Copyright infringement complaint from The Onion

Email from The Onion | 09/19/03 | Sean Mills

[Jim Robinson]

Subject: Copyright infringement

Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 16:27:04 -0400

From: Sean Mills smills@theonion.com

To: webmaster@freerepublic.com

Dear Free Republic,

It has come to our attention that you have published a number of pieces of Onion content at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/keyword/onion

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-onion/browse

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/583819/posts

This material was published in THE ONION and the images you are presenting are being served by our servers. The material that you are publishing was published without permission of ONION, INC. Further, the material is copyrighted. You have infringed on our copyright and we, therefore, demand that you immediately cease and desist from any further use of the copyrighted material and remove the material from your website. In addition, you may not use the material in any other manner whatsoever.

Please understand that we anticipate your full and immediate cooperation in this matter. Also, please understand that we do not hesitate to enforce our rights in these situations.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sean Mills

[Diogenesis]

Anything good I've said previously about the Onion, I now take back.

[BreitbartSentMe]

Well, that shows how much I know. Who know's what their problem is, but no more Onions for me!

[Madame Dufarge]

Too bad, I'll miss my occasional visits to The Onion.

Oh well.

[Sloth]

Yea, I think MineralMan is right, the Fair Use clause that allows us to use news stories here would not apply to the Onion, because all their 'news' items are pure fiction or satire

I'd agree in the legal sense, but it seems like a dumb strategy to me to quash things that *promote* your product. The Star Trek & Star Wars franchises have sued some fan sites for using copyrighted pics & trademarked names, when all those sites do is drum up business for those franchises. It's a short-sighted judgment made by a lawyer, not a savvy businessman.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Good one!

[Jim Robinson]

Suggest you pose this question to Sean Mills smills@theonion.com . You may reference this thread.
Thanks,
Jim

[alisasny]

Dear Sean,

Thank GOD. Your mindless drivel was clogging up our Free Republic boards and distracting from our message at hand.

Good riddance.

Lisa : )

[Recovering_Democrat]

okey dokey Jim.

[Kay Soze]

So long as I post here I will abide by the rules.

No tears here.

But as others have said the links here were the only reason I ever learned of the Onions existence. Given the Onions satire is political I would have though they’d be happy with the traffic Freeps generate for them.

[Centurion2000]

Jim .... here's a post that I used from them. If they are going to be this way about it, I'll help and you can zap post 67 here.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/874796/posts

[DannyTN]

"Too many folks have taken them seriously in the past"

I know China has a lot of people, but I would say that just because China took them seriously, that's too many.

[evets]

You mean the "Onion" is 'satire'? (No wonder I didn't get it.) I forgot to turn enable my satire option! OH! hee hee. Now I get it! Aaaargh

[Nam Vet]

"I know I went there everytime I saw an article from them posted here. If it wasn't for the occasional Freeper article, I'd forget about them completely."

Exactly the same in my experience. They will end up losing my hits. Besides, we here at FR are blessed with MANY talented writers who are PROUD to be associated with FReeRepublic.com.

Nam Vet

[bluebunny]

I second that.

[RonDog]

Jim .... here's a post that I used from them. If they are going to be this way about it, I'll help and you can zap post 67 here.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/874796/posts

That would be:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/874796/posts?page=67#67

[pgyanke]

Did you get their permission to post their complaint about us not getting their permission to post their stuff? You may have just upset them again and doomed us all! </sarcasm

[Caipirabob]

I would have never heard of "The Onion" if it wasn't for FR.

So looks like I'll never hear about "The Onions" content ever again. Pity, it was the only way I ever hit their site, I'd always click on the link to read the article. I suspect FR is responsible for much of the traffic for the major comedy and news sites, since I never start anywhere else.

Dumb, dumb, dumb of them IMHO.

[CFC__VRWC]

Exactly the same in my experience. They will end up losing my hits.

Same here - I've zapped my bookmarks to the Onion site. What would be interesting to find out would be if anyone from DU or Bartcop (or any of the other liberal sewers) has been posting Onion material, and if they have been, whether Sean Mills is also going to go after them. From the tone of his e-mail, it seems like Mr. Mills would view even FR links to his site to be offensive to him.

[Fester Chugabrew]

[Centurion2000]

Well it seemed the perfect reply to post 34 in that thread.