FW: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest Re-Code.com

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>From: "Nathan Hactivist" <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest
>Re-Code.com
>Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:31:24 -0400
>Sender: [email protected]
>Reply-To: "Nathan Hactivist" <[email protected]>
>
>WE NEED YOUR HELP
>forward this around
>get us address for your local new stations to send videos to
>print out the posters at re-code.com and stick them up around your town
>
>Keep Political Dissent Legal!
>
>Re-Code.com is a website that allows user to upload product UPC ID numbers
>and pricing information into a database. That database is freely visible and
>is used with Re-Code's custom barcode generator to generate barcode image
>files in real time. Re-Code.com went public on March 20th. The Re-Code.com
>website is a complete mockery of the Pricelin.com website which promotes the
>concept of "Name your own price." Re-Code.com only attempts to take this
>advertisement to its logical conclusion. The goal of the project is to
>create a new space for political satire using products that already exist in
>stores. The audience for this form of art/activism becomes the cashiers and
>shoppers at targeted stores. Re-Code.com takes a humorous approach to these
>activities as hilited in their forst commercial downloadable at
>www.re-code.com/videos.html. One suggested tactic the commercial makes is to
>re-code brand name items with generic items barcodes. This is an attempt to
>illustrate the dramatic difference in cost between similiar products based
>only on brand. Re-Code.com believes that our customers deserve the right to
>make their voices heard and protest their own contributions to the support
>of the bloated adsvertising space that inflated prices of name brand goods.
>We encourage our customers to truly name their own prices.
>
>On April 7th, Re-Code.com was forwarded a letter from the attorneys for Wal
>Mart Stores, INC. The letter was addressed to the company Domains by Proxy
>http://www.domainsbyproxy.com who's tagline is "your identity is nobody's
>business but ours." Apparently that commitment only held up for 3 days. On
>April 10th, Re-Code. was informed that their service agreement had been
>terminated by Domains by Proxy. Re-Code.com has not officially responded to
>the letter yet. The letter is visible at http://www.re-code.com, as is
>several posters that Re-Code encourages visitors to download, print, and
>distribute.
>
>Is political satire illegal? Does Wal Mart have the right to police the net?
>Are barcodes intellectual property? These are only a few of the questions
>that may be raised over the next few days as the battle begins between
>artist and transnational corporation.
>
>On April 10th, a story about these happenings will debut on salon.com
>The story is live now and is called "Steal this Barcode"
>the entire article is included below.
>
>Re-Code.com contact info: [email protected]
>
>SUPPORT US BY ADDING THE BELOW TEXT TO YOUR SIGNATURE
>__________________________________________________
>Do you Re-Code!?
>Re-Code! Shopping - Clip Barcodes, Not Coupons!
>http://www.re-code.com
>
>
>Steal this barcode
>Re-Code.com offers a do-it-yourself product repricing service. Wal-Mart is
>not amused.
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>By Katharine Mieszkowski
>
>April 10, 2003 | Is it social commentary, or shoplifting?
>
>The Web site Re-Code.com parodies the design and chipper lingo of
>Priceline.com's "name your own price" shopping site. It invites shoppers to
>"recode your own price," by making their own barcodes using the site's
>barcode generator. The theory: There's just a 10-digit number standing
>between you and a better deal on anything that you want in a store, and this
>site will help you crack the code.
>
>The site's creators call it satire. Wal-Mart's legal counsel calls it an
>incitement to theft and fraud.
>
>Re-Code.com lets shoppers share barcode numbers from products they've
>purchased or search for codes entered by other visitors to make their own.
>So far, the site claims that it has collected about 150 codes. Barcode
>swapping, say the site's creators, is a way of subverting a chain's own
>inventory management system to really name your own price: "Apply the
>cheaper item's barcode to the more expensive item," the site instructs, then
>go to the checkout where: "Cashiers usually don't notice but machines never
>do."
