Saturday, November 7, 2009

American political commentator Glenn Beck has lost his case against a satirical website which parodies him, in a ruling from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. The website argued Beck’s actions to shut it down were an attempt to silence free speech. On Friday, the website’s creator sent a letter to Beck saying he would voluntarily turn over the domain name to him.

Florida resident Isaac Eiland-Hall created the website in September, and it asserts Beck uses questionable tactics “to spread lies and misinformation”. The website was represented in the case Beck v. Eiland-Hall by free speech lawyer Marc Randazza. Wikinews interviewed Randazza for the article “US free speech lawyer Marc Randazza discusses Glenn Beck parody”, and previously reported on the case in articles, “US free speech lawyer defends satire of Glenn Beck” and “Satirical website criticizes Glenn Beck for ‘hypocritical’ attempts to silence free speech”.

Eiland-Hall registered the website at the domain “www.GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com”. Its premise was derived from a joke statement made by Gilbert Gottfried about fellow comedian Bob Saget. Users of the Internet discussion community Fark first applied the joke to Beck, and it then became popular on several social media sites. Eiland-Hall saw the discussion on Fark, and created a website about it. The website asserts it does not believe the rumors to be true, commenting, “[b]ut we think Glenn Beck definitely uses tactics like this to spread lies and misinformation.” The website was created on September 1, and just two days later attorneys for Beck’s company Mercury Radio Arts took action. Beck’s lawyers sent letters to the domain name registrar where they referred to the domain name itself as “defamatory”, but failed to get the site removed.

Beck filed a formal complaint with the Switzerland-based agency of the United Nations, WIPO, who operate under regulations laid out by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Beck asserted the website’s usage is libelous, bad faith, and could confuse potential consumers. Beck’s complaint was filed under the process called the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. This policy allows trademark owners to begin an administrative action by complaining that a certain domain registration is in “bad faith”. Beck argued the site should be shut down because it is an infringement upon his trademark in his own name, “Glenn Beck”.

Eiland-Hall retained Randazza as his attorney after receiving threatening letters from legal representatives of Beck. On September 28, Randazza filed a response brief to WIPO, contending the site is “protected political speech”, due to it’s “satirical political humor”. Randazza stated, “even an imbecile would look at this Web site and know that it’s a parody.” Randazza’s brief commented on Beck’s style of reporting, and highlighted a controversial statement made by him when interviewing a Muslim US Congressman. Beck said to Representative Keith Ellison, “I like Muslims, I’ve been to mosques. … And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview because what I feel like saying is, sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” According to the Citizen Media Law Project, the website’s joke premise takes advantage of “a perceived similarity between Beck’s rhetorical style and the Gottfried routine”.

Randazza argued in the response filed on behalf of Eiland-Hall that Beck attempted to use the process of the WIPO court to infringe the free speech rights of his client; “Beck is attempting to use this transnational body to circumvent and subvert the Respondent’s [web site owner] constitutional rights [to freedom of speech],” he wrote. Randazza cited the U.S. Supreme Court case, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, in arguing that Beck’s attorneys advised him against filing legal action in a U.S. court because the website would likely be seen as a form of parody and due to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, such legal action would not be successful.

On September 29, Randazza sent a request to Beck’s representatives, asking that their client agree to stipulate to the United States Constitution, and especially to the First Amendment, during the case before the WIPO. In the request, Randazza quoted a statement from Beck himself about the usage of international law by United States citizens, Beck said, “[o]nce we sign our rights over to international law, the Constitution is officially dead.” In an October 19 interview with Wikinews, Randazza stated that Beck had not replied to his request to stipulate to the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment in the WIPO case.

On October 20, Randazza filed a surreply – a response document to an October 13 supplementary filing made by Beck in the case. Attorneys for Beck asserted in the supplementary filing that the joke made by the website is difficult to comprehend, and therefore the domain name is confusing. In Beck’s supplementary filing, his lawyers argued, “While there is absolutely nothing humorous or amusing about the statement made by Respondent in his domain name that ‘Glenn Beck Raped and Murdered a Young Girl in 1990,’ the average Internet user finding the domain name GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlin1990.com (“Disputed Domain Name”) in a search would have no reason not to believe that they will be directed to a website providing factual information (as opposed to protected criticism or similar protected speech) about Mr. Beck.”

