I can’t remember the blog where I first found the link to johnhowardpm.org earlier this week. However, I do remember being impressed with amount of the work the website owner had put into creating a clever spoof of the real John Howard site.
Anyway, it appears the owner, one Richard Neville, has fallen foul of the heavy hand of our government:
A spoof John Howard website that featured a soul searching “apology” speech for the Iraq war has been shut down under orders from the Australian Government.
Richard Neville, an Australian futurist and social commentator was “mystified” to discover his satirical website johnhowardpm.org had been blocked on Tuesday with no explanation from either his web hosting company…
Source and the rest of the article: The Sydney Morning Herald
As I understand it Australia copyright laws do not have a fair use provision that would allow such satire to be protected. Irregardless of the quality of Neville’s piece this is a not a good look for the guvmint.
Also to be noted that the FTA included provisions to tighten IP rights as per the DMCA which seem to have been used in this instance (note this is not a scholarly legal analysis – just musing).
When John Howard doesnt like something, he “rejects” it. Note this does not necessarily mean “its not true” in Howard-speak. It normally means “Im not admitting anything, and you have no video footage of me physcially reading the document, and even if you did, I wouldnt recall it, despite the fact that Im well-known for my excellent memory”.
Speaking of which, seems time for an AWB update: yes, everyone in the intellgence serrvices knew all about Alia in 1999, and told the government about it being a front for Saddam.
How long can the charade continue? They knew they were funding Saddam. Thats clear. Anyone who still thinks otherwise is a card-carrying mug. I expect noone to admit to this viewpoint. Not even the usual suspects are pretending they beleive you, John and Dolly.
Now lets get on with the shamefaced resignations of these disturbing moral relativists.
Now lets get on with the shamefaced resignations of these disturbing moral relativists.
Good one.
Hint – Satire is funny because of its close resemblance to the real thing.
This is disgusting, but do you think RWDB’s will stand up for Neville’s right to free speech?
I was going to ask if the govt would have the same power to shut the site down if it was housed on a US-based server but then I saw it was hosted by Yahoo and, presumably, that would be on an overseas server.
I would be interested in knowing how Yahoo was forced to drop the site.
A phishing site? What? Phishing is the use of social engineering techniques to obtain sensitive information such as passwords or financial information. To mistake the spoof site as a phishing site is just weird. I guess we were all wrong about the sedition law. They were never going to use it to shut down dissent, not when they can use IP law and dubious bullshit like “looks like a phishing site” to do it.
Ron: Yahoo! weren’t forced to drop it. Melbourne IT has made changes to the domain name registration details that a) put the domain on Hold, and b) bar it from being Transferred. Being on hold means that Yahoo! is supposed to remove it from service, so it no longer responds to any internet service including email and web. Being on Transfer Prohibited status means that Mr Neville can’t even move the domain away from Melbourne IT to another registrar. Yahoo! is following the rules for domain names, Melbourne IT are manipulating them.
David, Richard Neville’s right to free speech hasn’t been infringed. He has the right to publish his fake-Howard speech on his own site, which he is doing.
What he has been stopped from doing is publishing it on a site that on the face of it misrepresents itself as being someone else’s site. You, of all people, should be aware from your recent experience, and the ridicule that you attracted to yourself from it, the danger that there will be those who are gullible enough to mistake a fake site for a real one.
Goes to show the Senate isn’t the only thing Howard dictates despite protestations he wouldn’t
Indeed GregM, many people were fooled by Neville’s spoof site. However, I don’t accept that it was claiming to be something that it wasn’t. It was clearly a spoof – and this whole affair reeks of the actions of an insecure authoritarian government – yet so called conservatives fall into line.
Who said the left didn’t have a sense of humour?
David, if it was a spoof site but not a site claiming to be something that it was not then why did it have links leading directly back to the Prime Minister’s official site?
Greg, The prefix .gov is used on Government sites. The fact that the spoof site was using a .org domain indicates that it was not authentic.
