If you play or fight dirty it is naive to expect your adversaries
to do otherwise. Here are my conclusions so far.

The mock Dow site was too perfect to be parody and violated the
law which, among other things, protects consumers from being
fooled by counterfeit goods. So it stupidly gave Dow the legal
opportunity to close it down.

The threatened closure of the entire Thing host service is an
obviously excessive and cowardly reaction by Verio. The technical
legality of that will depend on the contact between Verio and
the Thing.

One important lesson is that countercultural artists, like many
other burrowing animals, should have nore than one way out of
their hole. Also, a sting in the tail (which means a good lawyer
in this context) might also be useful.

Finally, the subject line of the message from RTMark (to which
I am here responding)is objectionable. In my case it read "RE:
THING.NET EVICTED FROM INTERNET (along with young@newzoid.com)"
I assume that the names of other recipients were parenthetically
inserted in their messages.

That is a false alarm because it falsely gives the impression
that the recipient has also been evicted from the Internet. Yes,
you want to alert interested parties - but not by exagerrating
the extent to which they are affected. If you want my help don't
use tricky tactics on me.

Daniel Young
young@newzoid.com

>— Original Message —
>From: RTMark Press <ann49@rtmark.com>
>To: "young-newzoid.com"
<young@newzoid.com>
>Date: 12/23/02 1:53:34 AM
>

> This message is not commercial. To get off our list, write
> mailto:remove@rtmark.com?subject=young@newzoid.com
>.
>
>December 23, 2002
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Thing.net assistance page: https://secure.thing.net/backbone/
> Contact: mailto:thing-group@rtmark.com
>
>ACTIVIST NETWORK IN NY EVICTED FROM INTERNET BY DOW, VERIO
>
>Bowing to pressure from the Dow Chemical Corporation, the internet
>company Verio has booted the activist-oriented Thing.net from
the Web.
>
>Internet service provider Thing.net has been the primary service
>provider for activist and artist organizations in the New York
area
>for 10 years.
>
>On December 3, activists used a server housed by Thing.net to
post a
>parody Dow press release on the eighteenth anniversary of the
disaster
>in which 20,000 people died as a result of an accident at a
Union
>Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. (Union Carbide is now owned
by Dow.)
>The deadpan statement, which many people took as real, explained
that
>Dow could not accept responsibility for the disaster due to
its
>primary allegiance to its shareholders and to its bottom line.
>
>Dow was not amused, and sent a Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA)
>complaint to Verio, which immediately cut Thing.net off the
internet
>for fifteen hours. A few days later, Verio announced that Thing.net
>had 60 days to move to another provider before being shut down
>permanently, unilaterally terminating Thing.net's 7-year-old
contract.
>
>Affected organizations include PS1/MOMA, Artforum, Nettime,
Tenant.net
>(which assists renters facing eviction), and hundreds more.
>
>"Verio's actions are nothing short of outrageous," said Wolfgang
>Staehle, Thing.net Executive Director. "They could have resolved
the
>matter with the Dow parodists directly; instead they chose to
shut
>down our entire network. This self-appointed enforcement of
the DMCA
>could have a serious chilling effect on free speech, and has
already
>damaged our business."
>
>
>RTMark, which publicizes corporate abuses of democracy, is housed
on
>Thing.net. Please visit https://secure.thing.net/backbone/ to
help
>Thing.net survive Dow's and Verio's actions, and to develop
a plan to
>avoid such problems in the future.
>
> # 30 #
>
> This message is not commercial. To get off our list, write
> mailto:remove@rtmark.com?subject=young@newzoid.com
>.
> If you are receiving multiple copies of this release and
would
> rather receive only one, remove as above all versions but
one.
>
>