“The Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian mining industry group has used copyright laws to close a website that parodied a coal industry ad campaign. A group known as Rising Tide created the website using the slogan “Rising sea levels: brought to you by mining” in response to the mining industry’s slogan of “Life: brought to you by mining.” The mining industry claimed that the “content and layout” of the parody site infringed copyright, but when Rising Tide removed the copyrighted photos and changed the layout, the mining industry still lodged a complaint.”
In the US, such lawsuits are called SLAPP. Too bad they do not have anti-SLAPP protections like many US states do.
There is a HUGE campaign being run here (Australia) at the moment against SLAPP suits, which are just starting to be used in Australia – most notably against forest activists. A big case has been running for a few years now called “Gunns 20″ where Gunns Ltd, a big logging company logging old-growth forests in tasmania, sued 20 people and organisations including the head of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, and The Wilderness Society, and many others including a grandmother!
On the Rising Tide stuff, the counter-site they made is GREAT and they would welcome messages of support if you like it. Rising Tide is a fantastic grassroots group in Newcastle and involves many young people and students – the guy who designed the site is a student at Newcastle University and a good friend of mine. Also, we have already had 2 offers of pro bono representation from barristers if the Minerals Council of NSW presses ahead with trying to make them take the site down. We’ll see what happens!
Ms. Rose -
What really has impressed me is the large rise in the protests against coal. Until the last few years, it seemed that nuclear and LNG were the favorites. Times have changed.
keeping a list of all media on this issue here: http://eco101.wordpress.com
cheers for the write up, and nice site!
Hi Anna!
ned