you forgot the left's centerfold babe, Helen Thomas.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Posted on 07/07/2003 11:31:40 AM PDT by mhking
The little web site that
has Fox News fuming
Legal threat over spoof T-shirts rouses $ support
By Jim Jazwiecki
As a TV news operation, Fox News Channel prides itself on the give and take it offers viewers. But that can't be said for its legal department when the cable news network is the subject of some of the jabbing its on-air talents relish in. Recently, the people behind Agitproperties.com, an Austin, Tex.-based activist web site, received a letter from Fox lawyers insisting that the site stop selling T-shirts making fun of the News Corp.-owned channel. One shirt reads “Faux News: We distort, you comply,” while another advertises the “O’Reilly Youth,” a reference to Hitler's youth groups. In its letter, Fox threatened legal action, claiming that the T-shirts could result in consumer confusion and “the impairment of the goodwill represented by the name ‘Fox News Channel.'” Media Life recently spoke with Agitproperties webmaster Richard Luckett about the brouhaha.
So tell our readers about how this whole to-do between you and Fox News got started.
We've been selling these shirts to fund our site, a clearinghouse for alternative news sources from all over the world. After all the foofaraw about the war in Iraq, our traffic and our sales went down to nothing and we were just about ready to pack things in. I was emailing people all over for months and months, and we could never get any interest generated.
But then Fox gave us this cease-and-desist letter, which I posted, and it was posted by several blogs.
The next thing you know, I'm getting interview requests from all over the world. My server crashed this morning because I got in excess of 65,000 hits. We’re averaging 400 to 500 emails a day, all of them supporting and encouraging.
The O'Reilly Youth shirts are flying out the window. I just can't tell you how many orders we've got. I've been doing nothing but fulfilling orders. It's a three-man operation in a garage in Austin.
I must say that the whole reason this story is getting the media legs is because of bloggers. It's turned into a cause célèbre.
It's very touching. I almost break down and cry thinking about what a hot-button issue I've touched here. We were very close to packing it in, and now the whole world wants to know what I think.
My whole point is that this is going to make many, many people think twice about Fox. That's all I want to do.
Why did you decide to take on Fox News in the first place? What are your beefs with them, specifically?
For them to call themselves fair and balanced and say "We Report, You Decide," is beyond the pale. The fact that they're the only cable news channel that, despite the fact that they're No. 1, feels the need to spout that every 15 minutes just smacks of Orwell.
There's no other way for me to describe it. The way that liberals and left-wingers are treated when they get on those talk shows -- immediately shouted down, without an opportunity to even get a word in -- is just absurd.
Alan Colmes! He's a red herring. He's just there for window dressing. Sean Hannity is particularly in my sights -- that sanctimony, when those eyebrows start arching, and he starts wagging his finger.
Let's talk about Bill O'Reilly, too.
Since when does being a reporter from “Entertainment Tonight” on the Michael Jackson plastic surgery beat all of a sudden, overnight, allow you to start making official pronouncements about politics as if it's gospel?
Anyone else in the news media you’ve got it in for besides Fox News stars?
I saw Ann Coulter on “Hannity & Colmes” last night and I had to switch the channel. It just made my blood boil. I've got a shirt lined up for her!
So Ann Coulter, and especially [congressman-turned-cable news commentator ] Joe Scarborough. He resigned and got a job at MSNBC. You'll notice, although he never was in the military, there are two shots of him in military uniform. No one else has pointed it out, but I plan on making hay out of that.
He's trying to out-O'Reilly O'Reilly, and it's so transparent.
What’s going on with your legal defense?
I've been overwhelmed by the amount of legal advice I've been offered.
In a few days we'll have chosen our counsel, and we're going to take it all the way. Fox News has painted themselves into a corner. This story has gotten legs just by whatever we and everyone else has been doing. If their competitors get ahold of the story, it's going to be very bad from there. It's a lose-lose situation for them. They'll take it all the way, or they'll back off, in which case they lose face.
I wish I could divulge more about our present legal situation, but within the next five to six days you'll be seeing it in the national media.
Fox thought they would spend 37 cents on a letter to some little company in Austin that would just roll over. Well, they're getting a very, very big surprise.
I must admit, I've got quite a lot of personal satisfaction from not only being a thorn in their side but also from making a profit doing it.
July 1, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Jim Jazwiecki is a New York writer and an occasional contributor to Media Life.
I missed it, I'm afraid - I'm just now (yesterday and today) catching up from my one week sojourn to the northlands for my brother's wedding. So I'm afraid I can give you no solid excuse...
Naw, no bias there...
Oh ... I don't know. I would find it attractive. It doesn't happen often. Liberal organizations have been having their way with conservatives in this countries courts... I hope Fox takes this guy's last penny.
Well, I didn't mean to imply you should have been on 24 hour duty watching out for posts from me, of course. I was just commenting (probably not very well) on how easily one or two responses early in a thread can have an overwhelming effect on how the rest of the thread plays out. I post my Fox News trademark thread, a couple of asses post "you're an idiot" one-liners, and the entire thread turns into an accusation that I'm asking for the suppression of the First Amendment. Then this thread is posted and someone posts the facts pretty early, and the truth gets out, for the most part.
Weird online community dynamics...
Yes, different ones apply, but both need to be protected here.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
T-Shirts can be fun. I wonder if Richard Luckett will print me one that says:
I was busted in Texas in 1977 for amphetamine possession and I'll I got was this lousy t-shirt and five years probation.
I bet he wouldn't print me one like that. But if he would I'd give it to him to wear.
Mr. Luckett understands that people like Bush, Coulter, Hannity, etc. are in the public eye and are ripe for ridicule and parody. But now he is in the public eye too.
They have NO CHOICE. All trademark violations brought to the attention of the company that owns the trademark must be contested, or the company will LOSE THE TRADEMARK. Imagine the Fox News Channel logo showing up on CNN's air as CNN tries to confuse people into watching them instead of the real FNC. That's exactly what could happen - and does all the time - when companies don't fight to protect their trademarks and a court tosses them into the "public domain."
Sometimes "conservative bias" is just the truth.
The fact that they are using a combination of Fox's name along with a modification of their trademarked logo specifically for profit could be argued as an abuse of the concept of "fair use."
O'Reilly is a different case. He's fair game in terms of what the shirt depicts.
Sorry, but SCOTUS unanimously disagrees with you. Look here.
How many times an hour do commercial free propaganda radio shows like NPR's "ALL things considered" and Pacifica's "DEMOCRACY now" invoke their misleading names?
It's all a part of their mantra.
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