An individual named Isaac Eiland-Hall is sticking up for his right to run a website called glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com.
Fox News host and recent Time Magazine cover boy Glenn Beck is the target of the satirical site whose domain name is a riff on a joke made by comedian Gilbert Gottfried at a Comedy Central roast that rumors that “Bob Saget raped and murdered a girl in 1990” have to stop. After a commenter on the odd-news website Fark asked, “Why haven’t we had an official response to the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?” the joke became a web sensation on Digg, Reddit and other social-media websites.
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Beck, who has become notorious for his conspiratorial rants, wasn’t amused when Eiland-Hall registered glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com — featuring videos of crying women and purportedly examining Beck’s lack of denial about the rape/murder — and earlier this month he filed an administrative complaint with WIPO. The complaint claimed that the website was improperly using a trademark and the domain name was registered and being used in bad faith. (Beck also seems to be exploring a defamation claim.)
Yesterday, Eiland-Hall’s lawyer, Marc Randazza, filed his response. In it, he says the site should be his because it’s a valid critique of Beck’s politics.
“The website is a legitimate criticism site, consists of political satire, and thus the Respondent has legitimate rights in the domain name,” the response brief reads. “Mr. Beck’s attempt to censor this criticism is improper and should be rejected.”
The brief offers an history of esoteric inside jokes that became Internet meme phenomena, from “Mr. Spock Ate My Balls” to Richard Gere’s unflattering “Gerbil story.” But this case also makes a political point, noting an interview Beck conducted with Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim, in which Beck said, “I like Muslims, I’ve been to mosques…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.”
