The WIPO decision states, “For all foregoing reasons, the Complaint is denied.”

Because Complainant necessarily fails to prove that Respondent’s conduct runs afoul of all three elements required for adverse determination under the Policy, the Panel need not further address the elements of bad faith registration and use.

Even though Beck lost the WIPO case, the owner of the meme’s original domain name, Isaac Eiland-Hall, has decided to turn it over to Beck now that his lawyer successfully fought “this battle only to preserve the First Amendment,” as evidenced by the letter From Eiland-Hall to Glenn Beck.

It also bears noting, in this matter and for the future, that you are entirely in control of whether or not you are the subject of this particular form of criticism. I chose to criticize you using the well-tested method of satire because of its effectiveness. But, humor aside, your rhetorical style is no laughing matter. In this context of this WIPO case, you denigrated the letter of First Amendment law. In the context of your television show and your notoriety, you routinely and shamelessly denigrate the spirit of the First Amendment. The purpose of the expressive freedoms embodied in the First Amendment is not to simply permit the greatest possible scope of expressions, but also, in so doing, to also strive for excellence in the conveyance of ideas. Rather than choosing to strive for excellence and civic contribution, you simply pander to the fears and insecurities of your audience. And in the process, you do them, and us all, a great deal of harm.

So, now that this case has been put to rest, what are the results?

Glenn Beck has been exposed to the Streisand Effect by filing the complaint and taking a simple Internet meme and creating from it a supermeme. By attempting to remove the web site in question, they have done nothing but make it more famous. The meme may have died a fairly quick and natural death. However, by filing the WIPO complaint, Beck and his team have only made it more popular that it would have been otherwise. Thanks to them, it gained the attention of Ars Technica, MediaBistro, Techdirt and Gawker.

The complaint has helped to shed some light on what Glenn Beck may think of his viewers – one of the factors his team used to show that people may be confused by the domain name is the “moron in a hurry” test. Eiland-Hall’s lawyers responded by stating, “It is specious at best for Mr. Beck to assert that his fans, or the public as a whole, would confuse Respondent’s website with Mr. Beck himself—unless of course it is Mr. Beck’s view that his fans and the average internet user are in fact hurried morons.”

This experience has also brought to light Beck’s hypocrisy as noted in the proposed stipulation. He has stated, “once we sign our rights over to international law, the Constitution is officially dead.” Similarly, Beck has said, “Let me tell you something. When you can’t win with the people, you bump it up to the courts. When you can’t win with the courts, you bump it up to the international level.” If he believes that, why did he bypass the U.S. courts? We can safely assume that either he knows his own rhetoric is false, or he thinks it simply does not apply to him.

Finally, and the sole intention of the meme, people are now more aware of Glenn Beck’s use of fallacious reasoning, including the use of the negative proof fallacy. Hopefully his viewers are more aware of this as it’s been pointed out in his questioning of Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim member of the House of Representatives – “Prove to me that you are not working with our enemies…”

For more, visit these links:

• Isaac Eiland-Hall’s lawyer, Marc Randazza
• GB1990.com Breaking News
• Gb1990.com Discussion Forum

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Ledeen later apologized for falling for the satire:

LEDEEN: It’s a hoax, or a satire, depending on your point of view. Joe Klein has said that he never read any part of an Obama “thesis” from his Columbia days, and that’s conclusive, as far as I’m concerned.

The hoax/satire was written in August, so it’s not connected to any current event. I cam across it on Twitter, read the blog, found it interesting, and posted on it. I failed to notice that one of the tags was “satire.”

The Fox Nation later deleted the article.

Original Story

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Since the parody web site launched asking if Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, it has become a fast moving Internet meme. Within a couple days, lawyers representing Beck’s media company, Mercury Radio Arts, contacted the host, registrar, etc. to try and have the site taken down and to learn of the identity of the site’s anonymous owner. The main domain was down briefly, but is back up, accompanied by several other back up domain names, including GB1990.com. There is also a new Facebook page.

Over the past few days, since the lawyers got involved, the meme has only grown, now receiving attention from well-known sites such as Ars Technica, MediaBistro, Techdirt and Gawker. It was also mentioned by Keith Olbermann, though it was in his Worst Persons segment and didn’t mention the site by name. Regardless, Google searches for Glenn Beck soon came with suggestions for rape and murder, thus helping it snowball further.

Trying to have a web site shut down, especially one associated with a popular meme, such as this, is only going to draw more attention to the meme itself. Members of sites, like Reddit, love to come to the defense of people they feel are attacked by companies with deep pockets and the meme will only continue to grow.

So, like Barbara Streisand trying to have pictures of her ocean-front property removed from the Internet, Glenn Beck has only added to the sensation that may or may not involve crimes against a young woman in 1990 (He has yet to comment).

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Parody/satire is a protected form of free speech and the rumors are exactly that. Disclaimers aside, nobody, in their right mind, actually believes that Glenn Beck raped, nor murdered a young girl in 1990. The accusation is so groundless as to be ridiculous. Had the rumor involved anything less, it may actually have been believable. Unfortunately, that’s not what the law firm is charging… The law firm in question has contacted the aggregate site for the rumor with a complaint regarding the use of their domain, which contains Glenn Beck’s name.

Obviously, the average Glenn Beck fan’s IQ is not high enough to understand that nobody is actually accusing Beck of rape and murder, nobody thinks rape and murder are funny (except Glenn Beck, joking about poisoning Nancy Pelosi), and it’s not a representation of anybody other than Glenn Beck, because he uses this style of fallacious reasoning without a disclaimer. According to the law firm, the average Glenn Beck fan may be stupid enough as to confuse the domain in question with the “Glenn Beck” trademark.

If the owner of the domain name mentioned is forced to give up the right to the domain name, there are two backups ready, which can be accessed at GB1990.com and GB1990.net.

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So this morning, Ridge went back on Washington Journal, responding to Limbaugh’s rhetoric. “I’m so sick of Rush Limbaugh. He’s the reason we lose elections. He needs to get the hell out of the Republican Party. As far as I’m concerned, he isn’t a Republican anymore. The man’s running. The man’s hiding. He’s too scared to face me!”

Ridge continued his rant, threatening Limbaugh. “Meanwhile, he sits there in his ‘Southern Command Post,’ and destroys the Republican Party! I’d like to just have three rounds in a boxing ring with that guy so I could shut him up! I’m caling (sic) you out, Limbaugh. Let’s see if you have a big enough set of marbles to back up your crap!”

The encounter was posted on the FoxNation site as if it were fact:

Original Story

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