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Censorship Government The Courts News Your Rights Online

RadioAid.com vs. Clear Channel Communications, Inc 22

Posted by Hemos from the well-duh-yes dept.
Rob Vining writes "On July 16th, 2004, a decision was handed down from the National Arbitration Forum that took away ownership of RadioAid.com's website "ClearChannelSucks.net" and gave the website to the complaintant, Clear Channel Communications, Inc. The decision of the arbitration panel has left us (the founders of RadioAid.com) with only one choice. That choice is, to file suit vs. Clear Channel communications, Inc. to retain ownership of our outlet for free speech against this corporate monopoly. Http://www.RadioAid.com/sucks.asp We're raising legal funds in our suit vs. Clear Channel and would be so appreciative to have you spread the word to your readers and create awareness of yet another attempt for a billion dollar company to silence it's critics and squash free speech on the internet. Please help us spread the word about this and any assistance you could provide in posting this to other media outlets would be extremely helpful!"
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RadioAid.com vs. Clear Channel Communications, Inc More

RadioAid.com vs. Clear Channel Communications, Inc

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  • Nuke Dissent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 ) <obsessivemathsfreak.eircom@net> on Monday July 19, 2004 @08:57AM (#9737042) Homepage Journal
    This is unbelievable you know. Not only does ClarChannel fill the airwaves with rubbish music 24/7, now we aren't even entitled to parody or saitirise them anymore. What would happen if someone instead started the site ClearChannelIsAMonopoly.net ? Do they get sued too? I'll bet the DMCA had something to do with this. And since it was a .net domain, were Verisign involved?

    RadioAid was taken to arbitration instead of the US Judicial system
    This part sickens me the most. Forget a jury of your peers. It would seem that important decisions are now left to private clubs. I wouldn't be surprised if some in the clear channel camp played golf/tennis/handball with some of the 'independant' arbitrators and chatted about the case 'off the record'. "Tsk,tsk. Those RadioAid Hippies. Communists, I tell you Bob. Sheer terrorist sympathisers. FORE!!"

    The implications of this could be very far reaching. For instance, if Clear Channel can annex ChealChannelSucks.net, what else can they do? Can they SLAAP Google to stop referencing sites wich critisise them? Can they sue sites that critisise them because they used the ClearChannel name without consent? Will someone come after me for the above paragraph? Will they come after you for reading it? Linking to it? We NEED to be able to say out loud and in public CLEARCHANNELSUCKS!! THEY ARE AN EVIL MONOPOLY!! Without getting our asses sued off for unconformity. If we can't, then the slope just gets slipperier.
    Fight the power RadioAid. I've never heard of you but I'm with you 100%.

    Is clearchannelsucks.org [clearchannelsucks.org] still about? Or has it been blasted by too many censorware products picking up 'suck' in the url? How long until clearchannel get that one too, having been 'aided' by the decision in the favour on .net?

    • Re:Nuke Dissent (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ballpoint ( 192660 )
      The answers to your question are successively:
      - the same thing
      - yes
      - no
      - anything
      - yes
      - yes
      - no
      - no
      - no
      - yes
      - no
      - between 1 day and 100 years

      HTH
      • Can they SLAAP Google to stop referencing sites wich critisise them?
        - yes

        Reminds me of a Case [2600.com] with 2600.com and an Airplane company that didn't want bad critism after it had a plane crash in the Everglades, and it's website site hacked after the company name changed... Of course with the help of the DCMA they have changed the Result of Google Search [google.com]

        It would not help AirTran Airways to know that they were Valujet [cnn.com]

        Thanks to the DMCA it even affects google.ca, or google.co.uk or... you get the

    • Re:Nuke Dissent (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:26AM (#9738202) Homepage Journal

      Unless RadioAid wasn't paying it's bills, it's hard to see where ClearChannel has much case. Does the National Arbitration Forum publish its decisions and provide a synopsis of what the thinking was that led to their decision?

      IIRC, in the past, companies and political campaigns typically had the forethought to buyout in advance domains that were critical of them $MY_BRANDsucks.com.

