plenty of folks thought it would be an appropriate venue to wear the hoodie (or similar t-shirts). And guess who took offense? According to the NY Times, an anonymous AT&T exec claimed such a logo created a "chilling effect" on discussion:

Around San Francisco this week, some were seen sporting Electronic Frontier Foundation T-shirts featuring a retooled N.S.A. logo with an eagle using its talons to plug into the American telecom network, symbolized by AT&T. Asked about the T-shirts, one AT&T executive, who asked not to be named, said they had a chilling effect.

“There are many of us at AT&T who are disturbed by what we’ve been hearing about the N.S.A.,” this person said. “But when you see that,” he said, pointing to the T-shirts, “a conversation becomes impossible.”

I don't think that cowardly exec knows what a "chilling effect" really means. I'd argue that secretly giving the NSA full access to the internet backbone, to collect whatever data they want is what creates a real chilling effect. Opening up pretty much just about everyone to intrusive and excessive surveillance by a secretive government agency? That's a chilling effect. Having someone wearing a t-shirt or hoodie that makes fun of your company for allowing such surveillance? No, that's not a chilling effect. It's the opposite. It's called exercising their right to expression.

Filed Under: chilling effect, eff, nsa, parody
Companies: at&t

Mob Wife Suing Rockstar Over Supposed Likeness In GTA5

from the fishing-for-cash dept

I suppose it's because Rockstar Games' opus, Grand Theft Auto 5, is equal parts sandbox game and Rorschach test that makes it such a likely target for people who incorrectly think that the game's makers appropriated their likenesses. We already saw one such publicized story in which Lindsay Lohan was reportedly looking into suing Rockstar over the game's cover art and a character so completely and insanely lascivious that one would wonder why someone like Lohan would want to actively attempt to associate herself with it. In any case, she was wrong on both charges. Even if she were right, the portrayal was clear parody (though, again, not of her specifically).

Well, meet Karen Gravano, wife of the man who brought down John Gotti, and instigator of a $40 million dollar lawsuit against Rockstar for GTA5's portayal of a minor character in a side mission, utilizing the relatively new and insane concept of publicity rights.

The ripped-off character is Antonia Bottino, said Gravano’s lawyer Thomas Farinella. The animated hottie is rescued by the game's main character after getting buried alive off a dirt road. She then recounts how a murder charge was pinned on her father and how the family was forced to be “moving around safe houses in rat-hole hick towns where no one comes looking,” according to an online synopsis of GTA V. Her fictional dad, former Gambetti family underboss Sammy (Sonny) Bottino, eventually became a snitch, acquiring many enemies. He would not allow her to participate in a show called “Wise Bitches,” an obvious takedown of the VH1 reality show.

Here, again, we see the problem posed both by GTA5's depictions of pop culture and the Rorschach nature of the characters. Are there aspects of the character that have a vague and likely parodied similarity to Gravano? Sure, you could convince me of that. But, as with the Lohan "character", the character has many other characteristics and story backgrounds that do not jive with Gravano's. Such as what happens to her in the game. She never claims in her filing to have any further commonality with the character in the games' actions. In fact, one of the similarities she cites, her mobster father not allowing her to appear on a reality show, would be directly refuted by the fact that Gravano appeared on a reality show until its fourth season. What this appears to be, again, is a parody character consisting of a composite of real life people featured in pop culture. You know, like every character in the Grand Theft Auto series is. That's the whole point. To somehow look at a parody that features a vague nod in the direction of a public figure and think that should result in $40 million? That's just crazy.

Furthermore, this all revolves around the theory of publicity rights, something we've covered before. This is a legal concept ill-defined at best, where the limitations on bringing a suit are only those of money-seeking attorneys. You can imagine what a problem that continues to be, particularly in light of the clash such a concept has with rights towards expression. Think of it this way: if a public figure can sue over the use of their image and/or story simply by claiming the use is commercial, an accusation that can be stretched unbelievably thinly, any expression dealing with that figure will resulting be sanitized. Documentaries on controversial figures would be out the window. Artistic interpretations of importnat people gone. No measure of intellectual property was designed with that kind of censorship in mind.

