Beck v. Eiland-Hall was a case filed in 2009 before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency. It was filed by political commentator Glenn Beck against Isaac Eiland-Hall, concerning the website "". Eiland-Hall created the site as a parody to express the view that Beck's commentary style challenged his guests to prove a negative. The site's name was based on a joke first used by comedian Gilbert Gottfried at the 2008 Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, in which Gottfried jokingly implored listeners to disregard the (non-existent) rumor that Saget had raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Online posters began an Internet meme comparing Gottfried's joke with Beck's style of debate, by requesting Beck disprove he had committed the act in question. Eiland-Hall launched his website on September 1, 2009.
Beck filed a complaint to the WIPO under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), arguing the domain name of the website was defamatory and asserted trademark infringement in its use of his name. Eiland-Hall filed a response brief to WIPO which cited the U.S. Supreme Court case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, asserting the website's domain name was a form of free speech and satirical political humor.
Beck made a supplemental filing in the case arguing the domain name was misleading and might lead individuals to believe it contained factual information. Eiland-Hall filed a surreply and stated Beck had depreciated the value of the First Amendment by attempting to evade its reach in a legal proceeding outside U.S. courts. On October 29, 2009, WIPO ruled against Beck, concluding that Eiland-Hall was making a political statement through parody in a justified usage of the Glenn Beck mark.
Commentators noted Beck's actions led to a Streisand effect; his suit against the website drew increased attention to it. Representatives of Public Citizen, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Citizen Media Law Project were all of the opinion that Beck's trademark argument in his complaint against the website was ridiculous. The assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project applauded WIPO's decision, saying, "It's good to see that this WIPO arbitrator had no interest in allowing Beck to circumvent the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution."
History Background Gilbert Gottfried joke Gilbert Gottfried was a featured comedian at the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget which first aired on August 16, 2008. At Saget's roast, Gottfried jokingly begged listeners to disregard the (nonexistent) rumor that his fellow comedian "raped and killed a girl in 1990". Gottfried repeatedly warned the audience at the roast not to spread the rumor, which did not exist before the comedian's speech. The audience in attendance at the Comedy Central Roast were both shocked and amused by the preposterous nature of Gottfried's joke which seemed more ludicrous each time he repeated it.
Internet meme
On August 31, 2009, a post on the Internet discussion community Fark applied Gottfried's joke to Glenn Beck. Online posters compared the Internet meme to Beck's style of arguing, requesting that Beck disprove that he had committed the act in question. The meme spread to social-media websites, including Encyclopedia Dramatica, Reddit, Yahoo!, Answers.com, YouTube, Twitter and Digg.com. A variation of the Googlebomb technique was used, in which Google provided "Glenn Beck murder" as a search suggestion in a query for "Glenn Beck".
Isaac Eiland-Hall, a 34-year-old computer science student in Panama City, Florida, saw the discussion on Fark using the Gottfried joke on Beck and created a website, GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com, intending it as a parody of Beck's style of political commentary. He chose not to identify with the WHOIS service and decided to remain anonymous. Eiland-Hall used the domain name registrar Namecheap for his site. It was launched on September 1, 2009, and received over 120,000 page views during its first 24 hours. The website asserted that it did not believe the charges were true. Eiland-Hall wrote on the site that those furthering the meme were asserting that Beck used a similar strategy to promote his opinions and increase his viewership.
The webpage originally displayed a small text disclaimer at the bottom, stating that the site was satirical. Eiland-Hall later placed two prominent disclaimers at the top of the page, which identified it as parody. The disclaimer at the top of the website's main page stated its entire contents was parody, and included a link to a larger disclaimer at the bottom of the page. The site criticized Beck's tactic of challenging those he opposes to prove a negative. Eiland-Hall told Politics Daily that after reading the initial thread at Fark which started the meme, he came to the conclusion that for those involved online participation in its propagation was a form of catharsis. He explained in an interview with Ars Technica that it was a means of utilizing Beck's strategies to criticize him and a way to focus exasperation around Beck's style of commentary into action. Eiland-Hall's website inspired copycat parodies.
Litigation Beck initiates legal action By September 3, 2009, attorneys representing Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck's media company, had requested that the domain registrar of Eiland-Hall's website delete the site. Beck's lawyers characterized the site's location as libelous. They demanded that the domain registrar revoke the WhoisGuard privacy-protection service for the website, and turn over contact information for the then-anonymous Eiland-Hall. The registrar, NameCheap, refused. On September 4, 2009, Beck's lawyers sent another letter to the domain registrar, repeating their requests and noting that they had read the website's contents and were therefore aware from statements posted to the site that its operator had been notified by the registrar.
