Mastercard threatens rec.humor.funny over satire

[Brad Templeton]

Two years ago, rec.humor.funny published a sick satire of the Mastercard
"Priceless" ads (There are some things money can't buy, for everything
else there's Mastercard) based around the Columbine tragedy. I won't repeat
it here, since it was pretty sick and offensive, though you can find it
on the web site at:

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Apr/columbine.html

Today we received a "cease and desist" letter from Mastercard's lawyers
demanding that the parody be removed from our web site, falsely claiming
it violates their trademarks and copyrights, in spite of the well
established rules protecting satire and parody from such attacks.

The letter can be found at

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/price.html

Here, however, is my response...

--------------------------------------------

Web site hosting for anybody: $10/month and up

Threatening letters to people who satirize you, hoping
they won't know the law: $500

Reputation as giant corporation required to intimidate
small publishers: $billions

Supreme court decisions protecting parody and
satire from accusations of copyright and
trademark infringement... Priceless

There are some rights money can't buy. For everything
else, there's Mastercard's lawyers.

--
Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to fu...@netfunny.com.

Join and contribute to the Electronic Frontier Foundation today.

This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/01/Apr/mcrhf.html