Techdirt. Stories filed under "april fool's" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "april fool's"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:55:43 PDT Trademark Cluelessness: The Other White Meat Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100621/0934489897.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100621/0934489897.shtml Headbhang was the first of a few of you to send in the news of favorite supplier of all things geeky, Thinkgeek, receiving an incredibly long and detailed cease and desist letter from the National Pork Board, complaining about its use of the phrase "the other white meat" on an April Fool's joke offering for canned unicorn meat. The NPB is somewhat notorious for defending the "the other white meat" trademark, but even its high priced lawyers must know that there's no likelihood of confusion here, and the parody defense would likely win out. Also, since for it to be infringement there needs to be actual "use in commerce" and this is a product that can not and will not ever be sold... does it even qualify? Not only that, but the NPB is looking for a new slogan for pork, so there won't be much need to eliminate the confusion between pork and unicorn products. Even more importantly, did no one think that maybe, just maybe, sending a cease-and-desist over an April Fool's joke might look bad?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> morons-in-a-hurry http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100621/0934489897 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:52:00 PDT News Station Falls For April Fool's Prank, Turns to DMCA As Remedy Blaise Alleyne http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090414/2105504516.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090414/2105504516.shtml "No Pants Subway Ride," a food court musical, sending 80 people into Best Buy dressed as employees and getting 200 people to "freeze" during rush hour in Grand Central station, these guys are masters of the flash mob and the harmless prank. Last April, in a mission called "Best Game Ever," they showed up at a little league baseball game with signs, peanut vendors, programs and even an NBC sponsored jumbotron with live commentary and player stats to turn an ordinary event into something extraordinary.

Building on that theme, Improv Everywhere's latest mission was to create the "Best Funeral Ever," to pick a random funeral from the obituaries and show up to make it "truly awesome." It sounds terrible, and the video is pretty horrifying... until you realize it's from April 1st. The next day, they confirmed it was an April Fool's joke and that it wasn't a real funeral -- all of the "family members" were actors. Lots of people fell for it (I definitely did at first), but best of all was the local CW 11 news team that covered the YouTube video as if it were a real funeral. Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere, uploaded a video of the newscast with the following commentary:
So basically the extent of their reporting is watching a video on YouTube and then describing it as fact on air. They didn't bother to email Improv Everywhere for comment, call the cemetery to verify, or try to get a quote from the"family." They just watched the video and threw it on TV. Great journalism!
The story was on the news channel's website too, but was later removed without any explanation or correction. Now, two weeks later, Todd has received a copyright notice from YouTube that his video of the newscast was removed due to a copyright claim from Tribune (the station's parent company). First of all, it's pretty silly to try to hide the mistake rather than owning up to it and posting a correction (Streisand Effect anyone?). But beyond that, it's pretty ironic and hypocritical that the news organization, which used the Improv Eveywhere video without permission or even proper attribution, would send a take-down notice to the owner of the that video who was commenting on their commentary. Todd writes,
It's OK for them to air content that we shot and own, but it's not OK for me to upload their footage of the content they took from me? It's "fair use" for the news to take a video off of YouTube and broadcast it, but it's not "fair use" for a citizen to expose their poor reporting on his own content?
Fair use or not, Tribune just found a great way to draw more attention to the fact that their "journalists" fell for the prank and seem to be pretty embarrassed about it.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> take-downs-don't-actually-make-things-go-away http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090414/2105504516 Mon, 6 Apr 2009 04:55:37 PDT Bad April Fool's Joke: Give Away Millions In Fake Money; Users Start Trading With It Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090405/2130444402.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090405/2130444402.shtml See Update Below. Well here's an idea that must have sounded good at one point. Upstart online brokerage Zecco (already known for pulling attention-grabbing stunts) had the bright idea for April Fool's Day to load up users' balances with much more money than they actually had -- sometimes millions more. Except... it looks like they never bothered to make sure people couldn't use that money. So plenty of users started making trades with the fake money... and when Zecco realized it, the company apparently started to force sell, even at a loss, charging the losses to the customers along with a "$19.99 broker-assisted trading fee." Oops. Update: Consumerist has updated their post with a message from Zecco claiming that it was not an April Fool's joke, but noting "Some clients may experience incorrect display of Buying Power and Account Balances." It's not entirely clear how those "incorrect displays" were apparently off by millions in some cases. Update 2: Zecco is again insisting this was not an April Fool's joke and that it was "a bad feed" from a vendor. It's not entirely clear why it took the firm 5 days to explain that, however...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> how-to-define-a-bad-idea http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090405/2130444402