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Canon Tries To Shut Down "Fake" Canon Blog
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Feb 15, 2009 02:25 PM
from the what-part-of-fake-do-you-not-understand dept.
from the what-part-of-fake-do-you-not-understand dept.
Thomas Hawk writes "An interesting twist over at the Fake Chuck Westfall Blog. Fake Chuck (like Fake Steve before him) has a blog out parodying Canon's real Technical Information Advisor Chuck Westfall. It seems that Canon and their lawyers over at Loeb & Loeb are none too fond of all the fun that Fake Chuck and DSLR geeks everywhere have been having at their expense and have sent Fake Chuck's blog hosting company, WordPress, a notice to take the blog down. Canon's lawyers cite that Fake Chuck's blog is 'calculated to mislead recipients,' even though the blog has 'fake' in the title, 'fake' in the URL and 'fake' just about everywhere else in the blog. What in the heck is wrong with Canon? Do they really think that trying to shut down a parody blog is going to make their new 5D Mark II ship any faster?" After Fake Chuck removed the Canon logo from his site, WordPress is standing behind him and has rebuffed Canon's demand.
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Submission: Canon Tries to Shut Down "Fake" Canon Blog by Anonymous Coward
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Fake First Post (Score:5, Funny)
This post has fake all over it, so you can't mod it down.
Re:Fake First Post (Score:5, Funny)
I only have fake mod points today, so I fake modded you down.
Parent
MS fakery (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MS fakery (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Guess business is kinda slow (Score:5, Insightful)
More free press for Canon. The real intention all along. Good job.
Re:Guess business is kinda slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
You'd think by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Funny)
In this case, though, the views expressed are decidedly noncanonical.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
You, sir, win the pun-of-the-year award (at least so far).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, but there's no prohibition against making lots of noise and getting on the front page when you have a product you need to push.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely! Canon are hurting as they've had nothing but immense quality problems with almost every major model released in the last 2 years. Canon just cannot stand being called out as making 'fake' cameras and watch their user base walk over to real Nikon.
FACT: On a Luminous Landscapes trip to Antarctica, ZERO Nikon D700 failures, 6(six) Canon 5Dii failures of which 3 recovered and 3 were bricked.
Can you smell the PANIC back at Canon HQ?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In contrast to that, I haven't had any problems with my 40D at all, and the 350D I had before that only occasionally had issues with dirty contacts on the lens throwing that nasty "error 99" every once in a while.
I guess with DSLRs (or SLRs, really) you buy into whichever brand of dog food you are interested in, since lens cost will eventually eclipse camera body cost as you build a collection of lenses. We can bicker and argue about one brand being better than another, but as long as they take pretty faith
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just want to add that with the same two cameras, the 350D and my current 40D, I also haven't had problems.
I *have* had minor problems with lenses, especially third-party ones. That is where calibration/quality control is a major problem, even with Canon lenses (though I haven't had a problem with my Canon lenses, I know many others have.)
Re: (Score:2)
By definition, a company can't censor a person.
-b
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, wrong. [merriam-webster.com]
By definition, a company very much can censor.
It is just legal if it is the context of forums under that companies control, or using copyright/trademark laws.
Fake MWoody says... (Score:5, Funny)
...I'm a complete moron!
--Fake MWoody
Parent
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that the above poster would have noticed the 'fake' in the author's pseudonym.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Risking being off-topic, but seeing these all the time since the new "Web 2.0" upgrades to the slashcode has now drawn out the 'troll'.
Please! Put the 'moderate' *button* back. Simply putting taking action on an index change on the drop down list makes it so that people can accidentally mod the wrong way. It's only by good fortune that there are some people who decided to post something in response to remove the moderation. By putting the button back to confirm the selection, you avoid the mess of people posting to remove moderation and posts like these to beg for that simple piece of functionality be put back.
The Karma Whores will love you for it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
But I guess that just wouldn't be slick enough - buttons are SOOOO 'Web 1.0.'
