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This is the Part of the Site Where We DanceBy Ed Lee
It's part of our collective, deeply ingrained American sensibility to root for the underdog. There's something about the struggle of the little guy going up against a monolith that captures our imagination. In another example of megalomaniacal e-commerce sites getting a bit too big for their britches, eToys, the online toy seller, has sued Etoy, the German performance art group, for copyright infringement. The only problem? Etoy was around two years before eToys showed up. What's the outcome? Well, here's a hint: the fact that there's no link to Etoy's site in this story isn't an accident. They've taken down their site. It's like eToys is the schoolyard bully taking the scrawny kid's lunch money. So maybe the kid is a bit effeminate and wears a too much black, but that's no reason to take his domain name. It would be one thing if Etoy, the performance art group, had anything even remotely to do with selling toys online. However, they're a commando group of pranksters intent on exposing the absurdities of modern life, specifically having to do with capitalism and commerce. They've made eyebrow-raising claims on their website, such as claiming to have held 1.4 million people hostage online. Oh, and they look like a cross between Devo of Whip It fame and Saturday Night Live's Sprockets (soon to be the subject of a major motion picture). We urge all conscientious Internet Tonight readers to support Etoy, the performance art group, in its struggle against the corporate behemoth mentality. It's too bad we need to join the ramparts, because eToys is a pretty cool site. I actually bought some Star Wars figures from them a while back.
Oh well. Fight the powers that be.
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