Dow vs. Parody 363
tres3 writes "I stumbled across this item on Wired about Verio cutting off The Thing's Internet access after seven years of service. It seems that The Yes Men have upset DOW Chemical with their parody press release concerning a poison gas leak at the Union Carbide plant (now owned by Dow) in Bhopal, India, in 1984, that killed thousands. It was posted by RTMark.com, one of hundreds of customers (mostly artists and political activists) of The Thing, but has gone missing following the DMCA claims by DOW. Some European sites are now hosting the site here and here (slightly different). What really sent me into orbit was Dow's response to all of this. While writing this submission I noticed that I have become a victim of The Yes Men and "Dow's" response is actually one of their parodies! :-) The story is still valid but the only thing I could find that really came from DOW was the DMCA complaint (pdf) to Verio. To add insult to injury (and death (pun intended)) Dow has committed a reprehensible act, even for corporate America, by suing the survivors for ten years of income ($10,000) for protesting Dow's failure to clean up the mess. Greenpeace has set up a site for you to protest this action." We did an earlier story on this.
I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:4, Insightful)
These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:4, Insightful)
It is absolutely vital to the continued existence of the internet as a medium of free speech that large corporations are NOT allowed to squelch opinions that do not cast them in a favorable light.
There is, however, a place where the line should be drawn. When creators of parody sites or critical sites start publishing people's real life names, home addresses, and other personal information against their will, then they have gone to far. At that point, they are putting actual people and their families at risk. When you create a parody or critical web site, you do not know what kind of people will visit the site. Some of the people who visit the site may be very unstable individuals capable of all sorts of terrible things. For a host of reasons, they might decide to utilize the personal information in order to cause real physical harm to the person being criticised or that person's family.
Perhaps the web site riled up their anger, or perhaps they thought the site was so amusing that they want to "thank" the creators by going out and causing real harm to the targets of the web site. This kind of stuff DOES happen folks, so don't blow it off as mere paranoia.
The reason I even bring up this issue is because of this part of the article:
> "We even put down James Parker's real home
> address! Very funny, right? Yes! Funny!"
> the Yes Men said in a statement.
Actually no, that is not funny. The only funny part about that was that James Parker was able to seize the domain name by presenting his drivers license and proof that he was the James Parker in question.
> "But on Dec. 4, James Parker himself, with the
> help of a team of Dow lawyers, sent a Xerox of
> his driver's license and a letter by FedEx to
> Gandi.net, saying, basically, "This domain
> belongs to me. See, that's my home address,
> too. Give it to me!"
>
> According to rules established by the Internet
> Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers --
> an organization responsible for, among other
> chores, Internet address disputes -- Parker was
> correct and Gandi.net had no legal choice but
> to hand over Dow-Chemical.com to James Parker.
That part I find absolutely hilarious =).
So while it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that governments and corporations NOT be allowed to squelch parody sites or sites that are critical of their behavior, it is equally important that the creators of such sites be prevented from distributing personal information about individuals.
The dangers inherent in the former put our freedoms at risk, just as the dangers inherent in the latter put lives at risk.
Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the
Yeah, Dow was a little underhanded to make the phone call after business hours, but The Thing could have blocked that trick simply by having a 24/7 answering service and an admin with a beeper. It's hard for them to try to claim that they aren't responsible for striking a website when they are told that what the site owners are doing is against the law, and I don't see why doing exactly what they were doing should be legal.
Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:5, Insightful)
If corporations have free speech, why can't the Yes Men? Honestly, what's the worse crime - poisoning a couple thousand people, or impersonating someone who isn't even a person?
Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:5, Insightful)
good times.
Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:5, Insightful)
The news that Dow is suing the Bopahl survivors to try to silence their protests over Dows failure to clean up is news to me.
The Union Carbide disaster at Bopahl was due to sheer negligence and greed. Dow still refuses to clean up the site of the disaster and has yet to pay compensation to most of the victims.
