In further tales of corporations abusing the takedown notice provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Last month, BoingBoing blogger Xeni Jardin blogged about the photoshop disaster that is this Ralph Lauren advertisement, in which a model’s proportions appear to have been altered to give her an impossibly skinny body (”Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis”). Naturally, Xeni reproduced the ad in question. This is classic fair use: a reproduction “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting,” etc.
Ralph Lauren’s law firm, Greenberg Traurig, dosn’t see it that way. According to them, this is an “infringing image,” and they sent a DMCA takedown notice to BoingBoing’s ISP, Canada’s Priority Colo. Priority Colo doesn’t automatically act on DMCA takedowns (FYI, Canada is not in the United States).
Instead of responding to Ralph Lauren’s legal threat by suppressing criticism of this rediculous marketing image, BoingBoing decided to mock them.
So, to Ralph Lauren, GreenbergTraurig, and PRL Holdings, Inc: sue and be damned. Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better. And every time you threaten to sue us over stuff like this, we will:
a) Reproduce the original criticism, making damned sure that all our readers get a good, long look at it, and;
b) Publish your spurious legal threat along with copious mockery, so that it becomes highly ranked in search engines where other people you threaten can find it and take heart; and
c) Offer nourishing soup and sandwiches to your models.
DMCA Infringement Notification
“It’s a natural impulse to want to support the little guy, the David who faces down a powerful Goliath. That’s why it’s easy to get behind this guy’s claims that a copycat business is suing him to force him to abandon his own copyrights. Wtf!, you might say when you read something like that. Is that even possible? It is, and the story is more nuanced when you look at both sides, which makes it a good example of why it’s sometimes hard to be a “good consumer” when deciding where to spend your money.” Read the full story at The Consumerist.
RSS
