IP: CIVIL LIBERTIES GROUP PLANS EFFORT TO PROTECT NET PARODY: Edupage, July 11, 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) this fall intends to
> open the "Chilling Effects Clearinghouse," an online repository
> of letters sent from lawyers for copyright holders to those
> engaged in parodies of those copyrights. Calling such letters
> "broad" and "unfounded," EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said the
> organization hopes to dissuade corporate attorneys from bullying
> the rights of online parodists. Indeed, such a letter spurred
> the EFF's action. Lawyers for the children's TV show "Barney"
> contacted the EFF, asking it to remove from its archive an
> article from the online magazine Computer Underground Digest in
> which an author makes negative comments about the singing purple
> dinosaur. The EFF, although in the process of removing the
> magazine's archive to another site, has taken up the challenge
> and contends that the lawyers have misinterpreted the point of
> copyright law. Cohn said the author's noncommercial use of
> copyrighted material not only fails to violate copyright law,
> but is, in fact, protected by it.
> (Newsbytes, 6 July 2001)



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