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Digital Culture

Religious? Litigious?

Parody is Protected

My good buddy Justin gets served with a Cease and Desist because of the parody billboard he created in photoshop.

Parody is protected

Anyone else want to mirror the image in protest? Or perhaps download a blank photoshop file (right click and save as) and make your own?

As Justin noted, I got my wires crossed on the directionality of my particular parody. Corrected version now in place. Sorry about my initial image, ACLU! I had the best intentions…directing people towards you as a relief mechanism, not a cause.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

17 replies on “Religious? Litigious?”

Umm…Big mistake lol, but the LC not ACLU.org dude, you will look like such a dumbass for putting ACLU, they are very anti-religion in government 😉 Hence their multiple course cases again religion in government 😉

Fix it 🙂 Good idea though lol

Actually the ACLU does make sense — as a reminder to Exodus that the targets of their legal attacks are not necessarily defenseless.

if you spread this image around everywhere it’s impossible for them to sue- I already have this copied and sending it off to friends…lol

(sigh) The ACLU are not at all anti-religion. Only someone who knows and understands very little about their work or constitutional law would ever say that. There are plenty of religious people who do not want the government itself to be religious, supporting separation of church and state is not an anti-religion position.

However, that being said, the ACLU might be interested in your case. If not, there are probably other First Amendment attorneys who would be, pro-bono. What you are doing is very clearly satire. Their “cease and desist” letters and intended to scare you, they likely know that this case couldn’t go very far.

Sorry, I mean Justin’s case. And apparently they have taken the case. It’s a slam dunk. Exodus and Liberty Counsel will just use the whole controversy for fund-raising purposes, to perpetuate their eternal victimhood by the big, bad gays and the mean ol’ ACLU. They never tire of it.

Doesn’t it make you wonder…… how many bored teenagers are there that are made to sit in a room by their Exodus “elders” and “search” for blogs such as yours looking for “gay” content? Amerika, land of the religious right and home of the afraid.

Exodus International? Unhappy?…

This is just too rich! Exodus International, the “ex-gay” flagship organization, has taken legal action against Justin Watt for publishing a parody of one of their billboards on his blog. Check out the Exodus billboard, the parody and the cease……

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