So, to conclude, we have a bad theory of law being practiced upon a target that is likely not guilty of it in the first place. That's the kind of legal hijinks that you get when you allow people to believe they can own their own history. Congratulations, IP!

Filed Under: grant theft auto, john gotti, karen gravano, parody, publicity rights
Companies: rockstar

Nearly 3 Years After Issuing C&D Notices, NSA & DHS Finally Admit Parodied Logos Don't Violate Federal Law

from the sticking-it-to-The-(lampooned)-Man dept

It took nearly three years for the NSA and the DHS to get the joke. The good news is that people like Dan McCall from LibertyManiacs.com is once again free to parody the two agencies, more than 2-1/2 years after being hit with C&Ds from both agencies for "misusing" their logos.

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are acknowledging that merchants who use images and names of the government agencies on parody merchandise are not in violation of any federal laws.

The admission settles a lawsuit Public Citizen filed against the agencies on behalf of Minnesota activist Dan McCall. Public Citizen argued that McCall has a First Amendment right to sell parody merchandise using the NSA and DHS seals.

“This is an important win,” said Paul Levy, the Public Citizen attorney representing McCall. “Citizens shouldn’t have to worry whether criticizing government agencies will get them in trouble or not. This settlement proves the First Amendment is there to protect citizens’ rights to free speech.”

The C&Ds were issued in 2011. The first one, from the NSA, arrived in March. Someone must have told the DHS that it too was being mocked because it sent its own C&D a few months later. Paul Levy of Public Citizen went to bat for Dan McCall, filing for declaratory relief because issuing C&Ds over parodies is generally considered to be a stupid idea, especially when the plaintiffs attempt to use federal law to stifle speech.

With the host of McCall's merchandise, Zazzle, being at least as complicit in this debacle, Levy's settlement takes care to address future issues with two pre-written letters that the agencies will sign and send to the company that folded oh-so-willingly three years ago. In addition to the two agencies admitting they were wrong and that the statutes quoted in the C&Ds don't actually mean what they said they mean, there are instructions for Zazzle to "review" its users' content in light of this ruling.

While full concession from the government agencies is nice, one wishes they would have been a little more willing to take a joke rather than become the joke themselves with their C&D notices. Fortunately, McCall has been cleared to return to his mockery of uptight government agencies, something he should have never been forced to give up. And Zazzle needs to do a bit more to protect users of its service. A baseless C&D is only as powerful as the host allows it to be and Zazzle played government doormat to the detriment of McCall's business. That's unacceptable.

Filed Under: dan mccall, dhs, nsa, parody, public citizen

Dumb Starbucks Is Shut Down... For Reasons Entirely Unrelated To Questionable IP Usage

from the so-this-is-how-it-ends,-not-with-a-bang-but-with-a-bureaucrat dept

The Dumb Starbucks goes down, but for the least interesting reason possible. The sudden appearance of a coffee shop blatantly using Starbucks' trademarks (with the word "dumb" appended) and claiming something called "parody law" would save it raised several questions. First and foremost was: who the hell thinks they can get away with this?

Anyone wishing for Dumb Starbucks to be a test case for "parody law" will be severely disappointed. The Dumb Starbucks in Los Angeles was just shut down, but the non-Dumb Starbucks legal team had nothing to do with it.

The Los Angeles County Health Department shut down the Dumb Starbucks on Monday just as the man behind the faux coffee shop in the Los Feliz neighborhood revealed he was the host of a Comedy Central TV show.

The shop was closed for operating without a health permit, the department told the Los Angeles Times. A sign was posted on the front window of the store on Hillhurst Avenue on Monday evening, saying it was closed for violations.

The whole thing was simply a stunt for a Comedy Central show starring Nathan Fielder, who held a "tongue-in-cheek" press conference while wearing one of the famous (Dumb) green aprons. According to him, Comedy Central is only now aware of his promotional stunt.

