Canon Tries To Shut Down "Fake" Canon Blog 125
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.
5D Mk II (Score:1, Insightful)
I dont't have one, but it seems the 5D Mk II is already out. On Geizhals [geizhals.at], an Austrian price comparison website (Google translation [google.com]), numerous retailers list it as available. At €2380 (the cheapest one that actually has it in stock) it's not exactly cheap, but then again, most professional DSLRs aren't.
Guess business is kinda slow (Score:5, Insightful)
More free press for Canon. The real intention all along. Good job.
You'd think by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks to Canon and Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You'd think by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that the above poster would have noticed the 'fake' in the author's pseudonym.
Re:Guess business is kinda slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You'd think by now... (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: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.
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.
Re:5D Mk II (Score:5, Insightful)
[......] already over 50 customer reviews posted.
Looks like Canon's marketing dept have been busy then!
Re:You'd think by now... (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.
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?
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.
3 words... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:You'd think by now... (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 faithful pictures, it doesn't really matter.
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.