David,
It was clearly a spoof site, but ‘many’ people were misled? Doesn’t sound very clear to me. The .gov / .org distinction is a complete red herring – the important point is that site visitors were confused, and that should be enough to shut it down.
ab
David, naive as you have demonstrated yourself to be about the wonderful world of the web, even you could grasp, I hope, that many people follow links to sites where the domain name is not shown, and that the links from the fake site to the real site constitute a breach of copyright and the domain name provider’s acceptable use policy.
Then again probably not.
Haven’t seen the site, but if “I did not choose to make it too close to the actual design”, wouldn’t having a link back to the official site be where the penny should drop?
Looks like it’s snap chewing gum and kick me notes for April Fool’s day.
No, not from the way Neville designed his fake site. The links weren’t shown as such but embedded in the design so that if, for example, you clicked on “The PM and his Team” you would go directly to that page on the official site without being aware that you had left the fake site.
So when Eric Bana did impressions of Ray Martin it wasn’t legitimate satire, he was actually breaking the law? I mean, anyone could have changed the channel in the middle of a skit and thought Ray Martin was actually on television. Anyone. Lawks! Won’t someone please think of the gullible?
Come back Kim, all is forgiven!
After this magic comment today, how can I stay mad at you?
The Beazer today urged Howard to “Look Condoleezza Rice in the eye and apologise for funding the enemy,”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1594608.htm
I am thinking of the gullible, avocadia. Their pain in finding that they have been duped by a fake site is palpable. David’s grief a few months back on discovering that he had been taken in by a fake site and his lamentations and mea culpas were such that he swore to cease blogging altogether.
So moving were the tuggings of hair, tearing of clothes and ululations of despair in his comments on his website when he realised that he’d been conned that Oscar Wilde’s comment on one of Dicken’s classic works came to my mind:
Still, I wouldn’t like to see it happen to David a second time.
Oh crap, with all this talk of satire I have no idea wheter LE is being serious or not….
It’s not as good as when Channel Ten gave out the wrong (and rude) link for Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan.
And anyone else remember the fake apology to Aboriginal people by (actor) John Howard on Frontline? (I think)
Neville is as nutty as a macadamia plantation, his value as a commentator being that perfect strangers follow him about while pointing and laughing.
The horrifying conspiracy to silence his brave dissent… (sorry I had to stop for a bit, I was laughing so hard)
Anyhoo, his Horatius-like stance against the VRWC turns out to be caused by Yahoo being a hopeless service provider who do not seem to understand their own systems. (They simply must be owned by the Chimpster W Neoconazi VRWC IT division, I know.)
The latest word from Yahoo seems to be that they can’t explain why the site isn’t working and they don’t know how to fix it. Associated costs have been paid, everything is reported to be set up correctly. The wondrously beskilled yahoo IT gurus think it’s got something to do with a hold state being applied to the domain status (whatever that means). Yahoo just can’t work out why. However, my 16 yr old is doing a CISCO network admin course at school, and he thinks he knows what the problem is. He might well be right!
One of Tim Blair’s commentators nails it.
“Oh, please. His hosting company doesn’t have the root servers for his domain set right and it’s a conspiracy to silence him?
Imagined victimization by powerful, dark forces makes insignificant people feel important.
Posted by Dave S. on 2006 03 16 at 02:06 PM • permalink”
But please dream up more subtle conspiracy theories about it. These really are a hoot.
Even better, you’ve got Wronwright in on the act, and much hilarity is ensuing.
As for poor crazed Richard’s glorying in ‘taking everyone in’, I am afraid he caught Webdiary and that was about it (well, a few otehr lefties got suckered). But gulling Webdiary is a routine joke amongst unicellular organisms.
Of course, he IS breaching copyright, but who is going to bother to pursue a lone fruitloop on that score? Let the poor mad bugger have his fun. he will undoubtedly believe that it will bring on the Klingon revolution, or something.
MarkL
Canberra
I’ve been pondering this one a bit since I read about it.