The only people who could possibly have been seriously hoping Dumb Starbucks would act as a test case for fair use and parody would be those who would like to see fair use weakened. The store's "fact sheet," which "cited" fair use and "parody law," parked itself in the middle ground between ham-fisted and half-assed and gave every impression it was written by a copyright maximalist trying to be clever.

So, even if the abrupt end of the Dumb Starbucks franchise is rather anticlimactic, we can at least be grateful this publicity stunt didn't make its way through the court system, where it could have generated some bad precedent with its disingenuous take on fair use. For better or worse, Fielder stated at his faux press conference that he was thinking of opening up another store in Brooklyn, something Comedy Central might want to keep an eye on, considering comedy sometime relies very heavily on parody.

Filed Under: fair use, nathan fielder, parody, trademark
Companies: comedy central, starbucks

Whether Dumb Starbucks Is A PR Stunt, A Joke Or Real... Its 'Parody' Claims Are Pretty Questionable

from the and-undermined-by-its-own-statements dept

There's been a bunch of buzz making the rounds concerning the launch of the "Dumb Starbucks" coffee shop in LA -- which looks just like a regular Starbucks, but with the word "Dumb" in front of everything. And that includes the menu: And the drink sizes: And, yes, even the CDs the shop "sells" at the counter: So, what's going on? Lots of people are assuming some sort of PR stunt or prank. Starbucks insists it has nothing to do with it and that it's not happy about it. A few have suggested that it's a Banksy art project, but this seems to go way beyond his usual efforts. The most reasonable theory so far seems to be that it's a prank for the Comedy Central show "Nathan For You." It definitely seems to fit with similar pranks that the show has done before, as detailed on Hacker News.

That said, the operators of the coffee shop are claiming that it's okay to do this because it's a parody, as they explain in this FAQ: If you can't read it, here are the basics:

Is this a Starbucks?

No. Dumb Starbucks is not affiliated in any way with Starbucks Corporation. We are simply using their name and logo for marketing purposes.

How is that legal?

Short answer - parody law.

Can you elaborate?

Of course. By adding the word 'dumb', we are technically "making fun" of Starbucks, which allows us to use their trademarks under a law known as 'fair use'. Fair use is a doctrine that permits use of copyrighted material in a parodical work without permission form the rights holder. It's the same law that allows Weird Al Yankovic to use the music from Michael Jackson's "Beat It" in his parody song "Eat It".

So is this a real business?

Yes it is. Although we are a fully function coffee shop, for legal reasons Dumb Starbucks needs to be categorized as a work of parody art. So, in the eyes of the law, our "coffee shop" is actually an art gallery and the "coffee" you're buying is considered art. But that for our lawyers to worry about. All you need to do is enjoy our delicious coffee!

Are you saying Starbucks is dumb?

Not at all. In fact, we love Starbucks and look up to them as role models. Unfortunately, the only way to use their intellectual property under fair use is if we are making fun of them. So the "dumb" comes out of necessity, not enmity.

That's all very interesting, but looks more like it was written by someone mocking the concept of fair use rather than by anyone with a legal understanding of fair use. Beyond confusing copyrights and trademarks (both of which do have a fair use doctrine, though they're somewhat different), by more or less admitting that they're only doing this as a cover to be able to use Starbucks' name, rather than as legitimate social commentary, they're basically giving up their fair use defense. Not that it wouldn't make an interesting case. As a big supporter of fair use, it's still a little worrying when people pretend it allows for things that it almost certainly doesn't allow for, as that leads to a cheapening of the concept of fair use.

Still, chances are this is all a prank that will be revealed shortly (perhaps by the time I get this post finally written, edited and posted...) and so the actual legal questions concerning whether this is parody will never be tested. However, it does make me wonder about ways that someone could legitimately use fair use within a retail setting to mock a rival.

Filed Under: copyright, dumb starbucks, parody, pr stunt, prank, trademark
Companies: dumb starbucks, starbucks