>
>Re-Code.com is a project of the Carbon Defense League, an artist and
>activist collective affiliated with the "tactical media network"
>Hactivist.com.
>
>"Nathan Hactivist," the nom de guerre of one of the collective's operatives,
>who is based in upstate New York, says "We think of ourselves as a friend of
>Priceline.com, making good on their promises of naming your own price. We're
>carrying out their goal to its logical extreme." He sees the site as a
>commentary on the absurdity of a company, like Priceline, marketing itself
>as "giving the power to the consumer," and as a tool for making a political
>statement about the perceived differences between brand-name and generic
>products, organic-labeled and non-organic foods.
>
>But just days after opening for non-business on the Web, Re-Code.com has run
>afoul, not of Priceline's legal council, but of Wal-Mart's, the retailing
>megalith and the U.S.'s largest private employer. Despite the legal
>disclaimers at the bottom of Re-Code's home page pledging that the site is
>not intended to be used for illegal ends, Wal-Mart wants it shut down.
>
>On April 2, Janet F. Satterthwaite, a Washington trademark attorney
>representing Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sent a letter to Domains by Proxy, a
>service that the Carbon Defense League used to register the Re-Code.com
>domain name anonymously, demanding that the site be shut down within 48
>hours. It accuses Re-Code.com of "encouraging and facilitating theft and
>fraud against Wal-Mart," noting that "Wal-Mart barcodes are specifically
>made available on this Web site."
>
>Domains by Proxy responded on April 10 by "canceling our privacy service for
>that domain," says Justin Scholz, the company's spam and abuse
>administrator. But the site is still up, since Domains by Proxy does not
>control its hosting or domain name registration, just the anonymity of that
>registration. Wal-Mart's lawyer refused to comment on the matter, but the
>collective behind Re-Code has gone on the offensive.
>
>They posted the text of the letter on their home page, and added a more
>elaborate disclaimer, which visitors must pass through to visit the site:
>"If you understand that Re-Code.com is a site of satire then you may enter.
>We are not liable for any misuse of the contents of this site."
>
>Below the disclaimer appears a handy list of "tactical shopping options
>using Re-Code.com" with Wal-Mart products. It suggests barcode swaps as a
>way of commenting on the war in Iraq: "Option 3: If we are to believe the
>mainstream news, casualties are very few in the current war. Why not suggest
>that our military begin strategic Nerf strikes by replacing Winchester Light
>Target Load Ammunition (UPC ID 2089200442) with Nerf Ballistic Balls (UPC ID
>7628161348). Ain't no war like a Nerf war."
>
>"We thought we'd target Wal-Mart specifically, since they chose to target
>us," says Nathan Hactivist. He says the Carbon Defense League has sought
>legal advice from lawyers affiliated with RTMark, a kind of counter-culture
>artists' front organization that helped etoy.com fight the dot-com eToys.com
>in a protracted trademark battle (which etoy.com eventually won). And right
>now, they don't believe that Wal-Mart has a case: Are 10-digit barcode
>numbers intellectual property? And where's the proof that anyone has stolen
>anything from Wal-Mart stores with the help of the site?
>
>"In my mind, this is similar to 'The Anarchist's Cookbook,'" Nathan
>Hactivist says. "If the argument is that we're facilitating theft, then they
>should be going after the people who invented the barcode, which is the
>thing that's making it easier to steal. All we're doing is creating a
>database of the barcodes that already exist on the products that we
>purchase."
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> About the writer
> Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon Technology.
>
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>———-
>> From: "Nathan Hactivist" <[email protected]>
>> Reply-To: "Nathan Hactivist" <[email protected]>
>> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:31:24 -0400
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest
>> Re-Code.com
>>
>> WE NEED YOUR HELP
>> forward this around
>> get us address for your local new stations to send videos to
>> print out the posters at re-code.com and stick them up around your town


oops, sorry about the dupe
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http://www.mteww.com
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