Parody sites of politicians are an important part of free speech and I've
even been involved in a couple myself.

However the problem with this site was it wasn't a clear parody.  It was
almost identical to the official site with one fake speech added on.  It was
designed to fool and mislead people (which it did at first). There is a
difference between parody and fake.

I suspect if the creators had made the site a true parody site, then nothing
would have happened.

My 2c

DPF

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dns-bounces+david=farrar.com§dotau.org 
> [mailto:dns-bounces+david=farrar.com§dotau.org] On Behalf Of 
> Jon Lawrence
> Sent: Sunday, 19 March 2006 12:26 a.m.
> To: .au DNS Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [DNS] johnhowardpm.org
> 
> The lesson to be learned from this would appear to be that if 
> you wish to be critical of the Howard government then you 
> should register your domain name and host your site offshore.
> 
> And this happened in the same week that John Howard is quoted 
> as saying "I believe in democracy."  Perhaps it's the Chinese 
> form of democracy he's referring to.
> 
> Someone might like to direct the PM's office to check out 
> www.whitehouse.com (a porn site), www.whitehouse.net (a 
> parody site) and www.whitehouse.org (also a parody site), all 
> of which have coexisted for years with the official site at 
> www.whitehouse.gov.  If there's one thing the Americans do 
> understand and respect properly, it's the principle of free speech.
> 
> Jon
> 
> >-- Original Message --
> >Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:39:02 +1100 (EST)
> >From: Ian Smith <smithi&#167;nimnet.asn.au>
> >To: Chris Bell <lists-dns&#167;blueskyhost.com>
> >Cc: ".au DNS Discussion List" <dns&#167;dotau.org>
> >Subject: Re: [DNS] johnhowardpm.org
> >Reply-To: ".au DNS Discussion List" <dns&#167;dotau.org>
> >
> >
> >On Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Chris Bell wrote:
> >
> >[.. Allow me first to repost the original context:
> >
> > > 
> http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/government-shuts-howard-spoof-si
> > > te/2006/03/17/1142098638843.html
> >
> > > This sets a dangerous new precedent. Basically Melbourne IT have 
> > > intervened in what is essentially a civil matter. If 
> there was any 
> > > dispute over the name itself that should have gone to 
> UDRP. Phishing
> is
> > > necessarily criminal in nature, so calling it that is really a 
> > > stretch of the imagination.
> >
> >..]
> >
> > > Ian Smith wrote:
> > >
> > > >Hardly new for Richard Neville .. remember the Oz 
> trials?  And not
> the
> > > >first political satirist to be denied a venue .. 
> remember Peter Berner?
> >
> >
> > > No, but that's besides the point - innit?
> >
> >Depends on what you find dangerous.  To me pressure on registrars to 
> >remove satirical sites is the basic problem, not the lame 
> excuse that 
> >'to us it looks like a phishing site' that MelbIT reportedly 
> supplied.
> 
> >
> > > > > Yet another reason not to bother dealing with Melbourne IT.
> > > >
> > > >Know any registrars prepared to argue the toss with the gummint?
> >
> > > They're regulated by ICANN, not the gummint.
> >
> >Sure - which is controlled by another, nominally different, gummint.
> >Again, tell us (and Richard Neville) the name of a registrar 
> prepared 
> >to tell the Prime Monster's Office to go, er, file a civil complaint.
> >
> > > >'Twas nice of the Herald to publish the URL to the, um, 
> 179K pdf of
> the
> > > >piece at 
> > > >http://www.richardneville.com/Satire/Howard_speech_150306.pdf
> >
> > > Oh fer crying out loud Ian. It's 2006 and you're 
> complaining about a
> 
> > > 180Kb download? I can recommend a good provider  :)
> >
> >I can't see how you interpret that as a complaint.  I mentioned the 
> >size to indicate that it was a trivial download for those 
> vaguely interested.
> >
> > > C'mon this basically says that your registrar can pull 
> your domains
> on
> >
> > > the basis of a civil complaint. I can understand that 
> this gets done
> in
> >
> > > a criminal context, but this is really stretching the 
> notion of contract.
> >
> >If you believe that "in response to a request from the Prime 
> Minister's 
> >office" is similar to 'a civil complaint' then I'm afraid I 
> can't help!
> >
> >cheers, Ian
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> >---- List policy, unsubscribing and archives => http://dotau.org/
> 
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------
> List policy, unsubscribing and archives => http://dotau.org/
> 
>