Randazza’s surreply asserted, “An average Internet user might not ‘get the joke’. In fact, the average Internet user does not understand any internet memes. That’s the fun of a meme – it is an esoteric inside joke that will leave most people scratching their heads.” In Randazza’s conclusion to the Eiland-Hall surreply, he called Beck “the butt” of a joke he apparently does not understand. Randazza wrote that Beck “should be deeply ashamed” for devaluing the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For Beck to have prevailed in the case, the WIPO arbitrator would have needed to rule in his favor on three points: the domain name was confusing with the mark “Glenn Beck”, the registrant Eiland-Hall did not have rights to the domain name, and that the domain name was registered as an act of “bad faith”. Frederick M. Abbott, the WIPO arbitrator, did rule that the domain name was confusing, but also ruled that Eiland-Hall had legitimate interest in the domain name of the website he created. “Respondent appears to the Panel to be engaged in a parody of the style or methodology that Respondent appears genuinely to believe is employed by Complainant in the provision of political commentary, and for that reason Respondent can be said to be making a political statement. This constitutes a legitimate non-commercial use of Complainant’s mark under the Policy,” said the WIPO ruling.

The WIPO decision also commented on the matter of third-party websites which may have derived profit through links from Eiland-Hall’s website, “While there is some evidence that at some stage third-party vendors of goods and services critical of [Beck] may have earned some income on sales of t-shirts and bumper stickers embodying political slogans based on click-throughs from [Eiland-Hall’s] Web site, the panel does not believe this is sufficient ‘commercial activity’ to change the balance of interests already addressed,” said the ruling.

After the WIPO ruling, Eiland-Hall decided to voluntarily relinquish ownership of the domain name and hand it over to Glenn Beck. On Friday, Eiland-Hall sent a letter to Beck, and pointed out that Beck’s actions only served to further increase publicity to the meme described on the website. “It bears observing that by bringing the WIPO complaint, you took what was merely one small critique meme, in a sea of internet memes, and turned it into a super-meme. Then, in pressing forward (by not withdrawing the complaint and instead filing additional briefs), you turned the super-meme into an object lesson in First Amendment principles,” wrote Eiland-Hall in the letter to Beck.

Eiland-Hall criticized Beck’s actions with regard to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, writing, “It also bears noting, in this matter and for the future, that you are entirely in control of whether or not you are the subject of this particular kind of criticism. I chose to criticize you using the well-tested method of satire because of its effectiveness. But, humor aside, your rhetorical style is no laughing matter. In this context of this WIPO case, you denigrated the letter of First Amendment law. In the context of your television show and your notoriety, you routinely and shamelessly denigrate the spirit of the First Amendment”. He stated that he persevered in the case in order to uphold the value of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “I want to demonstrate to you that I had my lawyer fight this battle only to help preserve the First Amendment. Now that it is safe, at least from you (for the time being), I have no more use for the actual scrap of digital real estate you sought…” A representative of Beck declined to provide a comment about the WIPO ruling, after a request from PC Magazine.

Commentators likened the legal conflict between Beck and the site to the Streisand effect, a phenomenon where an individual’s attempt to censor material on the Internet in turn proves to make the material itself more public. Wendy Davis of Online Media Daily commented on the impact of the case, “The decision appears to mark a significant win for digital rights advocates because a ruling in Beck’s favor could have encouraged other subjects of online parodies to take their complaints directly to the WIPO rather than U.S. courts, which are bound by the First Amendment.” Citizen Media Law Project’s assistant director, Sam Bayard, wrote that the ruling was appropriate, “It’s good to see that this WIPO arbitrator had no interest in allowing Beck to circumvent the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.”

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Wikinews interviews Lawrence Douglas, Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College, on questions of the fairness and credibility of the Saddam Hussein trial, and the purpose, conduct and impact of courts trying international law crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Prof. Douglas is the author of The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2001), an acclaimed study of war crimes trials. His writing has appeared in venues including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and The New Yorker, and he is a frequent contributor to the Times Literary Supplement.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

If you are in the market for new bedding, and not too concerned with the new United States guidelines for mattress fire resistance, now might be a good time to buy. Mattresses sold in the U.S. must meet new federal guidelines for flammability starting on July 1.

The flammability of mattress sets sold in the U.S. is subject to a new mandatory federal regulation requirement passed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on February 16 last year. The requirement, costing mattress manufacturers an estimated $100 million to meet, is scheduled to take effect on July 1. The commission anticipates that the new standards will save 270 lives and 1,330 injuries per year from mattress fires.

“We’ve passed a new open flame regulation and the whole idea behind the regulation is to make sure that if a mattress catches on fire that the fire burns slowly enough that people have enough time to get out of the house and get away,” said Hal Stratton, chairman of the CPSC

Radio and TV advertising spots are reacting to the new regulation by discounting prices on mattresses that fail to meet the new guidelines. Sales made in the mattress industry, like the automobile industry, are highly negotiable on price. The new regulation does not appear to have much “teeth” for mattresses already in the distribution pipeline, but it is a new law that is a bargaining position for potential buyers.

