Big News

Re: Big News

Actually, he's screwing with AOL Time Warner, an even scarier nemesis.

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This guy is playing with fire. Don't screw with a company like CNN.

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Or the Left-Nav highlighting the "world" section, nit "sports".

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I think what gave it away the most was the exclaimation point (!) at the end of the headline.

[trackstar]

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>If he wants to do this,
>he needs to at least make it clear and obvious
>that it is not a CNN page. (And no, that
>"heavyplasma" URL does not rise to the level of
>"obvious," at least not in my untrained legal
>opinion.)

Nor -- again, in my non-lawyer opinion -- does that teeny-tiny "This article is fake" disclaimer at the bottom. If it's not immediately obvious, then it's probably illegal.

[trackstar]

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> I hope the guy that did this
>does not hear from the CNN legal
>department.

I hope he does. To parody CNN is fine (and legal), but to disguise your page as CNN's is fraud and copyright infringement. If he wants to do this, he needs to at least make it clear and obvious that it is not a CNN page. (And no, that "heavyplasma" URL does not rise to the level of "obvious," at least not in my untrained legal opinion.)

At the risk of being accused of self-promotion (and the risk of straying off the topic of t&f -- I'm sure GH will delete me if I am), here is an article I wrote on a similar issue, but where the "perpetrator" clearly understands what is parody and what is not (warning: article contains profanity): http://austinchronicle.com/issues/dispa ... aked7.html

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You are not my girl friend!
Lets stop making things up.

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Annoying bastard has a lot of girl friends. He is too busy to drink because he is getting laid all the time.

Pss, It is really 11 inches long. It is true.

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Hey, bar. Did you know we had an annoying bastard drinking with us?

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I meant 12:23.

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You're right. We both need to sober up. :-)

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>>That that to Jorge Torres.<

Too much time
>spend in a bar can cause stuttering, eh?


Yeah, too much time SPENT in a bar does that to you.

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>That that to Jorge Torres.<

Too much time spend in a bar can cause stuttering, eh?

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No college kid is
>going to run a 13:23 in international
>competition.

That that to Jorge Torres.

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The Site would have been more convincing if the information was in the realm of believability.
A better headline would have been "New American distance hope, Ritzenhein surprises by running 13:10 in London. That at least would seem initially less shocking.

However, it was an interesting idea. I hope the guy that did this does not hear from the CNN legal department.

Here is another headline suggestion. "Alan Webb recovers from surgery and runs 3:52 mile". Like my other suggestion it is a little farfetched but not unbelievable. When doing a good con you have to obey the rules of probability. People will immediately reject anything that is far out.

No college kid is going to run a 13:23 in international competition. Even a 13:10 would be rare for this kind of runner but not farfetched.

BTW, the athlete in question has a PR in the 5000m of 13:50, which was done in High School. Maybe someday he will be a solid 13:10 runner. Now that is something that seems plausible.

Ritzenhein is definitely a young American runner we should keep are eyes on.