I'm sure people have seen the parody site about how Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 by now. What you may not know though is that Beck filed a complaint before an international body, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), regarding the site's content.
The attorney for the parody site, Marc Randazza, has a great response that will be detailed over the fold:
Beck's skin is too thin to take the criticism, so he wants the site down. Beck is represented by a learned and respected legal team. Accordingly, it is beyond doubt that his counsel advised him that under the First Amendment to the United States' Constitution, no action in a U.S. Court would be successful. Accordingly, Beck is attempting to use this transnational body to circumvent and subvert the Respondent's constitutional rights.
Let's look at the complaint file and look specifically at the grounds on which the complaint from Beck's attorneys was launched. The first ground detailed is hilarious:
Respondent's domain name, glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com/, is confusing similar to complainents' "Glenn Beck" trademark as it incorporates the "Glenn Beck" name and mark entirely
To which Randazza responds (emphasis mine):
There is no indication that the Respondent has intentionally attempted to confuse anyone searching for Mr. Beck’s own website, nor that anyone was unintentionally confused – even initially. Only an abject imbecile could believe that the domain name would have any connection to the Complainant.
We are not here because the domain name could cause confusion. We do not have a declaration from the president of the international association of imbeciles that his members are blankly staring at the Respondent’s website wondering “where did all the race baiting content go?” We are here because Mr. Beck wants Respondent’s website shut down. He wants it shut down because Respondent’s website makes a poignant and accurate satirical critique of Mr. Beck by parodying Beck’s very rhetorical style.
FUCKING OWNED.
The rest of the response details the spurious claims levied by Beck's attorneys about how the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the UDRP) apply to this case.
They don't.
None of the factors in ¶ 4(b) of the UDRP apply. There is no evidence that Respondent has registered and used the domain name for the purpose of selling it for profit. Respondent is not engaged in a pattern of cybersquatting. Respondent did not register the domain name to disrupt the business of a competitor, he registered it to pay homage to an existing internet meme that poked fun at Glenn Beck, to poke fun at Glenn Beck directly, and to express his political opinions.
He also makes the case to the WIPO that 1) the UDRP does not apply to potentially defamatory websites and 2) that the website's content should be judged in the context of common law First Amendment rulings.
You have to understand the beautifully tight position that this puts Beck in: if he presses on further with a supranational attempt on trying to get rid of the website, he will continue to look like a gigantic hypocrite, given Beck's reported disdain for international bodies and fetishization (without understanding) of American law.
Marc Randazza made another filing that exploited just that. He goes on to outline two views the WIPO could be taking to this case:
As you may be aware, from reading our Response in this case, there is a split of authority in the WIPO decisions as to how criticism sites should be examined. See “WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions,” at Paragraph 2.4.
View 1 states: “The right to criticize does not extend to registering a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to the owner’s registered trademark or conveys an association with the mark.”
View 2 states: “Irrespective of whether the domain name as such connotes criticism, the respondent has a legitimate interest in using the trademark as part of the domain name of a criticism site if the use is fair and non-commercial.”
Naturally, View 2 is the prevailing view of American panelists and panels that apply American law to UDRP proceedings. View 1 seems to be more popular with international panelists and panels that apply European law. Unfortunately, given that UDRP decisions regularly incorporate international legal principles, this case could be assigned to a foreign panelist or to an American panelist who applies transnational principles. I personally would find it distressing if the panel were to make a decision that completely disregards the U.S. Constitution in favor of a foreign perspective that adopts View 1.
And then, he goes in for the kill:
On March 30, 2009, [Beck] said on his show:
Let me tell you something. When you can't win with the people, you bump it up to the courts. When you can't win with the courts, you bump it up to the international level.
Of course, we levy no critique at Mr. Beck for seeking to vindicate his perceived rights in this forum. We do not share his opinion as articulated on March 30, and we respect his creativity in seeking an alternate avenue where his claims might have a chance of success. Unfortunately, despite the general wisdom among UDRP panelists, we find that occasionally they render decisions that make First Amendment champions cringe.
[...]
It would be an interesting day indeed if Mr. Beck preferred to risk that a panelist would apply French law to a case between two Americans over a matter of public discourse.
I recall that Beck publicly called Harold Koh, the Dean of Yale Law School, a “threat to American democracy” for his views on transnational law. Beck said of Koh:
he wants to subordinate the American Constitution to foreign and international rules. We see that in his attack on First Amendment free speech principles, which he finds opprobrious.
Similarly, Mr. Beck said it best when he warned of the dangers of allowing international legal principles to trump our cherished constitutional rights:
Once we sign our rights over to international law, the Constitution is officially dead.
I am certain that neither party wishes to see First Amendment rights subordinated to international trademark principles, thus unwittingly proving Mr. Beck’s point.
I'm honestly hoping that Beck does NOT drop this, as I want his hypocrisy to get even more attention.
I'd like to thank Ed Brayton from scienceblogs.com for supplying the briefs online. And I'd also like to thank Mr. Randazza for the hilarious pwning. Well done.
Update 1: onanyes posted the link to Randazza's blog. I think he's about to get a boost in readers.