Monday, June 7, 2010

An acrobatic group known by the name of Spelbound has been declared as the winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2010, a televised variety talent show competition broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom. As the winning act of the show, Spelbound have won £100,000 (US$144,580, €120,313, A$175,079) and a place at The Royal Variety Performance, an annual gala evening that is attended by senior members of the British Royal Family.

In no particular order, the top three acts were revealed to be two dancers known by their stage name of Twist and Pulse, gymnastic group Spelbound and Kieran Gaffney, whose act involves playing on the drum kit. After Kieran Gaffney was revealed to be in third place, Anthony McPartlin, who hosts Britain’s Got Talent with Declan Donnelly, said to Kieran: “Well done Kieran. Kieran, you’re a star, you came back, you got all the way to the final. I know you’ve loved this. You’ve loved this, haven’t you?” In response to this, Kieran Gaffney stated: “Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone for supporting me. Thank you.”

Shortly afterwards, on the episode that was broadcast live on ITV1 on Saturday, Anthony announced: “After tens of thousands of auditons, five semi-finals and an amazing final, this…this is it. One of you is about to walk away with £100,000 and a place at this year’s Royal Variety Performance. The winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2010 is…Spelbound!” Glen Murphy from Twist and Pulse commented about finishing in second place, stating: “Yeah, it’s amazing. I can’t even believe it. I can’t believe it at all.”

Alex Uttley, a 24-year-old member of Spelbound, commented on the gymnastic group’s victory, commenting: “Oh, my god. This is unbelieveable. We just want to say thank you to everyone out there. It just shows that all our hard work has paid off.” One of the coaches of Spelbound, named Neil Griffiths, stated about Spelbound: “Oh, they’ve worked so hard over the last few weeks. Um, since the semi-final, we…we really had to pull out the stops to try and up the game. They’ve not known they’ve worked in the gym from six in the morning till twelve…twelve o’clock of the night. I couldn’t have asked for more. Um, it’s a team of coaches. I don’t take all the credit myself. There’s, uh, two people up there that know who they are who’ve been fantastic.”

Spelbound consists of 24-year-old Alex Uttley, Nicholas Illingworth, aged 24, Adam Buckingham, aged 21, 20-year-old Adam McAssey, 19-year-old Douglas Fordyce, 18-year-old Edward Upcott, 18-year-old Leighanne Cowler, 17-year-old Katie Axten, 17-year-old Lauren Kemp, 15-year-old Jonathan Stranks, Abigail Ralph, aged 15, 13-year-old Hollianne Wood and Amy Mackenzie, aged 12. Bookmakers had previously predicted that Spelbound would be the most likely act to become the winner of the series.

The running order for the final started with Twist and Pulse. The second act to perform was Liam McNally, a 14-year-old singer. The running order subsequently continued with 40-year-old impressionist Paul Burling, singer Christopher Stone, aged 28, Tina & Chandi, a woman and dog dancing act, Connected, a five-piece singing group, Kieran Gaffney, aged 12, 22-year-old Tobias Mead, a dancer, 80-year-old singer Janey Cutler and Spelbound in that particular order.

Earlier on in the final, Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has stated to Spelbound: “We are hosting the 2012 Olympics and I think ‘what a brilliant opening act’.” Fellow judge Piers Morgan also commented that “[t]he purpose of this show is to identify hidden great British talent. You are that act.” After Spelbound won in the final, another judge, named Simon Cowell, stated that “the right boys and girls won on the night” and that he could “only say on live TV that that was one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen. Seriously.”

Friday, December 11, 2009

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is proposing to make service cuts to close its expected US$343 million (€234m, GBP £211m) budget deficit. The plan includes the elimination of multiple bus lines in The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, the elimination of the W (Astoria, Queens to Lower Manhattan) and the Z (Jamaica, Queens to Lower Manhattan via Brooklyn) train services. Also included in the plan are cuts of nighttime bus and train service.

“We’re not going to rely on anyone else to do anything for us. We’re going to rely on ourselves.” MTA board member Mitchell Pally said, commenting on the New York state’s budget plan cutting $143 million of tax revenue from the agency. MTA Chairman Jay Walder has said in the past that he would not raise fares ahead of schedule.

Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, a commuter advocacy group, said that the agency should take money from its current construction and maintenance fund, and put it into maintaining these services.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Over 1,600 volunteers registered to help build approximately 65,000 of the 500,000 sandbags to create dikes 20.5 feet (6.2 meters) high to protect the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba in the war against the Red River of the North flood.

