Jane Corwin is a Republican running for Congress in NY 26. Here is her website: www.janecorwin.com. Nice, clean, professional. Now take a look at this website: www.janecorwin.org. Aesthetically indistinguishable, the designers cleverly use humor to paint Jane Corwin as a clueless hack, bent on destroying the district calling her “A proven millionaire. A real homophobe. The leader we fear.” There is little reason to assume that a group would go to this much trouble without having the intention of spreading misinformation.
And now, a group that some claim is the same group responsible for a New York Times spoof in 2008 predicting the end of the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan as well as a revitalized economy, and dated July 2009, has a new website attacking the coal industry.
Specifically, they are taking shots at Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private sector coal producer, with a website dubbed CoalCares.org. The fake website offers inhalers for children with Justin Bieber and the writers took extra care to be as thinly satirical as possible more than likely to create confusion among readers who would believe their false claim that they are actually a Peabody Energy initiative.
In fact, they are no such thing. I contacted Peabody Energy to ask them about the website. A Peabody spokesman provided me with this statement on the matter:
Earlier today, an activist group released a “spoof” website claiming to be sponsored by Peabody Energy. The site is in fact a hoax, making inaccurate claims about Peabody and coal.
Peabody is proud to help hundreds of millions of people live longer and better through coal-fueled electricity. A growing collection of studies demonstrate the correlation between electricity fueled by low-cost coal and improvement in health, longevity and quality of life. The United Nations has linked life expectancy, educational attainment and income with per-capita electricity use, and the World Resources Institute found that for every 10-fold increase in per-capita electricity use, individuals live 10 years longer.
Government statistics show that in the United States, coal use has more than tripled in the past several decades while regulated emissions have declined 84 percent. Peabody Energy is a global leader in clean coal solutions and is advancing more than a dozen clean coal projects around the world, leading to our ultimate goal of near-zero emissions from coal.
Find out more at PeabodyEnergy.com or CoalCanDoThat.com.
Interestingly, if you change the URL from CoalCanDoThat.com to CoalCanDoThat.org, you get a redirect to the Natural Resource Defense Council, an anti-coal environmentalist group, with the top headline being “Coal is Dirty & Dangerous.” Apparently, redirects are also becoming popular among the left.
Most, if not all of these examples are protected by copyright fair use laws covering parody and satire. I’d be surprised if Peabody was not able to do anything legally given that the Coal Cares website does not appear to be parodying a specific website and makes the blatantly false claim that it is run by Peabody Energy.
It should be noted that President Obama was out in front on this one. He said last year at a commencement address that “information had become a distraction” after all:
Certainly, President Obama is no fan of the coal industry, but given his dedication to truth and transparency as well as helping America’s youth cut through the clutter of “too much information,” I’m sure we can expect a statement decrying the tactics employed by those who would support his cause.
Moe Lane
PG DeFreese
Victoria Coates
Daniel Horowitz
Dan Spencer
Or just out right lies
jen0517 Tuesday, May 10th at 2:46PM EST (link)Obama flat out lied about several things about Medicare – ask any Hospital billing department
He said this at the townhall: “And let’s say that you end up getting an operation. They’ll send the bill for that, and Medicare pays that. Let’s say they didn’t do a very good job, or you got sick in the hospital, and you are readmitted and you have to be treated again and they have to do the operation all over again. Medicare then gets billed for the second operation.”
Well, the Republicans passed legislation in 2005 to prevent payment to hospitals for certain hospital acquired infections or problems – so Obama doesn’t have his facts straight.
http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_health_care/004786.html
and
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80074.php
AND – this is the cherry on top – Obama VOTED against this legislation!!!!
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00363
Trademark vs. Copyright
chipbennett (Diary) Tuesday, May 10th at 2:56PM EST (link)These “spoof” sites may well have a fair use claim defense against copyright infringement; however, no such defense exists for trademark infringement.
And trademark laws exist for the very purpose of allowing entities to protect their identity against such false association. That these sites exist explicitly and blatantly to cause confusion regarding the message of a politician, NGO, or corporation is prima facie evidence that they violate trademark.
FUNNY.
mkj350 Tuesday, May 10th at 3:00PM EST (link)It’s the only way Dems/Libs can win. We all know that if they were truthful, they wouldn’t get any votes. So they are disengenuous, liars, cheats. It’s the only way they have any chance – they think. There’s alot more people informed and on to them than there used to be. Can’t get away with that so much as they used to.
Couldn't
texan4america Wednesday, May 11th at 9:20AM EST (link)have said it better myself. Exactly where might one find an honest Dem??
Texan4America
The tactic is as old as Lenin
Adjoran (Diary) Tuesday, May 10th at 3:15PM EST (link)Only the technology is new.
Oh please.
schteve Tuesday, May 10th at 4:24PM EST (link)If you don’t find these sites funny you need a better sense of humor.
I think you're on to something here
johnCV (Diary) Tuesday, May 10th at 5:40PM EST (link)Imagine the laughs we could all have watching parodies intimating the Barney ‘Wiener’ is really a pedophile.LOL! Or maybe a couple of choice skits with that madcap badboy George Soros frogmarching Jews into concentration camps! The good times just keep rollin’!
How about Kieth Ellison parodied into a jihadi? Or we can spoof (take your pick of a dozen or so big time democrats) sittin’ around in the Politburo planning the demise of the USA!
I’m rolling on the floor now – too hard to type. Yup schteve, I think you’re definately onto something ….
Done in the same style
schteve Tuesday, May 10th at 5:43PM EST (link)as these parody sites and all those would be equally funny.