</offtopic>
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Funny)
I tried to mod you offtopic but I ended up modding you insightful.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Someone wrote (and posted) a greasemonkey script a while back. Very useful and slick..
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/37311 [userscripts.org]
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Informative)
"Also, but I'm not sure if it's because of my browser's ineptitude, posting something to undo moderation doesn't give you the modpoints back."
That is intentional, check the moderation FAQ. The stated reason is that it allows an abusive mod to mod up/down a post in a new article, then post once it comes off the front page (making it a lot less important) and get the points back to use again.
Parent
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Informative)
He's not pretending to be a real person other than himself, he's pretending to be a fake person other than himself
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What about everyone that has a character on World of Warcraft?
Thanks to Canon and Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Wha says that's not what they were going for? These are sneaky bastards these corporate types. It's difficult tfor us straight thinking peeps to get a handle on them.
Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
The take down letter asked for 4 things:
1. Stop using the Canon logo.
2. Remove references to violence.
3. Remove references to Chuck's family.
4. Changes to the look and feel of the blog so it would not be
confused with actual Canon corporate sites.
It wasn't a totally unreasonable blanket take-down demand, and as such Fake Chuck will easily be able to comply and continue as a source of satire and humor.
Re:Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
I looked at the PDF of the takedown. Yes, it mentioned those four things as "particularly egregious" but it was a blanket take-down demand. Let's examine the basis they list for their complaint and their demand:
(emphasis mine)
If Wordpress hadn't exhibited some common sense, Fake Chuck would have had to find a new home.
Parent
Bad lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
I had to issue a takedown notice last year when I discovered that a fake business had stolen the identity of our legitimate business. As a result, we could have been raided by the police and had our equipment taken by them, which could have driven us out of business. The initial response of the website host was to go away. Before I could respond to this, which would have involved a High Court injunction, they obviously took legal advice and I suddenly got a grovel. So I am sympathetic to legitimate takedowns. As you say, part of this one was legitimate. But L&L should have done better than have it drafted by a paralegal, and simply insisted that the genuinely infringing material be removed or fixed, and requested as a matter of courtesy that the blog confine itself to technical matters. Despite their claims to the contrary, lawyers are frequently not the shiniest apples in the barrel.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
#20178 wrote:
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not so sure that requests 1. and 4. are unreasonable. After all, Canon's logo is a registered trademark. Besides, if you're going to parody the company and its employees, it's not a huge leap to parody the company logo as well.
Look at it as an opportunity to further lampoon Canon by coming up with a hilarious reworking of their logo.
As for requests 2. and 3., there's no need or justification for bringing Mr. Westfall's wife and daughter into the fray and certainly no call for references to violent act
Fwd: Thanks for the heads up about your blog! (Score:3, Interesting)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sam Johnston <samj-at-".net>
Date: Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 9:31 PM
Subject: Thanks for the heads up about your blog!
To: Chuck Westfall <cwestfall@cusa.canon.com>
Cc: Toni Scheinder <toni@automattic.com>, "Douglas E. Mirell" <dmirell@loeb.com>
G'day Chuck,
It's not every day that something truly entertaining comes to my
attention but thanks to my mates at Slashdot[1] and your mates at Loeb
& Loeb with their (surely fake?) letter[2] I was drawn attention to
your refreshingly entertaining fake blog[3]. Anyway I'm sure I'm one
of many who have immediately added your blog to my reader - it's truly
amazing what a bit of viral marketing can do for you!
Kodos to the guys at Automattic too for identifying the letter for
what it was so quickly and taking appropriate action - those guys
rock!
Eagerly awaiting your next post,
Your [virtual] friend,
Sam
1. http://fakechuckwestfall.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/982873542.pdf [wordpress.com]
2. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/15/1830217 [slashdot.org]
3. http://fakechuckwestfall.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
What? (Score:2)
Who is fake canon, or chuck for that matter and why should I give a shit? If DSLR wasn't mentioned I wouldn't have a clue this is something to do with photography.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
The story's not about photography. It's about a major multinational corporation using its lawyers and money to bully into silence bloggers who point out its failures.
