Copyright out of control

A couple interesting legal articles on the Web.

First, Nothing So Strange's lawyer, Ken Tabachnik, tips us off to a FindLaw article by Julie Tilden (pictured at left) that discusses the merits of Matt Drudge's claims against the HBO show K Street. Drudge has threatened to seek a cease-and-desist order to prevent K Street from using images of his website on the show. Because K Street is in a gray area between fiction and fact (it refers to real events but also has some made-up plotlines and characters), it isn't clear whether HBO is allowed to use an image of Drudge's website.

Bottom line: If you don't have a team of lawyers, don't try to make art out of the world around you.

Not that I follow this advice in any way. Speaking of which, the Detritus discussion list mentioned the following recent incident:

http://hob.allens.com/cnn/

maybe you read or heard about the cnn parody article stating that
fellatio was good for your health. now the author comes forth about
how he was repeatedly harrassed by CNN, the AP, & even his
university... & how much the parody has suffered as a result.

To which I responded:

Boy, this guy got a raw deal.

Way back in 2001, to promote a movie I made called "Nothing So Strange," the web team created a fake CNN story about the Bill Gates assassination, complete with a faked URL that made it look like it was at CNN's site. A mirror, slightly altered, is here...

http://mirrors.meepzorp.com/bill-gates-murder/

Then some hacker reproduced the story in a way that put whatever the current day's date was on the story (this is no longer up), and that hack actually fooled enough South Korean journalists to cause a 1.5% drop in the South Korean stock market...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2916135.stm

Because of that, the web folks (GMD Studios) got a call from someone associated with the U.S. Department of Energy, which for some reason tracks hoaxes...

http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHackedHistory.shtml#gatesdead

And STILL they never heard from CNN. Not so much as an annoyed email. Nothing.

They also haven't heard from MSNBC...

http://www.msnbc.com@209.61.162.98/1999/news/837268.html

or the L.A. Times...

http://www.latimes.com@209.61.162.98/news/...l

So a student who really doesn't want any trouble gets confronted with complaints, while the movie promotion that could actually use a little publicity-generating trouble doesn't.

Isn't that always the way? Come on, MSNBC, attack us! Pussies.