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All Streisand Effects Considered
from the drive-time-radio dept
The Streisand Effect is getting a bit more coverage these days. After the Associated Press mentioned it the other day, I got to sit down and talk with Robert Siegel for today's "All Things Considered" where we discussed The Streisand Effect starting with the Wikileaks case and moving on to some other cases where the Effect clearly made an appearance. If this keeps up, maybe we can look forward to a day when lawyers think twice about trying to force perfectly legitimate content offline.
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Wishful thinking. Unless the laws are changed, they're gonna do whatever is legal. Even then you have to wonder about some.
It all come back to Congress (for the US). As long as only millionaires can effectively run, not much is going to change.
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I heard you on my drive home. Nicely done.
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Who coined the term "Streisand Effect?" Until now I had never seen it outside this site.
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The rich irony is that if Streisand litigates for defamation it would only serve to highlight and further establish this phenomenon. Well done.
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nice one mike
Heard the broadcast on your link great to charming charlie click the blue bits in the article jeeeez.
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Re:
Well, sure, lawyers can do what's legal, and even what isn't. The point is that what they do will not necessarily accomplish what they want.
"Do" entails suing people, making a stink, etc. Removing something from the public eye isn't something you can do, it's a possible and as we're seeing somewhat unlikely outcome of what someone can "do".
It's very important to realize that the legal system has no say about what's right or wrong. It can only attempt to influence behavior by attaching more results to an action. In this case, there's not much point to changing a law, because the attempted behavior by lawyers had the worst possible outcome for their client in this case - news agencies all over the world are talking ABOUT wikileaks.
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npr not working
Hey mike, tried to listen to you on NPR.ORG and for some reason the stream won't start. Anyone got a good mirror for this?
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Kudos
Mike,
Heard the interview on ATC last night. Excellent! Kudos on the recognition and your ongoing insightful analysis at Techdirt.
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I'm not a lawyer, but I've paid a lot of money to lawyers to cover intellectual property, from trademark to copyright to a patent attempt.
The basics, as I understand them are this: if you don't actively protect your intellectual property, if someone comes in and steals something, in court you can lose the case. "Use it or lose it," is, to my understanding the "rule," here. So while these incidents may seem trivial to outsiders, the way i.p. works in the United States makes it necessary to go after trivial stuff in order to avoid having to fight a major battle later on.
This isn't to say that there aren't other reasons at work--and it does not address Ms. Streisand's concern. She's a public figure--and there's the key on that tangent: "public"--meaning she goes on stage to make money. And she has people who manage her public image. I doubt any of them live in her home, and I doubt her home is someplace where she rakes in the dollars.
We need to think through all of these ideas very thoroughly as our technologies become more and more ubiquitous...in the least, we need to adjust our expectations and realize that in the now-future, everyone is a potential public figure just waiting to happen...
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The basics, as I understand them are this: if you don't actively protect your intellectual property, if someone comes in and steals something, in court you can lose the case. "Use it or lose it," is, to my understanding the "rule," here.
There are a few points here. First off, the Streisand Effect isn't just about intellectual property claims. In fact most recent examples (such as the wikileaks case) are not. Second, as I was just discussing the other day, the "use it or lose it" claim is not quite accurate.
First, it does not apply to copyright or patents. The only area where it sort of applies is trademark. But the issue there isn't that you *have* to sue everyone (or threaten to sue everyone) but that you need to make reasonable efforts to prevent the mark from becoming generic. That doesn't mean suing everyone.
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Your Answer
This should be your answer: TheStreisandEffect.com
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odd that the term still hasn't made it into Wikipedia. C'mon guys, lets get the ball rolling on this one.
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odd that the term still hasn't made it into Wikipedia. C'mon guys, lets get the ball rolling on this one.
Uh. It's been on Wikipedia for quite some time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
That's the first result if you do a google search. The history suggests someone created it in 2006.
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Re: Kudos
Likewise, mike, all things considered is an excellent distribution platform for the term. And the term functions well as a solid codification of the idea, which in turn solidifies people's understanding of the term and the effect. Way to go in creating an idea which will live on long after you, and heres to hoping you can create more! And here's to hoping it ends up as the trendy word of the year alongside truthiness et al
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She couldn't do anything about it anyway, and besides she should be more than aware of the tag with her name on it because it's named after one of her attempts to silence someone; obviously it failed.
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Uh. It's been on Wikipedia for quite some time:
wtf was I entering then?
*shrugs*
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Awesome!
Mike, very glad to hear you got onto NPR.
Go figure its just a hair after I got back into listening to CDs on my way home.
Thank you for the link.
Will listen to it later this morning.
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Heh.
Lawyers thinking twice. That's a good one. You should definitely explore a career in humor.
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You think lawyers file lawsuits for the fun of it? Most lawyers advise their clients not to go to court because we know that it usually isn't worth it. Some clients don't listen.
Why blame a lawyer when they are just following their clients wishes?
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I'm way behind
good interview :)
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