700 volunteers answered at the rural municipality of St. Andrews alone. Once sandbags are filled for West St. Paul, St. Andrews, and Selkirk, then frozen culverts must be cleared.

The height of the river is expected to be Thursday, and predictions are that it will be less than Flood of the Century of 1997. There is no precipitation in the forecast, and snow in the province should be melted by the end of the week.

“The fear right now is we have to get that ice out of the river. The Amphibex [Excavators] are still working and breaking the ice apart, and everyday we buy with the warm weather and the current, it is thinning the ice down a bit, so when it does start to move, the better chance it’ll move right out into the lake,” said Paul Guyder, the emergency coordinator for the RMs of St. Andrews and St. Clements.

“I feel that we’ve done everything humanly possible to get ready,” said Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, “But … there are fallibilities with human behaviour. We can take every preventative measure as human beings possible and we can still get Mother Nature proving again she is superior.”

Communities with ring diking will partially or fully close their dikes at the beginning of the week. Provincial officials are considering opening the Red River Floodway gates around mid-week before ice is fully melted.

Ice jams could cause flooding within the city, however opening the gates could spare neighbourhood flooding when the river rises to the estimated 6.3 meters (20.7 feet) height. The province does have back up plans for dealing with ice jams within the city if they do occur. The unpredictability of ice jams and the ensuing water level rise may cause neighbourhood flooding. The city is raising dikes where the river has jammed with ice in the past such as on tight curves and past bridges. Likewise there are excavators and backhoes positioned at these points.

Vulnerable neighbourhoods on the river banks have been reinforced with sandbag dikes at vulnerable areas from the massive volunteer effort over the weekend. Guyader feels no more extra volunteers are needed, however volunteers are still being asked to leave their names and number in case of unpredicted need. Existing personnel will assess roads, and help with clean up.

Approximately 400 of the 800 people who evacuated the Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation have returned to their homes.

Former Premier, Dufferin Roblin, brought forward the floodway as a protection for Winnipeg residents and economy following the 1950 Red River Flood. The Red River floodway, “Duff’s Ditch” was finally finished in 1968, and its floodway gates have been opened 20 times saving Winnipeg from an estimated CA$10 billion in damages. The floodway expansion began in 2005 at a price of $665 million.

Polish and Chinese experts have come to survey the Red River Floodway, and Dennis Walaker, mayor of Fargo, North Dakota recognises the need for Red River flood defences down river. “Every town that you drive by from the Canadian line up to Winnipeg is either elevated or ring-diked,” said Walaker.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A bus crash in Victoria, Australia has injured at least 20 people, two of whom are listed as critical. One victim is reported to be still trapped in the wreckage.

The accident occurred between a bus and a semi-trailer on the Princes Highway in the Traralgon area around 10:50am AEST. The La Trobe Valley Busliner bus was traveling east when it collided with the back of a heavy haulage truck.

Those critically injured are being airlifted to a hospital in Melbourne. Others are being transported by Ambulance to La Trobe Valley Hospital in Traralgon.

SES crews are on scene, along with St. John Ambulance and fire crews.

The eastbound lanes of the highway have been blocked by police and traffic is being diverted.

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Actor Bob Denver, best known for his roles as “Gilligan” on Gilligan’s Island (1964-1967) and “Maynard G. Krebs” on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1963), died Friday at the age of 70.

Denver gained popularity on Dobie Gillis, playing the title character’s best friend, a beatnik. The show, which ran for four years, was Denver’s first major acting role. It is said that the popular cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was based on the show, and Denver’s role of Krebs was the inspiration for the character “Shaggy”.

Denver’s real fame, however, came with the role of “Gilligan”, a kind but naive and incompetent bumbler stuck on an island with six other castaways. Nearly every episode involved a plot to get off the island; however, Gilligan always ended up causing the plot to fail, in one way or another. The show, which ran for three years, gained popularity through perpetual reruns. “It was the mid-’70s when I realized it wasn’t going off the air,” Denver said in 2001.

After the cancellation of Gilligan’s Island, Bob Denver starred in Dusty’s Trail, a clone of Gilligan’s Island, set in a wagon train in the old American West. It was also created by Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of Gilligan’s Island and other sitcoms like The Brady Bunch. Dusty’s Trail featured a one-to-one match with Gilligan’s Island characters (Gilligan became Dusty, while the actress, Ginger, became the dance hall girl, and the farm girl, Maryanne, became the school marm, and the rich Howells became a rich rail baron and wife, etc.). Bob Denver was the only actor in common. The show never caught on and was quickly canceled.

In May, Denver underwent quadruple bypass surgery, and was subsequently diagnosed with cancer. He died of complications from his cancer treatment at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina.

Denver is survived by his wife and four children.