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October
1, 1999 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(contact copyright@rtmark.com)
WHICH
IS WHICH? ON THE INTERNET, YOU NEVER CAN TELL
Every
day, thousands of people looking for the Internet sites of the
ultra-right party in Austria (www.fpo.at),
a Liberal candidate in Australia (www.realjeff.com),
the Mayor of New York (yesrudy.com),
and a copyright lobbying group www.grayday.org)
end up very confused.
Each
of the sites listed above is a "rogue"--a nearly identical version
of a "real" site (www.fpoe.at,
www.jeff.com.au, www.rudyyes.com,
and www.greyday.org, respectively),
altered to make a political point. The trend may have begun with
the yesrudy.com site, which resembles
rudyyes.com so closely that
an aide with the opposing campaign admitted in the New York Times
to being misled (see rtmark.com/pressyrd.html
and rtmark.com/bush.html).
WWW.FPO.AT
or www.fpoe.at?
(contact unknown joerg.haider@fpoe.at)
Earlier
this week, Austria's third-largest party, which was formed from
the leftovers of the Nazi party, was shocked and distressed to
find itself extensively and subtly mocked.
The
official website of the Freiheitlichen Partei Oesterreichs, which
is considered very likely to become part of Austria's government
after this Sunday's closely-watched elections, is www.fpoe.at.
www.fpo.at takes advantage of
the fact that in German, the letter "o" with an umlaut can be
written either as "o" or "oe"; the "FPO" site looks identical
to the official FPOe site, but links directly to more overtly
Nazi sites, replaces words like "information" with "propaganda,"
and makes use of many other instructive replacements.
Like George W. Bush with GWBush.com (see rtmark.com/bush.html),
the FPOe is using every legal tactic to shut down the rogue site,
including a U.S. copyright suit (the "FPO"'s service provider
is American) and appeals to the Austrian Minister of the Interior.
But like Bush with the original GWBush.com site, the FPOe has
so far been unable to stop this attack on its ideas and intentions.
German-language
press about the "FPO" site, from earlier this week, is at futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=4737&tmp=61046
and www.politik-digital.de/europa/laender/oesterreich/innenpolitik/fake.shtml.
WWW.REALJEFF.COM
or www.jeff.com.au?
(contact realjeff99@yahoo.com)
Australian Liberal candidate Jeff Kennett joins the FPOe and Presidential
hopeful George W. Bush in attempting to shut down Internet opposition--in
Kennett's case, www.realjeff.com,
which mocks Kennett's www.jeff.com.au.
But
Kennett's tactics are quieter than those of the FPOe and Bush.
Addr.com (info@addr.com), until
three weeks ago the Internet provider of www.realjeff.com,
suddenly suspended its hosting without explanation, and has ignored
repeated inquiries regarding the matter. Also, Kennett's www.jeff.com.au
now merely defaults to the Liberal Party website, as if to avoid
comparison.
WWW.GRAYDAY.ORG
or www.greyday.org?
(contact press@grayday.org,
press@greyday.org)
Today,
many Internet visitors will visit www.grayday.org
hoping to learn more about "GreyDay," an annual call for stricter
copyright laws for the Web. Last year, the October 1 event was
written about in the New York Times, Wired News and the Village
Voice.
But
whereas www.greyday.org calls
for more copyright protection, www.grayday.org
urges visitors to keep the Internet "free from phony copyright
laws." Its authors, a team of Silicon Valley software programmers
and graphic designers who call themselves Tell-all Computer Programmers
& Internet Professionals (TCP/IP), claim to represent "the millions
of people who have benefited and will continue to benefit from
the free exchange of ideas, the hallmark of the Internet."
There
are many other subtle differences between the two sites. Whereas
GreyDay.org urges Internet users to imagine "what if" copyright
infringement leads to a lack of creativity on the Web, the spoof
site implores visitors to imagine "what if there was no WWW...
no Internet."
According
to TCP/IP spokesperson Cecil Park, "The call for more copyright
laws on the Web is especially absurd considering the Web itself
was made possible by the copyright-free distribution of the first
Web browser [Mosaic] and the most popular Web server software
[Apache]."
(The
name TCP/IP is a pointed insiders' joke. It stands not only for
"Tell-all Computer Programmers & Internet Professionals," but
for "Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol," the software
at the heart of the Internet that was given away without copyright
in 1981 by programmers at the US Government's Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency.)
RTMark
uses its limited liability as a corporation to sponsor the sabotage
of mass-produced products, and to discuss corporate abuses of
the political process. One of RTMark's
ultimate aims is to eliminate the principle of limited liability.
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