William Day, The “No Humor Man”
By Greg L | 11 July 2007 | 31st HOD District | 7 Comments
Apparently the Democrat trying so miserably to unseat Delegate Scott Lingamfelter in the 31st District has a thin skin. A few months ago a friend of mine pointed out that William Day had failed to protect some domain names or even set up a campaign website, so I decided to have some fun with this hapless guy and set up a spoof website at www.voteday.org. Since the registrar I tend to use these days provides a free service of private registration, I took advantage of this just to see how well it works. Not too well, as it turns out, since they rolled at the first complaint that seemed to spell the word “legal”. Oh, well.
So I got a note from my domain registrar that they were outing me as the owner of voteday.org, based on this goofy complaint:
From: Matt Latham [mailto:lathamok@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 11:08 AM
To: legal@1and1.com
Cc: dan-hawes@virginialegaldefense.com
Subject: Removal of WebsiteTo whom it may concern,
I am contacting you regarding a website that your company is currently hosting. The website www.voteday.org is a faux site that represents itself as the official site of candidate Bill Day for the House of Delegates in Virginia. The content of the site is written as fact when it is not. It is also considered political communications because of the nature of the content. However, it does not include the “paid for by” line that is required for political communications by law. I am hoping that you will be able to either take the site down or force the individual to abide by the law and identify who paid for the site. The content should also be evaluated as it does not present a true representation of the facts. I would also hope that you would release the information on who has registered and paid for the site so that we can pursue legal action if necessary.
Please let me know what I can do to have the site removed or help in any way. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Matt Latham
Campaign Manager
Bill Day for Delegate
www.dayfordelegate.org
703-763-1619
Oh well, this has the potential to be fun. Within hours of them updating the WHOIS record to show that I’m behind this, I get the following:
From: Enforcement@VirginiaLegalDefense.com
Reply-To: Enforcement@VirginiaLegalDefense.com
To: greg@mydomain
Subject: voteday.org website
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:30:55 -0400I noticed your website today apparently sponsoring Bill Day’s campaign forVirginia House of Delegates, but the text seemed kind of off-the-wall. Was that intended as parody, or what? And did you actually obtain permission from Day, Gore, and Kucinich to use their names and likeness in connection with your website?
No signature, no name associated with this email, and it comes from the “enforcement” practice at this law firm. Who do these folks think they are, the Commonwealth’s Attorney? Do they really think I’m so stupid that I would start cowering in fear over this? I’m not lawyer bait, I’m stupid lawyer bait.
Here’s my response. I had to try really hard to not respond with “BITE ME”:
We here at voteday.org are really proud of our promotion of William Day’s bold agenda for Virginia and his endorsements by Al Gore and Dennis Kucinich. We emailed them asking if they had a problem with endorsing Bill’s candidacy, and they never told us they had any objections. Quite a coup, don’t you think? A local candidate getting such big name endorsements from national political leaders doesn’t happen every day!
Bill’s bold vision for improving the Virginia General Assembly might seem a little ahead of the curve, but progressive ideas like this are hardly “off-the wall”. Remember, for centuries we thought slavery was a good thing, and those advocating for freeing those in bondage were initially perceived as “off-the-wall”. Hypnosis of the General Assembly is just another one of those ideas that is a little ahead of it’s time. I’m confident that once voters understand just how brilliant this is, Bill will get tremendous support.
This is quite an exciting campaign, and we hope you’ll support Bill in November! And make sure to tell all your friends about voteday.org!
The voteday.org team
I was hoping that at some point the William Day campaign would start making specific legal threats or do something similarly stupid, but so far they’ve been quiet. Perhaps Dan Hawes actually spoke with someone who is qualified to practice law, and after getting laughed at decided it’s best to just let this go. Perhaps after that Mr. Hawes got a good talking to about the professional rules of conduct which govern the practice of law, and was told that he could end up having to answer a bunch of uncomfortable questions if he pursued this further, he decided it would be better to pray this blows over.
Like that’s going to happen. Playing with idiots can be so much fun!
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…However, it does not include the “paid for by” line that is required for political communications by law…
They’re going to burn you on that one. Especially since you were made aware of the issue in your May 3 post about the parody website.
Greg, I think the previous commenter may be right on this. This doesn’t look to good for you. The SBE may get involved as well.
It’s a humor site. This is political parody, broadly protected under the First Amendment and codified in federal law. The SBE has no jurisdiction here.
Your free speech rights as a citizen do not end once you utter the name of a candidate for office.
“It’s a humor site. This is political parody, broadly protected under the First Amendment and codified in federal law. The SBE has no jurisdiction here.”
It may or not be protected as parody, the lines have been significantly blurred in recent years. What is without doubt is that unless the unattributed photographs are yours or you have permission to post them, you are in violation of the DMCA. BTW, photographers are generally the most likely group of “artists” to seek redress under Title 17 and now they know who you are and where to file their claims. Copyright attorneys generally enjoy suing idiots, not only is it so much fun, its profitable as well.
Greg, maybe you need to get in contact with people at “The Onion” as well as “National Lampoon” to see how they handle the, more than likely, numerous law suit attempts. Personally, since it IS a parody site, no need (in my humble opinion) to put a “paid for” at the bottom of the page.
Time and time again people have KNOWINGLY put up blatant lies on their pathetic websites about a certain candidate. Heck, when I was working on my Masters in Computer Information Systems (during the Clinton Administration) one of my instructors told us about a site whitehouse.org that was actually a porn site. But with Clinton in office at the time, you really could not tell the difference - lol.
Anonymous is right about photographers, they are a finicky bunch. But while copyright attorneys “sue idiots”, you won’t have to worry about THAT since you definitely are not one.
I would NOT add a disclaimer unless you make sure it is as comical as the rest of the content. A real disclaimer would be like saying that the site IS political speech advocating for or against a political candidate.
The funny thing is that someone in the “Day Camp” thinks they need to “set the record straight” by pointing out that the parody is an innaccurate portrayal of their candidate. Could it be that Bill Day has a name ID problem?!?
The photographers argument, while valid, isn’t very strong, I believe. The site is not for commercial use, does not generate revenue, and the photos do not appear to be by professional photographers (in fact, the one of Judy Feder is mine). Second, its used on a parody site, so that plays into fair use.
I don’t believe it’s as blunt a distinction as Greg makes it out to be, but if he’s hosting this on his server, a DCMA request has to be made to him, and if rejected by him, then a suit has to be filed. Funny part of that, you can go to all the expense of filing suit and he just has to take down the photo because frankly no one is going to be able to claim damages from this site.
Now, if Greg happened to use a photo I took at night of San Francisco that I have framed and I also sell commercially at many stock photo companies, then yeah, I’d be sending him letters and requesting damages.
This is much ado. Take it from the guy who got into a nasty row last year with Greg over some photos (like the one on voteday.org). No photographer is going to care, and if Day chooses to pull a Chapman, he’s a moron.