Perhaps if students stopped and considered the wisdom of joining a company that could kill 800 people with its negligence and not care a damn Dow might have a lot more difficulty recruiting on campus.
If you are choosing an employer in the chemical business their safety record should be your first concern. If you work for a company like Dow that is saying that they can kill 800 people, create pollution that will kill even more and they just don't care you are quite litteraly putting your own life on the line for their corporate profits.
The same goes for communities that have Dow installations near them, or planned to be built near them. Make sure that your representatives are aware that Dow cannoit be trusted.
Didja all catch... (Score:5, Insightful)
A bunch of women marched on DOW HQ in India, delivering some of the contanimated soil and water from Bhopal. The protest lasted two peaceful hours. A single DOW employee greeted them.
DOW is now suing them for the equivalent of US$10K -- a helluva lot of money, particularly in India -- for "lost wages" because of the "work disruption."
Disgusting. First they slaughter hundreds and thousands of employees and families through cost-cutting, undertraining, and poor plant maintenance; then they refuse to clean up the mess; then they sue the very people who were hurt by the accident.
Sometimes it would be e'er so nice to be able to punish CEOs as if they'd committed the crimes themselves.
Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:3, Insightful)
Free speech does not give you the right to say whatever you want and damned be the consequences. It doesn't work that way.
Honestly, what's the worse crime - poisoning a couple thousand people, or impersonating someone who isn't even a person?
Ah, the classic "But they started it!" defense. That always works so well in the courts.
"peaceful protest" (Score:4, Insightful)
From reading between the lines of the article, it appears that they are suing the protesters, and not all the survivors, for what sounds like an irresponsible protest rather than a peaceful one. If someone showed up at my company's door with deadly chemicals, we'd have to shut the place down for security reasons, at a cost to the business.
Dow may be wrong or negligent in compensating the survivors, but protesters causing a business to loose money to gain their attention or try and get them to change their action is about as effective as spanking a child when they don't eat their peas. They're just going to grow up hating those that spank them.
Play a little devils advocate. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't really know why the copyright violations in this are DMCA, it seems that normal copyright and trademarks cover thier violations, and yes they are violations. They were before DMCA and still will be if the DMCA is repealed. Though this should not have forced the whole site down, just the removeal of the copyrighted/trademarked images (hey, make some parody version of them - that's legal, but you can't just copy thier images and pretend to be them). Plus they quote cybersquatting statutes, they don't really seem to be cybersquatting (though using dow-chemical is iffy on copyright, had they used something like dow-chemical-sucks they would have easily been in the parody/protest stuff, but they seemed to have intentionally tried to fool someone into thinking they were dow to get them there).
And lastly "Dow has committed a reprehensible act, even for corporate America, by suing the survivors for ten years of income ($10,000) for protesting Dow's failure to clean up the mess." No, even according to the greenpeace article the survivors carried contamited material to thier site - that's not legal. While I greatly sympathise with them (and definatly think they got screwed royally) that doesn't give you the right to do that. As neither does being rich give someone the right to pollute with impunity. Much like in the US many protestors seem to think that the first amendment gives them the right to trasspass and destroy property, it doesn't - gather on public land all you want, don't block traffic and not only are you legal but you garner much more sympathy.
In sum, they have a very legitimate complaint, dow chemical did some VERY bad stuff and deserve to be raped in court, and never have and probably never will. But that doesn't give you the right (in the US, or apparently india either) to do whatever you feel (eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth isn't in the constitution). Plus my final complaint is that we have only heard one side, greenpeace isn't really know for being exactly unbiased and giving complete stories. There are much more effective ways to try and get something, they failed, now all they do is make people much less sympathetic overall to their cause (maybe it makes them feel better though).
Dow's Responses (Score:5, Insightful)
The paid ~$500 million to the Indian Government for ongoing cleanup, to create a medical program for anyone who lives in the affected area, and to cover things like ongoing monitoring of the chemical creep. They also paid out an additional ~$20 million to build and maintain a new hospital specifically in the area to handle any related medical claims. They also added an additional ~$55 million dollars to the hospital support funds when they bought out UCI.
