20 votes

Icelandic fishing giant Samherji sues art student for spoofing corporate website – potentially chilling effect on artists engaging critically with large corporations

Posted by mycketforvirrad
Tags: iceland, artists, oddur eysteinn fridriksson, culture jamming, protests, business, legal, lawsuits, litigation, technology, websites, fisheries, samherji, students, parody, united kingdom, author.philip oltermann, source.the guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/14/icelandic-fishing-giant-samherji-sues-art-student-for-spoofing-corporate-website

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Authors
Philip Oltermann
Published
Sep 14 2024
Word count
1036 words

4 comments

  1. [2]
    tibpoe
    Link
    I'm not a lawyer, and I can't figure out how to see the details of this case, but why is an Icelandic person being sued by an Icelandic company in a London court? Is this a defamation case &...

    I'm not a lawyer, and I can't figure out how to see the details of this case, but why is an Icelandic person being sued by an Icelandic company in a London court? Is this a defamation case & trying to use UK's guilty until proven innocent doctrine in defamation law?

    10 votes
    1. paris
      Link Parent

      In preliminary hearings, the high court judge initially questioned whether “Iceland is not the better place for this sort of issue to be ventilated”, though later appeared satisfied with the prosecution’s argument that the spoofed website’s co.uk suffix meant it was targeted at the UK.

      9 votes
  2. [2]
    Bullmaestro
    Link
    Good. I hope he loses and they take him to the cleaners. There is a fine line between parody and straight-up malicious impersonation, and that line was easily crossed when he bought a .co.uk...

    Good. I hope he loses and they take him to the cleaners.

    There is a fine line between parody and straight-up malicious impersonation, and that line was easily crossed when he bought a .co.uk domain and tried to make the site look like a genuine British branch of Samherji.

    Also, going so far with your "art project" to send a faux apology in Samherji's name to the press is just pissing on a hornets nest.

    6 votes
    1. raze2012
      Link Parent
      I'm ambivalent, because modern companies have gotten so complacent and outright malicious that this is the level of "parody" I feel is needed to start making a difference. The overall goal was to...

      I'm ambivalent, because modern companies have gotten so complacent and outright malicious that this is the level of "parody" I feel is needed to start making a difference. The overall goal was to send a message and it got the attention (with no harm done, and no lies. It's really just the impersonation that's the issue).

      8 votes