EDITORIAL: COPYRIGHT LAWYERS BULLYING THE UNCOVEROR

On December 3, 2004 Uncoveror.com received a threatening letter from GAF Counsel, claiming to represent Lyons Partnership, L.P. ("Lyons Partnership"),  The people behind a certain purple dinosaur character. They demanded that we stop using the image of this character, and apparently the name as well.

In this era of the DMCA, The Patriot Act, and so many other restrictions on free speech, I could not just ignore it. Although I suspect that court rulings about parody being free speech, such as Larry C. Flynt v. Jerry Falwell might protect my first amendment rights in this case, as no reasonable person could mistake the story to be true, I do not have the resources to fight these people. If I had the ability to fight a SLAPP, I would. Copyright was meant to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, not lock up ideas as property, which is really no different than suppressing them. I wrote about these issues in previous editorials called  WHO IS THE PUBLIC DOMAIN? ALL OF US and THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

I have altered the story in question. It is now entitled AL QAEDA MESSAGE OF TERROR HIDDEN IN CENSORED SHOW. The original may be available on an internet archiving site. This is censorship, but what else can I do?

I am contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation for advice, and may someday be able to restore the original version. But for now, I am complying with their demands. It seems that the people behind the purple dinosaur are not at all different from the ones who sue day care centers over the use of a certain cartoon mouse.

Matthew Brown
Webmaster of Uncoveror.com

P.S. The Uncoveror is not intended for children, but just in case some youngsters are reading this, you have a right to know something: There is no Barney. That's a guy in a suit.

HOME