They actually have paid out far more than the lawsuits against them in US courts originally stated (where the Indian government received a ruling for ~$350 million). I think all told that Dow has produced over $600 million for cleanup and ongoing support and healthcare.
All in all, most of the cleanup, treatment and monitoring of chemical contamination in the area is supposed to be handled by the Indian Government, not by Dow directly. If those hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent somewhere else, are people asking the government (or whoever they've appointed to handle the situation) where it's going?
This is especially apt as many of the court cases have focused on Dow's liability, and the majority still uphold the 'reasonable doubt' that Dow was criminally liable (which is why they still haven't tried very hard to get Warren Anderson shipped their for homicide charges), and even some went so far as to support the findings of 3rd party teams that the chemical release was a result of a deliberate act by a disgruntled worker.
Now, it's been 18 years, and I don't personally have any knowledge of anything to do with Bhopal beyond what I can read. However, based on that information, I think a lot of this is the result of PR by Greenpeace and others who conveniently ignore the things that Dow *has* done.
As an aside, I don't work for Dow, have any relatives who work for Dow, or own stock in Dow (unless one of those pathetic 401k funds that are basically WORTHLESS right now has shares, in which case I don't give a damn). I just see a lot of knee-jerk reactions and wonder if a lot of people who 'know about bhopal' have ever done more than read 1 website or less? Could Dow be a tool of Satan designed to make life on Earth a living hell, run completely by unfeeling demons who want to kill and maim innocent people? Sure. Is it probably that black-and-white? I really doubt it. It's only fair to research both sides.
Whither Globalization? (Score:4, Insightful)
A negligent American company releases poisonous gases in a third-world country and kills or injures tens of thousands of (dark-skinned) people. You would think the world would be outraged.
No. Suddenly, Dow chemicals was no longer a global company - it was an American company, run by American citizens who are bound only by American laws! The Indians had to struggle very hard to bring these people to court - it is still not over, 18 years after the 'accident'.
Globalization is a wonderful thing, but only if all such aspects are dealt with. People tend to forget that free markets in countries like the USA work well only when the companies are governed by law and regulated by watchdog organizations. While the West aggressively pushes for global free markets, they don't seem to realize that there is no global law and no global watchdog or regulatory body.
What Dow chemicals did is an extremity, but there are many other simpler violations. Think about it - Coke sells cans in USA, among hundreds of other countries. That is great. But, how many of these countries have proper recycling facilities? Many third world countries are being pressurized by the world bank to open up to MNCs and are they are all becoming dumping grounds for these multi national companies. Heck, most of these countries don't even have proper drinking water for its population, but Coke and Pepsi are available everywhere!
Re:They keep going on about (Score:2, Insightful)
Not According to G.W. Bush, he himself said "There ought to be limits to freedom" when he was talking about Parodies of his campaign website.
Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no. The above quotations are from DOW Ethics.com [dowethics.com], which is obviously one of the parody sites.
I say obviously, because I do not for one hot second think that anyone here can or should defend DOW Chemical in this matter. Yes, The Onion is an obvious parody, but not because of the disclaimers or the site design, but because of the content. And don't pull out your tired and elitist "Joe Average" arguments, because Joe Average is probably not surfing the DOW chemical websites anyway. Those sites are for investors and business types and if they aren't smart enough to tell when they are being had, well, fuck 'em.
These are very strange times we live in today, and strange times call for strange measures. Yes, the parody people took some extreme steps (ripping off corporate design, registering similar domain names) but that's what it might take to get attention. And it certainly did get some attention, now didn't it? How many of you would even be thinking about the policies and procedures of DOW chemicals today if it weren't for this story? Probably three of you. Certainly not me, I'm nursing a headache from lack of sleep.
Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:3, Insightful)
However, Dow is dumping those same chemicals on somebody else's doorstep. They're just being nice enough to return them for analysis...