Actually I happen to love parody and satire
Ben Howe (Diary) Tuesday, May 10th at 5:45PM EST (link)I’ve even made a parody video before. The key to a successful parody is the viewer is aware of what is being parodied. In this case, they have gone out of their way to hide the fact that it is a parody in order to convince people that it is an actual Peabody Energy initiative.
There is a big difference between parody and trickery.
You can always find people to give you the answers that you think reinforce the facts you’ve already decided are true.
Follow @Ben_Howe
I feel pretty bad for anybody
schteve Tuesday, May 10th at 6:49PM EST (link)who thinks these are real.
False Dichotomy FTW!
chipbennett (Diary) Wednesday, May 11th at 9:09AM EST (link)…because, in your liberal world, it isn’t even conceivable that some upstanding, fellow liberals could have made these sites with the express intent of deceit.
No. That could never happen…
They fight to win
gwalt Tuesday, May 10th at 4:36PM EST (link)And we play defense. As I have said for a long time, Obama would not exist if it were not for the media.
Dems play offense, offense, offense. Then Newsbusters points to a biased news story after the fact. Whipppeee—that shows them!
I love NB, but with all due respect, they (MSM) are the fuel that propels the Obama myth. Cut off the fuel, end the myth. We wouldn’t even have to endure being called racists. The MSM is 99% white.
We need to plaster each and every reporter, anchor, newsperson paper or electronic and embarrass the hell out of them by exposing them in ads on TV, Billboards, Internet and print.
Call Katie Couric a liar—over and over and over again. Put out examples of her pro-Obama bias and let her, and all of them, play defense for once in their lives. They would fold, they are so thin-skinned.
Powerline is offering a $100,000 prize for something or other. That money would buy a ton of ad space ridiculing and shaming the so-called MSM.
They have their game plan for 2012. Attack attack attack anyone Republican.
So lets attack attack attack them. They would be so busy back pedaling (IF we have good messaging) they would have no time to cheerlead for Obama. They would waste precious air time and resources deflecting the criticism and poor Obamabi wouldn’t be getting the multi billion dollar PR campaign he received in 2008. What’s the worst that could happen? They would report more fairly?
Get Gutfeld, Breitbart, Crowder and others to do some funny ads ridiculing them. I’m in for $100.
“A lot of briefing for a 2 hr. special with Dan Rather. Saw the show & wonder why we bothered”. –Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries (January 27, 1982)
Agreed
lakecrazy Wednesday, May 11th at 7:39AM EST (link)I love how you wrote what I’ve been saying for years. May I copy and paste this.. and spread it everywhere?
CoalCares.org is a dead give away
Juggernaut (Diary) Tuesday, May 10th at 6:41PM EST (link)LibTurds love to create sites with names like ThinkProgress. Such names are cheesy and easy reminders so the easily hoodwinked can find their way back and tell their mule brained friends.
RomneyCare is Right Wing Socialism – please feel free to use is as often as possible…….it will kill his campaign.
Romney “severely conservative”? That’s the opposite of a “compassionate conservative” like George W. Bush? Actually, we know what a severely conservative is. It’s Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney is no Dick Cheney.
What's New, Pussy Cat
gritsandall Wednesday, May 11th at 9:36AM EST (link)What is new about the Dems using mis-information (lies) and hoaxes? It is their MO. Most politicians lie one in a while; but, with the left it is always. In fact, if they accidentally told the truth they would apologize. I have prayed for years that they would show their true colors so that even the most gullible could see the truth.
hoaxes, lies, and fake video
gritsandall Wednesday, May 11th at 9:46AM EST (link)Socialists leftist believe that any means justify the ends they believe ought to be. Like the communists, if you have to eliminate a few million souls in order to achieve the goal you believe it is acceptable. The liberals lie, cheat, steal in the name of progressiveism just like the communist leaders did. The jihadists are allowed to do anything that may be necessary to further their movement – to get rid of all unbelievers and bring everyone under their control. One should carefully examine any movement that believes that it is okay to use evil means to achieve their goal.
You can't use Brad Pitt's image in a spoof
renny (Diary) Wednesday, May 11th at 9:59AM EST (link)as he is a legal person, celelbrity, and owns the rights to his being. If the ad was materially lies, he could sue for libel; if the ad makes money on his image, he can sue for misuse of his renown. Ask the group that years ago tried to use Barbra Streisand, when she was on Broadway, in an ad for NYC tourism. She was not amused.
So, I am going to guess a group could call something Peathorax Coal as a mock, but they cannot use the actual name of the company and disperse lies, even if sarcastically.
The company should fight back. The problem with the right is whenever confronted by the perfidy of the left, the answer so often is a shrug and a “What can you do?” attitude.
We know this election will be horrendous, as the people in the WH and Dem. Party are now people with no morals, scruples, ethics, love of country, patriotism, or humanity. No one should let them set the agenda.
Contact the people who are behind this
js1019 Wednesday, May 11th at 3:54PM EST (link)Here is the information of who owns this site.
Why not send him a note and overwhelm his e-mail.
Registrant ID:FAST-15361056
Registrant Name:Paul Fallon
Registrant Organization:N/A
Registrant Street1:211 Wedgewood
Registrant City:Williamsville
Registrant State/Province:New York
Registrant Postal Code:14221
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.7166340271
Registrant Email:ian@buffalobeast.com
Admin ID:FAST-15361056
Admin Name:Paul Fallon
Admin Organization:N/A
Admin Street1:211 Wedgewood
Admin City:Williamsville
Admin State/Province:New York
Admin Postal Code:14221
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.7166340271
Admin Email:ian@buffalobeast.com