Paul Martin, Online Thug

Via BoingBoing, the Canadian Prime Minister and the ruling Liberal Party are legally intimidating these guys over their satirical Web site.

Dear Mr. Martin,
I was shocked to recently read that the Liberal Party was attempting to intimidate a Web site that parodied and satirized http://www.paulmartintimes.ca/. Is the party’s confidence so weak that they can’t abide a little online scrutiny?

You probably do have a case for copyright infringement under Canadian law, but throwing your legal weight around is hardly the best course of action, is it? Practically speaking, no thoughtful person could confuse the satirical site with your actual site.

In the last election, I voted for the Liberal party. If these tactics become common under a Martin-led government, you can be sure that I’ll be giving my vote to someone else in the next election.

3 comments

  1. I also mentioned this on BlogsCanada. Jim Elve also points out that Martin’s new PMPM page is a huge step backwards in accessibility from the old one (http://www.blogscanada.ca/blog/commentview.aspx/63109833-eb17-45dd-a585-5a557d0b3b81). Apparently the Government of Canada websites (including the old PM’s page) was a world leader in providing services to all citizens. The new PM’s page “is lacking in rudimentary accessibility features like resizable text and alt tags for each image. When a user has css support turned off (as many visualy impaired persons do), the main menu is unreadable blue text on a black background.” (http://www.blogscanada.ca/blog/PermaLink.aspx/afebdc18-ff5c-4c33-974e-b57b6a074a65).

    Looks like they don’t know how to handle the internet, in more ways than one.

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