Re:Didja all catch... (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting point about the Indian government, though.
Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be defamation, or more precisely, libel Dow would have to show false facts. What are the false facts that have been published?
Second it is not false representation. Parody by nature requires one to create an image of what you are making parody of. To be fraud, they must be attempting to get something of value.
Asking a court to restrict someone's right or penalize someone for their speech is an infringment of the first amendment. Using the threat os this should also be considered the same.
Re:Dow's Responses (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent post! I have little doubt that Greenpeace is once again playing fast and loose with the facts to further their political agenda against multinational corporations. It's just a shame that so many people buy into the notion that Greenpeace is an unbiased guardian when even one of the founders of the organization now says of it, "They're using environmental rhetoric to cloak agendas like class warfare and anti-corporatism that, in fact, have almost nothing to do with ecology."
And now the info in your post, if true, shows they're up to the same old tricks with Dow.
Yep, we do have to keep an eye on corporations and make a point to highlight grievous activity...that's what gave The Yes Men "parody" such legs. But we also need to keep an eye on activist groups like Greenpeace and be every bit as suspicious of their propaganda.
Dow complaint seems valid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:5, Insightful)
How the DMCA got involved (Score:4, Insightful)
Where the DMCA kicks in is the takedown provisions. Dow called Verio and said "Get this off the Web now!" and Verio was required to honor that request. Verio tried calling The Thing, but they weren't available because they had shut down for the day and didn't leave anyway to contact anyone in control. Verio had no way to delete the site other than to pull their whole line, so they did.
Eventually The Thing pulled the illegal site, and Verio restored access. However, because The Thing caused this whole mess by not having somebody on call who could respond to the takedown demand, they downtime was theirs even though Verio is taking the blame. Verio has now decided they don't want to do business with The Thing anymore, because they don't like being blamed for their customer's inactions.
Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:5, Insightful)
A negligent American company releases poisonous gases in a third-world country and kills or injures tens of thousands of (dark-skinned) people. You would think the world would be outraged.
Your comparison between Carbide and Hussein is morally bankrupt.
There is a very large difference between the negligence (if there was actual negligence) of Carbide and murderous intent of Saddam Hussein to commit genocide. Carbide certainly did NOT go out and say 'let's kill off a bunch of folks using MIC to cut down on these local protests'.
There is also the fact that the UCarbide plant in West Va, had problems with MIC accidents as well. The concept that Carbide was doing anything in India because it felt that Indians were less worthy than Americans is speculative, to say the least.
UC does bear a great deal of responsibility for what happened in India. But it was not genocide, murder, chemical warefare or any other such act. It was an unintended industrial accident of unprecidented impact.
Maybe UC was negligent in it's operations of the Bhopal plant - but the fact is that best practice standards then and now are two very different things. And the fact is that ultimately that local management of a chemical plant is in the best position to address safety issues. That local management must share a great deal of the responsibility for what happened, including ultimately the leaky valve that was the immediate cause of the accident. That local management was Indian.
good points, but not entirely true (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't entirely true. Large-scale corporations (the size of Hudson Bay or East Indian, which were exceptions) didn't really emerge until the late 1800's.
Another note is the fundamental disconnect in power between management and shareholder. Certainly businesses started with owners that "hired hands" to run the place. But eventually (WW2 and beyond) management rose as a distinct discipline and practice. Management held a tremendous amount of what could be almost called "illegitimate" power.. that is, until the backlash of hostile takeovers of the 1970's and 80's. Hostile takeovers before this time were quite rare... and it's really what started the whole "maximize shareholder value" fad we hear about today -- if you don't keep your stock price up, you'll get raided.
Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:3, Insightful)
According to the UN : China is doing all it can to reduce its emissions, the US is still increasing its pollution."
Like much of the world, China is doing something about C02, which is a good job, because the US's refusal to work with the Kyoto Protocol is embarrassing.
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