Wal-Mart attempts to censor parody website

By Daniel Papasian

"For several days in April, this address, www.walmart-foundation.org, hosted a parody of the Wal-Mart Foundation's website. I created a derivative work by changing all of the text and several of the images from the original site. The goal was to make the parody look like it could be a real site from a company like Wal-Mart. However, the text was so ridiculous that anyone who read it would realize that it was absurd. If anyone believed it to be a real Wal-Mart website, that is only a testament to the degree of absurdity that exists within corporate America today.

"I believe that the website constituted fair use of the copyrighted material from the original website; it was done for the purpose of parody. The text on the website was all designed to highlight problems with the growing influence of large multinational corporations such as Wal-Mart. It contained many facts that were critical of Wal-Mart's labor, trade, and environmental impact. I engaged in a form of "identity correction." The Wal-Mart Foundation's main purpose is to generate a positive public image for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc by donating small amounts of money here and there in an attempt to behave like a philanthropy. As the Wal-Mart Foundation would never tell you that their goal was to help improve the image of the stores, I figured I would "correct" this through parody ...

Read on at http://www.walmart-foundation.org/