Software enables new way to bypass
laws
By SARAH LAI STIRLAND, UPI Science News
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A new piece of software to create parodies
that is making the rounds on the Internet highlights just how difficult it
is to squelch protest and enforce global laws in Cyberspace.
Called "Yes, I Will!" the software enables people to create instant
parodies on the World Wide Web. The software can be downloaded from a
variety of political activist sites and then used to replicate sites that
individuals want to parody.
The layout, logos and format of the original Web sites are maintained
while the individuals wanting to create a parody insert their own words at
various intervals to change the text. They can then post the entire
content of their parody site through a Web hosting company, which
publishes the information.
Four programmers, three of them in California and one of them in Paris,
collaborated over the Internet to create the software in response to the
World Trade Organization's effort to quash gatt.org. The site is run by a
Web designer and political activist in Washington, D.C., and is a
political parody of the WTO.
The site criticizes the WTO as an international body run by
corporations at the expense of the poor.
The WTO is using trademark and copyright law to try to shut down the
site down. It instructed Verio Co. to tell its customer, Jonathan Prince,
he violated trademark laws by reproducing the WTO logo on its Web site and
had also infringed on its copyrighted materials by republishing portions
of them on his Web site.
Monday, Verio sent Prince an e-mail instructing him to remove the logo
and copyrighted materials or they would have to shut the site down. As of
Thursday, however, it seems that Verio has had a change of mind.
"Verio does not host the site but only provides connectivity," a
company statement said. "Since Verio is not the host, it is not required
under the DMCA to take down the content. Verio has notified the owner of
the Web site that they have withdrawn the demands required by the DMCA to
take down the contents of the site."
A spokesman for WTO was unavailable for comment but WTO Director
General Mike Moore has said in the past he is concerned Web surfers would
confuse the site for the real WTO and cause confusion.
The parody site has been up for two years but the WTO's attempt to shut
it down coincides with the its latest round of talks over the past week in
Doha, Qatar.
The parody site was scheduled to be dismantled Thursday. Dismayed at
the attempt to quash the critical site, the four programmers wrote the
instant parody software, which enables anyone inclined to publish a parody
to do so instantaneously.
The idea behind the software is that so many people would be able use
it to publish parodies it would make it too difficult for the WTO to
contact every single Web hosting company to take them down, according to
Andy Bichlbaum, software co-author.
"We've put a lot of work into Gatt.org, and we're upset that the WTO is
trying to shut us down," Bichlbaum said. "When they started to take legal
actions, we decided to make this software widely available, making it
impossible for them to shut this kind of thing down."
Verio's e-mail cited the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it
notified Prince it was obligated to remove the material. Under the DMCA,
Internet service providers are not liable for infringing material they
host unless they are made aware of it. The law stems from an international
copyright treaty brokered by the World Intellectual Property Organization
that seeks to provide copyright holders around the globe the equal levels
of copyright protections and control in a digital world.
It is not clear whether material generated by such global organizations
such as the WTO can be copyrighted. Although the U.S. government can
register trademarks, any work it generates cannot be copyrighted, said
Barbara Grahn, an international trademarks and treaties expert and lawyer
at Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly LLP in Minneapolis.
The current cyber-scuffle between the activists and the WTO is one of
several in the past couple of years that highlight the issues of free
speech and intellectual property harmonization between different countries
on the Internet.
--
Copyright 2001 by United Press
International.
All rights reserved.
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