      So, are other domains available, such as

      clearchannelsux.com
      clearchannelstiflesdissent.com

      It would seem to me that avenues for criticism are vital to preserve, that suppression of any speech outlet short of provable slander or libel should be viewed as quite dangerous to the public interest.

      But I'm confused - didn't RadioAid have to agree in advance to use the National Arbitration Forum? Or was such a matter of "an offer they couldn't refuse" in the face of overwhelming legal onslaught from Clear Channel?

      [I know Clear Channel sucks and don't dispute it, but I'd like to know exactly what the mechanisms are in our society that help them to stifle dissent. Knowledge is our only hope of acting correctly to change things for the better.]

      • Does the National Arbitration Forum publish its decisions and provide a synopsis of what the thinking was that led to their decision?

        Yes, and RadioAid was kind enough to link to the decision [arb-forum.com]. Briefly, Clear Channel requested that the complaint be heard by a single arbiter, and the arbiter found that (1) appending "sucks" to a trademarked name does not by itself mean that you are using the name for protected free speech purposes, and (2) RadioAid hadn't shown that it was using the name for free speech pur

      • It's not a matter of the merits of the case. It is the mandatory arbitration that precludes the determination of the case on the merits.

        This is an ICANN reg.

    • Re:Nuke Dissent (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AKnightCowboy ( 608632 )
      The answer is that you can start a protest site, just don't mention the company you're protesting ANYWHERE in the domain name. How about monopolistic-radio-sucks.com?

  • The obvious choice is (Score:5, Funny)

    by MarkGriz ( 520778 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:20AM (#9738158)
    On July 16th, 2004, a decision was handed down from the National Arbitration Forum that took away ownership of RadioAid.com's website "ClearChannelSucks.net" and gave the website to the complaintant, Clear Channel Communications, Inc. The decision of the arbitration panel has left us (the founders of RadioAid.com) with only one choice. That choice is,

    ...of course, to register clearchannelreallysucks.org, clearchannelblows.net, and clearchannelcanbiteme.com

    Too bad there's not a .ass TLD
  • SOME ONE KNOCKS THEM ON THEIR ARSE! But, that'll come with like, a lottery string of luck. get the right judge, get the right people in the whole string of things and then the decision MIGHT be right and go agiast CC

  • CC has no chance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Deagol ( 323173 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:29PM (#9740934) Homepage
    IIRC, 2600.com won its case concerning the verizonreallysucks.com [slashdot.org] case. Actually, Verizon realized they had no case and gave in [2600.com].

    The various "cybersquatting" laws could affect this lawsuit. But I think that CC would loose in a legal fight.

  • National Arbitration Forum sucks? (Score:3, Informative)

    by xpccx ( 247431 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:59PM (#9741893)
    "...a decision was handed down from the National Arbitration Forum that took away ownership of RadioAid.com's website."

    Findlaw has an article [findlaw.com.au] on a judge overturning a decision by the NAF over freebies.com and the NAF is being sued [tlpj.org] for "...refusing to disclose information about how it handles cases when consumer rights are at stake." Google for National Arbitration Forum [google.com] and you'll find what looks like many [counsel.net](read through the thread) sketchy things about this group.

  • This will probably get modded off topic or some such, but its important. Currently www.radioshacksucks.com is down from a temporary injuction filed in Texas by RadioShack Corporation. Another threat to first amendmant rights. I urge all of you who support RadioAid to take notice of our cause as well. Please read http://socaltom.blogspot.com/ and join our group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/radioshacksucks/ to learn more. I also urge any sympathetic ear to submit a news story to Slashdot, several atempts
  • http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/stories.php?topic=0 2/05/16/8250143

    seems liek cc's got lots of dung on their plate this summer, this one may not even ding'em
  • This was in the Austin American Statesman today... Company sues Clear Channel to keep domain name Radio giant contends RadioAid is using Web site to divert consumers By Jonathan Osborne AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Wednesday, July 28, 2004 A small Austin Internet company filed suit against Clear Channel Communications on Tuesday over a Web site domain name that criticizes the San Antonio-based radio giant. RadioAid.com, an online promoter of unsigned and independent musical artists, purchased ClearChann

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