Trying to silence or stifle satire is as serious as trying to silence any other form of dissent. However, when the satire is in the form of (arguably) passing off as somebody else, it is a bit different. Most satire or spoof, such as the fake apology for the stolen generations by a different John Howard, are fairly obviously that. This site was – at first (and second) glance – a carbon copy. I realise the spoof site had various clues that would be enough for a close observer to realise it wasn’t genuine, but many people wouldn’t look all that closely, or wouldn’t get clues like different domain names, etc.
If someone produced a site which looked all but identical to mine and put up some posts purporting to be by me filled with race hate stuff, (or even something like “I was wrong, live exports are great” or the like) I’d be pretty pissed off. Of course, I’d be able to be legitimately outraged and might get some extra publiclity for my real views from a higher moral ground than I normallly inhabit, so it could all balance out in the end. In the same way, I guess Richard Neville is probably getting more publicity about his message and action now than he would have got if the site had just been left alone.
I think the reasons/excuses given by Melbourne IT of IP breaches or ‘phishing’ are pretty lame, and they also should have notified the site owner of what they were doing. However, passing off is a potentially serious thing which I don’t think can be totally discounted in this instance, even though the intent is obviously satire rather than fraud.
I also know how easy it is for one falsely attributed quote (or false allegation for that matter) to become accepted as fact. All it needs is to get reported once or twice in the media (or even a general website), it then gets ’sourced’ by everyone else, gets embedded in the internet and gets referenced to forever more anytime someone Googles. Especially given that many mainstream media love to do a front page splash of the original juicy quote or allegation, and a one liner on page 24 a week later if they need to correct it. You can then deny it all you like for the rest of time, but unless you can get it removed from all the archives and websites that reported it, you’re pretty much stuck with it.
I’m not sure there’s any solution to these competing dilemmas – you can’t really stop people giving their opinion on other people’s views in all sorts of straight and not-so-straight ways, and nor would you want to. However, I don’t think it’s as black and white an example of government suppressing opposing views as it might appear at first glance.
Notwithstanding MarkL’s sad vitriol, with Zoe I was reminded of the wonderful parodic performance of John Howard the actor, enunciating the ideas and sentiments that all reasonable Australians would have welcomed at the time from John Howard the Prime Minister. It was a great TV moment, as indeed dear old Richard’s Internets effort might well prove to be seen.
This seems in some respects to be a contemporary “Oz” reprise of the Oz censorship fun and games in Britain in the 60s (or was it early 70s?). As was the case then, this incident will only reflect badly on a censorious and repressive government, while stimulating Richard’s career.
Good luck to him – I wish more so-called commentators (with far less personal history of actually significant journalism) were willing to stick it up the loathsome rodent as elegantly as Richard did this time.
Whiteouthouse
Whitehotnights
The seppos seem to have no problems with this kinda parody, even under the Bush knout. Why should we?
Actually Mark L Melbourne IT have come out and said that the website was suspended under its terms and conditions after complaints, including one from the guvmint.
This is only technically a problem if it’s done for the purposes of trade. Neither Howard nor Neville’s site is commercial. What law is broken? The trade practices act and trademark law doesn’t apply. Copyright law gives protection to satire, and you cannot copyright titles, only trademark them. Possibly there are electoral laws that are broken, but that’s not the actual excuse given by Melbourne IT, and they are not in any position to decide such a matter anyway.
It is arbitrary harrassment of a satirical, political website.
“I also know how easy it is for one falsely attributed quote (or false allegation for that matter) to become accepted as fact.”
Never a truer word said as the plastic turkey nodded knowingly. Agree with Andrew Bartlett wholeheartedly. Open satire, cartooning and lampooning are fun and par for the course in political and public life, but we should all draw the line at sailing close to the wind regards counterfeiting and passing off for very obvious reasons. We all have our good name and identity protected. It’s very clear what Neville is doing using the name johnhowardpm here.
A related but similar problem has crept up on us recently with the digital doctoring of photographs, particularly of politicians in the MSM. Although the doctoring to date has been obvious to the viewer, IMO it’s an equally slippery slope we don’t want to go down. It’s called public manners in case you’ve forgotten.
Correction-
We all have our good name and identity to protect.