You didn't get that?
Parent
I would not even have removed the logo (Score:5, Informative)
the biggest threat to Canon profits (Score:3, Insightful)
My experience with Canon printers has been good. They are very well constructed, using actual metal parts where it makes sense, they aren't the typical plastic shells surrounding mostly air one sees in the great majority of consumer printers.
I will not buy a new Canon printer.
Canon's PIXMA IP3000/4000/5000/6000 printers had the easiest to refill cartridges around. I've got an IP3000, which I bought for $60 with a $20 rebate when new. (and yes, Canon did actually send me the rebate money) Well, it's aging and developing enough signs of wear that I'm thinking of replacing it.
There are a few IP3000s left that were never sold in sealed retail boxes. The price at Amazon starts at $209. The cheapest used IP3000 available at Amazon starts at $110. People in the know would rather chance a used printer than buy a new Canon printer.
How often do you see computer peripherals go up in price years after they are manufactured to the point where they are far more expensive than comparable new ones? The demand for the old ones comes down to drastically reduced cost of ownership. I've been printing for the last year on $30 worth of high-quality fourmilabs bulk ink, and my printed photos have never looked better.
If Canon were to make a new line of printers with chipless cartridges, I'd be happy to pay $100+ for one. If they made one that could be used directly with bulk ink, I'd be delighted to pay $150.
Re:the biggest threat to Canon profits (Score:4, Insightful)
When Canon started chipping their cartridges I finally took the plunge and bought a Xerox color laser printer. I haven't looked back since.
FUCK the whole cheap printer/expensive ink business model.
Parent
3 words... (Score:3, Insightful)
His lawyers letter may constitute mail /wire fraud (Score:2)
Since the site is marked 'fake' it clearly is a parody. There may be grounds to argue that references to his wife and child are unacceptable because they might not be public figures, but the guy he's parodying clearly is. His own lawyers in the letter have conceded he is a public figure. Thus the standard for defamation is much higher than with a private party. While I'm not a lawyer, based on supreme court decisions such as New York Times v. Sullivan and Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, no reasonable perso
Loeb? (Score:2)
Isn't that the name of that evil gollum-attorney in Cryptonomicon? :P
The problem-- like soylent green --is people. (Score:3, Insightful)
People think stupid stuff. All it takes is that x% of people too stupid to grasp the concept, to then pass the 'information' on to their friends. Give it another iteration or two, and it starts to become a problem. Human beings readily accept the easiest to digest and most palatable information available to them. Canon is just trying to head that shit off.
Think about it this way; you have someone like Jack Thompson, devoting his every waking hour to convincing people that videogames are solely responsible for the breakdown of society. Bullshit, of course. But a percentage of people take it seriously enough to tell someone else, whether or not these people have any idea what in the hell they're talking about is irrelevant, with only a little help, such ideas can silently seep into common knowledge until a majority of people believe-- or at the very least, take seriously --such things.
To put it another way, if you're subjected to someone yelling about something loud enough, long enough, sooner or later it's going to have an effect.
I'm not saying Canon took the right tact, I mean the blog looks fairly harmless, I'm just saying I can think of a few reasons they'd want to do something about someone taking pokes at them in such a way.
For the record, I'm fairly brand-agnostic. Though I haven't used a Nikon SLR since the days of film.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:5D Mk II (Score:5, Insightful)
[......] already over 50 customer reviews posted.
Looks like Canon's marketing dept have been busy then!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It's been available in limited stock since late November/early December. Can still be a chore to get a hold of many places.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Informative)
Canon [luminous-landscape.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that it has been performing sub-par for many people, but I don't think the failure rate on that Antarctica trip is the right thing to point to. See my earlier comment at http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1128757&cid=26869539 [slashdot.org] for my analysis.
There are reports of earlier Antarctica trips on that site from previous years, with similar tallies of failed cameras. It doesn't tell you a whole lot other than that if you use your camera in extreme conditions it wasn't necessarily designed for, you