Chuck Westfall is a Technical Information Advisor for Canon USA – he’s an evangelist. He spreads the good word about Canon’s photography products by doing interviews, writing articles, and generally being active in the community. Unfortunately, his corporate overlords don’t seem to have gotten the message about embracing the community.
Fake Chuck Westfall is an anonymous blogger who parodies Chuck (I have no idea why anyone would want to do this, but I digress). One would think that a blog entitled “Fake Chuck Westfall” would not likely be confused with the Canon employee, Canon, or Canon products.
According to a takedown notice Canon’s lawyer, Doug Mirell (Claremont BA ‘77, UC Davis JD ‘80) of Loeb & Loeb sent to Automattic, “particularly egregious” is …
4. The overall look, feel and tone of the Blog which, especially in light of Mr. Westfall’s role at Canon, is calculated to mislead recipients as to the source of the material contained therein, in contravention of the fifth and eighth representations and warranties contained under Paragraph 2 of your Terms of Service.
Another “particularly egregious” fact, which on its face has some merit, is the”outrageously privacy-invasive” publication of the names of Westfall’s wife and daughter. Fake Westfall took the information down, but see below.
Automattic makes WordPress and hosts the blog (it is also our platform but not our host). Canon demands, among other things, that Fake Doug Mirell Chuck Westfall be taken down, the user’s account be terminated, the account holder’s personal information be produced, etc.
Fortunately, Automattic isn’t kowtowing to Canon’s absurd demands. The company’s reply was short and sweet:
Hi Douglas,
We have received your complaint about fakechuckwestfall.wordpress.com.
The owner of the blog has removed the Canon logo.
We consider the privacy complaint about the names of Chuck Westfall’s wife and child void since Mr. Westfall mentions them in his own bio at http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0604/westfall.html.
We also reject your other complaints regarding the blog being confused with an official Canon site given that the blog name and URL contain “Fake”, the about page starts with “Hi, I’m not actually Chuck Westfall.”, and the tone and content of the whole blog are clearly satirical.
Regards,
Toni [Schneider, CEO of Automattic]
Related posts:
"Canon demands, among other things, that Fake Doug Mirell be taken down, the user’s account be terminated, the account holder’s personal information be produced, etc."
So there's both a Fake Chuck Westfall AND a Fake Doug Mirell site? Who knew sites spoofing Canon employees would prove so popular.
Woops. Although a Fake Doug Mirell website isn't a bad idea. Anyone care to start it?