The issue here is that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible blunder, and that still, even now, Australian’s are yet to see this.
Whether Melbourne IT is ruling fairly on some URL rego dispute is neither here nor there.
Why, speak of the devil. Yer back Obby, you old son of gun!
I will joust with you further about the points you’ve raised. But right now I have sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll shit to sort out.
Don’t wait up for me.
Nabakov, the whitehouse.org site is a self contained parody site. All the links are internal to that domain name, while johnhowardpm.org is a frontpage copy of the official site with all the links the same as the ones on the official site except the Speeches page.
There is a clear distinction there. An average person, not technically minded, could read the speech on that site, and then using the links move beyond that domain to the official site without in anyway knowing you have changed realms. You can’t do that with whitehouse.org
Andrew Bartlett:
You said
“I also know how easy it is for one falsely attributed quote (or false allegation for that matter) to become accepted as fact. All it needs is to get reported once or twice in the media (or even a general website), it then gets ’sourced’ by everyone else, gets embedded in the internet and gets referenced to forever more anytime someone Googles”.
How true!
And that was a serious problem long before we had the internet, for example: Disinformation based on false and thoroughly defamatory entries in, or important omissions from, personnel records. Letters-to-the-editor and similar correspondence from people who do not exist, or who borrow somebody else’s name for the moment. The list goes on and on. Once lies and disinformation are down on paper or on the internet, they becomes the Absolute Gospel Truth and absolutely nothing can ever correct or erase it.
Thinking again about the issue this morning.
I agree that Neville could have done more to differentiate his site from the PM’s official site. The speech would have been far more effective if he had done so. While good satire does parallel reality there are usually enough hints given to show that it is a piece of satire. Neville fails on that account.
For the curious a cached copy is at Google.
What concerns me the most is how the take down by Melbourne IT was carried out. It was a summary action with no appeal or notification to Neville and and pushing the boundaries of the law and copyright it was intended to protect. Melbourne IT’s CTO has been remarkably disingenious in explaining his company’s action. Either that or for a CTO he knows bugger all about the Internet which would is a worry.
It does raise issues of free speech in regards to the Internet. I can easily see political satirical sites being shut down for alleged copyright violations if they decide to do something similar to Neville (though better executed).
If I were Neville, I’d've executed this stunt in just this manner in order to attract just this sort of response and associated attention. What better way to draw attention to your main point, which is the highly arguable criminality of the Australian government’s actions in Iraq in 2003.
Three years on – and even Shiites are heard wishing they could turn back the clock. But has there been any political cost to the Australian government. No.
Morganzola: sad vitroil? Hardly. Neville is unworthy of that much attention from anyone, left, centrist, or right. Neville is the very model of leftist self-parody. Personally, he amuses me, nothing more: he has taken the mantle of the late, much lamented and hysterically funny Joe Vialls. In this case Neville has proclaimed that he was ‘culture jamming’. Fine, he wanted to inject a fake meme into the discourse. The current benchmark is the fake meme of the plastic turkey, as a commentator on webdiary has noted. Neville failed in this, and failed dismally. His effort was so amateurish and clumsy that it was detected very quickly. The only people who swallowed it were on some of the dumber leftist sites.
Why should I not find this amusing? It IS amusing, as Neville is. Surely you don’t take him seriously? If so, that is amusing.
As to his claims of censorship, these are ridiculous on their face. It is apparent that people complained, including those with IP rights to the data he purloined. Those complaints were justified, as Andrew has noted. Yahoo apprently looked at his actions and decided that they were in breach of the agreements made when he leased space on their server, and terminated his lease.
Neville then called this government censorhip!
That is also quite funny.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL, good to see you playing the man. Have you read the fake speech? It contains a number of facts that, whther you like Neville or not, are worthy of attention. Or does your dislike of the author mean that you can disregard anything he has to say?
In these troubled times, we need all the satire we can get.
leftvegdrunk
Playing the man? How? Richard Neville’s so far out there with conspiracy theories and a worldview disconnected from reality that he is the very self-parody of a modern leftist.