Their second letter to NameCheap observed that the site was still operational on September 4, 2009, in spite of their prior requests on behalf of Beck. The domain registrar changed the name server of the website without telling Eiland-Hall; after contacting the registrar, he was permitted to return to his original name server. In an interview with Gawker on September 9, 2009, Eiland-Hall remarked that Beck's attorneys contacted the registrar of the domain, his hosting provider, as well as the company which housed the servers for his website. He noted that the hosting provider informed him they would not cooperate with the requests from Beck's lawyers unless they received a court order.
WIPO complaint In September 2009, lawyers for Beck and Mercury Radio Arts filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) against the privacy service for Eiland-Hall's website. WIPO is a Switzerland-based agency of the United Nations. The rules of WIPO's Arbitration and Mediation Center were created by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The privacy service for the website revealed the identity of the site's owner in response to Beck's complaint.
The complaint stated that Eiland-Hall was trying to distort perceptions about the purpose and derivation of the site. Beck argued that the domain name of the website could be confused with his trademark, "Glenn Beck". The complaint described the website's domain name as libelous claiming that it encroached upon Beck's legally registered claim of his name. Beck did not claim libel or defamation in the complaint, focusing on the legal issue of trademark. The complaint asserted that the website itself contained factually inaccurate information, was unauthorized and defamatory, and that it was highly probable it would create uncertainty among Beck's potential customers.
Beck's complaint asserted that the domain name of the website was an example of bad-faith registration. It argued that Eiland-Hall had no legitimate interest in, or right to, the website's domain name. As of September 2009 Beck was in the process of trademarking the use of his name for "goods and services", including the usage of "Glenn Beck" on merchandise.
Eiland-Hall response
Eiland-Hall retained First Amendment rights lawyer Marc Randazza to represent him. According to Randazza, Eiland-Hall sought legal representation after he was contacted with legal requests from lawyers representing Beck. On September 28, 2009, Randazza filed a 17-page response brief on behalf of his client, asserting that the website's domain name was a form of protected political speech and satirical political humor. According to Randazza, the website was used for satirical purposes and its owner was not attempting to profit from it. Randazza wrote that an individual would have to be a pathetic idiot to come under the impression that his client's website was directly affiliated with Beck, contending that the website's domain name could not be confused with the "Glenn Beck" trademark except to "a moron in a hurry".
Randazza asserted that Beck had insufficiently demonstrated trademark rights to his name, "Glenn Beck", and claimed that Beck was actually trying to have the website taken down because he did not appreciate the criticism through satire which parodied Beck's own techniques. He argued that Eiland-Hall had legitimate rights to his website's domain name because of its use to criticize Beck using political satire and as part of the Internet meme which had begun on the Fark website.
The brief gave a short history of Internet phenomena, including video parodies of the German film Downfall, memes based on the film 300, "Hitler Hates Kanye West", "All your base are belong to us", "Mr. Spock Ate My Balls", and the gerbil story involving Richard Gere.
Randazza traced the website's origin, explaining the internet meme's roots in Gilbert Gottfried's joke. He then spelled out the root comedic intent of Eiland-Hall's website, in an explanation he termed the humor equation:
The Eiland-Hall response brief cited a clip of Beck interviewing United States Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim from Minnesota. Beck had stated to U.S. Representative Ellison, "No offense and I know Muslims, I like Muslims, I've been to mosques, I really don't think Islam is a religion of evil. I think it's being hijacked, quite frankly. With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying let's cut and run. And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview because what I feel like saying is, sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy. But that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way." It was argued that this was an example of Beck's interview style in which he challenged his guests to prove a negative. Randazza concluded Beck's rhetorical style was similar to Gottfried's, simply devoid of comedic intent.
Randazza's argument compared the case to the Supreme Court of the United States case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell. Randazza wrote that Beck was attempting to evade the First Amendment to the United States Constitution by filing the legal process with an agency of the United Nations instead of in a U.S. court. In the legal brief, Randazza pointed out that Beck's action of going to the WIPO in an attempt to get the website taken down was in contradiction to his prior statements saying he preferred United States law over international law.