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Free Advertising, Part II
Follow-Ups,
News
 Firstly, I must thank the Guardian for distributing 18,000 copies of our Marye Ann Fox poster on Thursday on top of the original 300 that we sprinkled about campus. I guess it must have been a slow news day. This response is tardy because I spent my Friday and Saturday evenings doing more important stuff than typing things on the internet.
If the Guardian runs any more articles on us I'm going to file a restraining order or ask for a hand job. I haven't decided which yet—groupies can be touchy.
Clarifications and details on Christine Kwon's Thursday article after the jump, along with a note on (our) anonymity.
Kwon's article was a pleasant improvement over Bryan Tsao's slapdash critique, that much is for sure. Her account of the situation was a bit dramatic and she chose quotes which would sensationalize the story, but it would be hypocritical of me to whine about yellow journalism. Kwon's inclusion of Andy Greenberg's expert opinion was nice, especially because his statements eroded UCSD's arguments for the elimination of our name.
For those of you who are interested, here is the 'interview' Kwon conducted via email. Her questions are in bold.
What kind of legal pressure has YouCSD been under from the university?
YouCSD has been accused of violating Education Code 92000 for using the university's name and displaying an image of its trademark, Geisel Library. UCSD's Campus Counsel, Ann Parode, sent us the notice from the contact form on our site. She made sure to inform us that Violation of EC 92000 is a misdemeanor. Parode, as reported in the Guardian, helped bully Jeremy Jung in April 2004 for advertising GetTextbooks.com with a piece of clip art that resembled the UCSD bookstore's logo.
What legal actions does YouCSD plan to take in turn?
We have contacted the ACLU for advice and possible legal aid. This threat from the university has no merit, and from the beginning we expected campus administration to try and use such strong arm tactics to censor us. We deliberately refrained from using "UCSD" or "UC" in our name because we were already aware of the school's prior attempts to defend their trademarks "University of California" and "UC." We will keep the name YouCSD, although our masthead depicting Geisel Library will be removed at least temporarily. It seems pretty ridiculous that they can exert such control over a photograph of a public building that we took ourselves. Actually, the phrase that comes to mind is "fucking disgusting." I didn't start YouCSD to become a martyr—I just want to graduate having helped this school mature a bit.
Why do you think YouCSD has received this kind of legal pressure?
Censorship, plain and simple. It is easy for a large institution like UCSD to draw from vast resources and strangle any voice it dislikes by unleashing its flying monkey army to pelt their victims with abusive and intimidating legal threats. There is an old joke that goes, "Where does an 800 pound gorilla sleep? Wherever it wants!" UCSD and the University of California as a whole, armed with experienced lawyers like Ann Parode, can twist copyright law to do anything they want. Students and other independent groups lack similar legal muscle and are ground to bits as the 800 pound gorilla thrashes about, eliminating anything deemed a threat. If UC schools focused less on acting like a soulless corporation and more like an institution dedicated to higher learning, I would like to think that this sort of legal gimmick wouldn't exist.
Does the university know your identities despite your use of fake names and addresses?
The university, as far as I know, does not know our identities. As stated earlier, Parode contacted us through informal means. It is within the realm of possibility, however, that she has my name, address and phone number (I won't say how). The identities of everyone else involved with YouCSD are harder to track down because any kind of paper trail has been minimized.
What are the origins of YouCSD?
This question needs clarification.
How many people are involved?
More than two, less than 1000.
Are you undergraduates? Majors? Fields of interest?
We are an eclectic mix of third, fourth and fifth year undergraduates. Our majors do not matter. Our only important shared interest is changing the status quo.
Why are the creators of YouCSD insistent on keeping their anonymity?
Anonymity helps keep the focus on the issues we write about. Too many people embroiled in campus affairs are motivated solely by seeing their name in print. Instead of making our faces famous, we're interested in making our soapbox-cum-web site famous. This is about being heard, not about being known.
Why was the website originally created, and what goal(s) do you have for the future?
Ultimately, we strive to make YouCSD a major news source for students and hope to have considerable influence on public opinion (and, by proxy, university policy). We're quite bitter that the average UCSD student is disastrously apathetic and criminally uninformed, and changing even one of those two things would be an accomplishment we could pride ourselves on.
When I spoke to Anne Parode and Nicholas Aguilar, the Director of Student Policies and Judicial Affairs, they both claimed that the content of your website, save the use of the university's name, had nothing to do with their legal actions against you. When I mentioned other student-run websites that use the university's name, and are not being warned, Anne Parode told me that she only pursues cases that have been brought to her attention. What do you make of this? Do you think the university has alternate intentions aside from their legal obligations?
Parode and Aguilar may be automated attack dogs who carry forth any task presented to them, but YouCSD has been singled out at some level by someone in administration because they dislike what we are saying. If Parode were really being truthful, she would have taken down the names of the student run web sites that you recalled and sent them similar warnings. Parode and Aguilar are just doing their best to pass the blame so that they appear as benevolent as possible.
Parode assured me that she's never had problems with compliance from students who have been warned of their infractions. What actions are you going to take now that you've received this warning? Is YouCSD going to continue running and using the UCSD name and photo of Geisel library?
We have removed the photograph of Geisel Library for the time being -- we were quite unaware that the university had the right to trademark all depictions of a physical structure. "YouCSD.com" and "UCSD" are two entirely separate names and we have asked Parode to clarify her concerns regarding this matter. If UCSD is attacking us based on the name of our site, they are out of line and we will defend ourselves against their inane legal feint. The name of our outlet is not intended to mimic or confuse the name of this university but rather highlights our commitment to our audience and peers amongst the student body. If UCSD goes as far as to insist we refrain from all usage of this campus' name as reference in our posts (e.g. "UCSD" or "University of California, San Diego"), then obviously I have somehow entered the Twilight Zone and all reality has become some sort of sick parody. Either way, Parode's legal warning is a perfect example of the ridiculousness of this country's copyright laws and the bizarre extent to which they can be manipulated by anyone with enough legal backing.
Will you still try maintain your anonymity if you are faced with legal charges?
Yes.
Our correspondence with Christine Kwon, Ann Parode, Bryan Tsao and the countless others who have emailed us has been consistently conducted under pseudonyms. A few sniveling commentators, unable to find greater principles to fault, have decided to equate anonymity with cowardice or dishonesty. For emphasis, I'm going to re-paste in one of my responses to Kwon's interview:
Anonymity helps keep the focus on the issues we write about. Too many people embroiled in campus affairs are motivated solely by seeing their name in print. Instead of making our faces famous, we're interested in making our soapbox-cum-web site famous. This is about being heard, not about being known.
Additionally, revealing our names would destroy the privleged access we have to campus affairs. If YouCSD were tied to our identities, much of the information we write about—and plan to write about—would never reach our eyes or ears. Ours is a network of moles spread throughout the campus landscape, and such information gathering—highly effective thus far—would become impossible should our identities come to light.
Satan's Homegirl adds:
We don't see our anonymity as any excuse for us to sacrifice journalistic, moral, or personal integrity, or to report anything but the facts and our individually held opinions. If you, as readers of YouCSD, ever see us fail in that regard, we urge you to let us know. Yet we will always defend our right to voice unpopular, radical, or even vitriolic opinions.
We hope that anonymity takes the emphasis off who we are and instead highlights what we're saying. Knowing a writer's identity colors a reader's perception of what they espouse, and we seek to avoid that effect by reporting facts and opinions in way that lets them stand alone from our identities as UCSD students.
Nom de Guerre, Oct 10 2004, 10:31 PM
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