This is amusing, no more, no less.
I have read the fake speech. Unsurprisingly, it panders to Neville’s delusions – part of what a ‘culture jam’ IS. By definition it contains no facts because the speech is FAKE. Therefore you are following the ‘fake but true’ meme, itself a ‘culture jam’. If it is fake, it cannot be true. Look at the ‘plastic turkey’ culture jam. You can say that the lie contains a fact – Bush was holding a turkey. But the fact of that is turned in to a falsehood by the description of it as ‘plastic’, when it was real. So teh fact becomes part of the lie, meant to give credence to the lie.
Should you disbelieve this, I have a fake US 1 billion dollar note you can buy from me for a mere $10,000 true Australian dollars.
I await your arrival with cash in hand with anticipation.
You’d style me an ex-leftist. probably a neocon, but the people I learned from about socialism were the old-style fellows you rarely see now. Old style, you say? Yes. One of them fought with an International Brigade in Spain. The modern ‘left’ is not following leftist values at all, it is about puerile whining against a handful of conservative politicians who have gained office partly by capturing the spirit of the Enlightenment which used to motivate the left. So the ones pursuing truly leftist aims are the bloody conservatives – those aims being the betterment of mankind. Like removing national socialist dictators, for example, so the Iraqi people are freed from totalitarianism. The ‘modern left’ opposed this, an unspeakable betrayal of the whole concept of progressivism. Like opposing geniuine theocratic fascism – which the ‘modern left’ also opposes by word and deed. Meanwhile, the ‘modern left’, led by millionaries like Moore, Soros etc, makes pathetic speeches, and waves twee signs.
Oh, how effective THAT is in bettering the lot of those suffering oppression! I am sure that those being slaughtered today in Darfur by theocratic islamic fascists appreciate your ‘No war!’ signs. Where are the leftists demanding military intervention to stop the slaughter, crush the oppressors, and allow self-determination for the Darfuri?
crickets chirping… Thought so.
But dare to actually try and achieve what I have described above, and the ‘modern left’will hold a protest ‘against war’. That high pitched whine you hear is the men of the International Brigades spinning in their graves at 12,000 rpm.
The ‘modern left’ is owned and popualted by reactionaries who support fascism. Small people, with straitjacketed minds, and who prefer delusion to reality. Just like Leon Blum’s ‘leftist’ appeasers, who so quickly became national socialism’s enablers in Vichy France.
That is why people like me (and the few genuine Marxists I still know) despise the ‘modern left’ so viscerally. We KNOW the modern left is composed of the lowest of teh low, national socialists in waiting, because we have seen it all before. That is why people like us have turned to influence the conservatives to achieve real progressive aims, and that is why the ‘modern left’ so hates the neocons. If the price is that they win elections – all the better.
So far, the outcomes are 40,000,000 liberated from totalitarianism, the destruction of a national socialist regime and a theocratic fascist regime, and a return of the great progressive free trade mechanism of the 19th century (you call it globalisation) to about 70% of the level it had attained in 1914. We still have a long way to go on that, but I look forward to the day when a poor Fijian cane farmer can sell his sugar in a global free market, and better his life in doing so becuase the subsidised Europeans have abandoned their selfish dominance of the world sugar market through unfair trade practises.
You will oppose this progressive aim, of course. The ‘achievements’ of the modern left? Opposing the betterment of the world’s poor and actuing as enablers of fascism. The modern left are vile Blumists.
The modern left is a dying voice from the ash-heap of history. And good riddance. It is the unutterably worthless “leftism” (ha!) of Leon Blum that the modern “left” tries to pass off as genuine gelt – fake goods indeed, but a genuine ‘culture jam’.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL, impressive rant. Thanks. The html version of the speech links to articles supporting the facts it presents.
But, please, ignore this. It is far more important that you use your keyboard to bash up so-called lefties. (Brent Howard calls it “the crude sander of the left”.) Keep on banging away. You are performing a tremendous service.
MarkL, I think you’re being quite unfair to Leon Blum.