Theft is theft - even when it's intellectual property theft

Have you ever been in a pub and seen a loud drunk trying to start a fight and then when challenged seeking to involve and get back-up from his friends? I have and sometimes the friends are wise enough to stay out of things, other times they don't and the consequence is often that they end-up getting a good-kicking. I thought of this analogy when reading an entry entitled “Get stuffed Harrington!” on a supposed 'anti-fascist' blog.

It reported:-

“The Great Fantasist himself, the One Big Vast Huge Onion's farcical serial failure Patrick Harrington, is attempting to get Blogger to do the dirty legal work he's too afraid to do himself.He's complained that we used the photograph above from the One Big Vast Huge Onion's website and therefore breached his copyright.”

This was in response to a complaint I filed with Blogger (owned by Google) regarding infringment of copyright. Norfolk Unity had been warned previously that action would be taken if they did not respect copyright and could at that stage have quietly removed the offending image. That isn't exactly their style, however.

Instead they responded by stating:-

“Anyway, Harrington's a bit on the late side. That photo has already appeared on several other internet sites, and though we can't be sure, we have a feeling it's about to appear on many more.We're not taking it down, and we're not removing the post.As far as we're concerned, loser Harrington can take a running jump off the end of the Britannia Pier. We're Norfolk Unity, not Clive Potter or Tim Hawke - and we bite back.”

The picture was then posted on a number of associated sites. We were very intimidated! It also meant that we had to complain about all these other sites which have taken a hostile attitude to the Solidarity Brotherhood!

The result was that the image (and sometimes pages) from the following sites were removed:-

http://kirkunity.blogspot.com/2008/03/solidarity-and-mysteries-of-copyright.html
http://norfolkunity.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-stuffed-harrington.html
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/12/bnp-ballerina-provokes-new-storm.html
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2008/03/huge-growth-for-bnps-one-big-union.html
http://birminghamunity.blogspot.com/2008/03/norfolk-unity-tells-hypocrite.html
http://kirkunity.blogspot.com/2008/03/solidarity-and-mysteries-of-copyright.html
http://antifascistnetwork.blogspot.com/2008/03/solidarity-and-mysteries-of-copyright.html http://norfolkunity.blogspot.com/2008/03/huge-growth-for-bnps-one-big-union.html

The end result was that not only Norfolk Unity but the other infantile leftist sites have made themselves appear foolish. Our Union will enforce Copyright and deal with any infringement of our legal rights. If you sign-up to the terms and conditions of American servers and companies you shouldn't complain when we refer to US law in our complaints. That shouldn't be taken to mean, however, that we will not take action in other or multiple juristictions.