Former Congressman Learns About Streisand Effect 527
corbettw writes "Ted Alvin Klaudt, a former South Dakota lawmaker convicted of raping his two foster daughters, has sent news organizations what he claims is a copyright notice that seeks to prevent the use of his name without his consent." The story says Klaudt maintains "no one can use his name without his consent, and anyone who does would owe him $500,000."
Son of Sam (Score:5, Interesting)
Since his name is related to his crime (and felony conviction), wouldn't newspapers be protected by South Dakota's Son of Sam law, preventing him from profiting from stories/descriptions of his crimes? I guess he could win and give the money to charity, but that would mean even more publicity. The whole thing's ridiculous and he deserves whatever he gets.
From TF New York Times A: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:From TF New York Times A: (Score:3, Interesting)
Been tried before (Score:3, Interesting)
This particular scam has been tried before, [interesting-people.org] especially by convicts. At best it creates a lot of spurious legal paperwork that has to be dealt with. It's a great way to cause headaches for the legal folk.
Re:Title wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
While Ted Klaudt served in the legislature, his name was attached to several bills designed to protect children from sex abuse. Klaudt served in the South Dakota House from 1998 to 2006. He served on the appropriations as well as the government operations and audit committees. And while in office, he co-sponsored several bills that took aim at sex offenders.
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail6371.cfm?Id=0,57165 [keloland.com]
Re:Fair Use? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sex is used as a basis to sell products across the nation every day. The media and advertisers have rammed it down our throats that beauty and sexual attractiveness mean being a skinny 19 year old girl. Whats the difference between a 19 and 17 year old girl? Essentially nothing on average. Our society has chosen numbers arbitrarily as a dividing line between those who can have sex legally.
Mix that with a society that consumes copious amounts of growth hormones in milk and meat products and has girls reaching physical sexual maturity at younger and younger ages and you're bound to have men attracted to younger and younger girls. It's a natural conclusion. For most of human history, sex, marriage and childbirth all followed closely after sexual maturity. Even now, some backwards countries like Saudi Arabia allow child marriage before puberty, but I agree this is wrong.
What this man did was wrong. I'm not trying to deny that. I'm merely saying that 44 years is a lot for succumbing to a desire that advertisers have implanted in his head. This man needs treatment. Incarceration won't give him that.
Additionally, what kind of idiot do you have to be to allow your stepfather to use a dildo on you to see if your eggs are healthy.... Jesus Christ what a moron.
Very nice example of Streisand Effect (Score:3, Interesting)
A google search for "Ted Alvin Klaudt" [google.com] currently gives the following first hits:
"Lawmaker, Convicted Of Raping Foster Kids, Claims Name Is ... - 3 hours ago ..."
Ted Alvin Klaudt was convicted of raping his two foster daughters a couple years ago. Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt was convicted of raping his two foster daughters
"Ted Alvin Klaudt | FreakBits ... Former lawmaker Ted Alvin Klaudt, who was previously convicted of raping his two foster daughters, has sent copyright threats to news ..."
Dec 16, 2009
I'm sure more is yet to come.
Re:Fair Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe here people are much more tough-on-crime than I am. In Finland, at least, murder gets you locked in for only 10 years [wikipedia.org]. And yet they're below the US [nationmaster.com] in overall murder rates.
Re:Fair Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, good catch. An important distinction.
But I might nuance that further. Interestingly, Craig and Klaudt do share the hypocritical-persecution-of-similar-others quality. They are jerks of a stripe this way.
This kind of thing seems so common that it's growing reflexive to narrow one's eyes at the more vocal bashers of child molesters and gays.
Re:Fair Use? (Score:4, Interesting)
This sentiment may be unpopular with most folks, and Hammurabi, but I don't believe that people should be made to suffer for the sake of some kind of balancing out.
Sentences should be given for deterrence or containment. Not retribution.
I know it sounds kooky. I know it flies in the face of intuition. But that's what I think.
Re:Fair Use? (Score:4, Interesting)
Much of the damage of rape comes not from the actual act (unless it was particularly violent) , but from all of the stigma and media circuses surrounding it. Parents freak out and yell, "OH, MY GOD!" and start screaming and crying, which dosen't help matters for the victim. Sex crimes are sexy - not to you and I, but to the media and to the prosecution who know they will profit from the circus, usually causing considerable anguish to the victim because rape is excessively emotionally-charged in our society.
People loved to foam at the mouth with regard to Roman Polanski, but they don't realize that things like that were widespread in funkier times. Even his so-called "victim", who consented and enjoyed the act, just wanted everybody to drop it and shut up about it. Gore Vidal dismissed the incident in an interview, saying , "Meh. That was the norm, and she was a hussy." Mick Jagger had sex with his friend's 13 year-old daughter and I don't see anybody wanting to cart him to the gallows. Pete Townshend was caught looking at boy porn and his music still graces the introductions of CSI shows! The people who love or hate Michael Jackson may not agree with what he did, but those who understand his childhood also understand why he's a weirdo.
We must end the cognitive dissonance in society and learn to see things for what they are. It makes no sense that we have a lifetime registrant list for rapists and not for murderers!
Re:Not in Jail long enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fair Use? (Score:2, Interesting)
trademark? (Score:1, Interesting)
I am not sure what to make of the claim. Can you really copyright your name. I would think that this is trademarking not copyrighting.
Re:Fair Use? (Score:1, Interesting)
Men are not supposed to look at their daughters, nieces, or other much younger girls in his family or under his care as sexual objects. Doing so is not merely succumbing to a normal drive, it is a pretty fundamental perversion of basic relationships.
Actually it isn't, incest is pretty much a cultural thing, there's other cultures where it's the norm more than the exceptions.
It was common in egypt, for one. Cleopatra, in adition to Julius Caesar's, bore the children of 2 of her brothers, to name just one famous exemple.
As far as the "much younger girls" argument is concerned, it's also a cultural thing, I don't think you're going to slap me with a [citation needed] on that one.
So I would say it's pretty much succumbing to normal drive. Now, in our society, we deem it undesirable for people under 18 to have sex with people over 18. Which is pretty much a legal thing to prevent abuses of positions of authority and influence.
I don't disagree that rape is undesirable, or abusing one's position of authority (which this person clearly did have and did abuse) is equally undesirable, but it is succumbing to a normal drive. Just because we, as a society, attempt to weed out that particular trait does not make it any less natural.
And, before you label me a pedophiliac/rapist apologist, I discovered 3 days ago that my 15 year old niece was having a relationship with her 27 year old teacher. They both claim to be in love etc. While I don't doubt the potential validity of their feelings, I also realize that it is not a good thing in the current times in the society they live in, ergo I put an end to that...
Re:Fair Use? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fair Use? (Score:1, Interesting)
And most industrialized countries don't have the death penalty or problems with prison rape.
So the tough-on-crime attitude in the US is quite obviously in no way beneficial (and if I had to guess, I'd say that it's quite possibly counterproductive).