--
Ivan Pope
ivan@ivanpope.comhttp://www.ivanpope.comhttp://www.tochki-inc.com"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death"
Hunter S. Thompson
----------
> From: "Nathan Hactivist" <
nathan@hactivist.com>
> Reply-To: "Nathan Hactivist" <
nathan@hactivist.com>
> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:31:24 -0400
> To:
nettime-l@bbs.thing.net> Subject: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest
>
Re-Code.com>
> WE NEED YOUR HELP
> forward this around
> get us address for your local new stations to send videos to
> print out the posters at
re-code.com and stick them up around your town
>
> Keep Political Dissent Legal!
>
>
Re-Code.com is a website that allows user to upload product UPC ID numbers
> and pricing information into a database. That database is freely visible and
> is used with Re-Code's custom barcode generator to generate barcode image
> files in real time.
Re-Code.com went public on March 20th. The
Re-Code.com> website is a complete mockery of the
Pricelin.com website which promotes the
> concept of "Name your own price."
Re-Code.com only attempts to take this
> advertisement to its logical conclusion. The goal of the project is to
> create a new space for political satire using products that already exist in
> stores. The audience for this form of art/activism becomes the cashiers and
> shoppers at targeted stores.
Re-Code.com takes a humorous approach to these
> activities as hilited in their forst commercial downloadable at
>
www.re-code.com/videos.html. One suggested tactic the commercial makes is to
> re-code brand name items with generic items barcodes. This is an attempt to
> illustrate the dramatic difference in cost between similiar products based
> only on brand.
Re-Code.com believes that our customers deserve the right to
> make their voices heard and protest their own contributions to the support
> of the bloated adsvertising space that inflated prices of name brand goods.
> We encourage our customers to truly name their own prices.
>
> On April 7th,
Re-Code.com was forwarded a letter from the attorneys for Wal
> Mart Stores, INC. The letter was addressed to the company Domains by Proxy
>
http://www.domainsbyproxy.com who's tagline is "your identity is nobody's
> business but ours." Apparently that commitment only held up for 3 days. On
> April 10th, Re-Code. was informed that their service agreement had been
> terminated by Domains by Proxy.
Re-Code.com has not officially responded to
> the letter yet. The letter is visible at
http://www.re-code.com, as is
> several posters that Re-Code encourages visitors to download, print, and
> distribute.
>
> Is political satire illegal? Does Wal Mart have the right to police the net?
> Are barcodes intellectual property? These are only a few of the questions
> that may be raised over the next few days as the battle begins between
> artist and transnational corporation.
>
> On April 10th, a story about these happenings will debut on
salon.com> The story is live now and is called "Steal this Barcode"
> the entire article is included below.
>
>
Re-Code.com contact info:
press@re-code.com>
> SUPPORT US BY ADDING THE BELOW TEXT TO YOUR SIGNATURE
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Re-Code!?
> Re-Code! Shopping - Clip Barcodes, Not Coupons!
>
http://www.re-code.com>
>
> Steal this barcode
>
Re-Code.com offers a do-it-yourself product repricing service. Wal-Mart is
> not amused.
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> By Katharine Mieszkowski
>
> April 10, 2003 | Is it social commentary, or shoplifting?
>
> The Web site
Re-Code.com parodies the design and chipper lingo of
> Priceline.com's "name your own price" shopping site. It invites shoppers to
> "recode your own price," by making their own barcodes using the site's
> barcode generator. The theory: There's just a 10-digit number standing
> between you and a better deal on anything that you want in a store, and this
> site will help you crack the code.
>
> The site's creators call it satire. Wal-Mart's legal counsel calls it an
> incitement to theft and fraud.
>
>
Re-Code.com lets shoppers share barcode numbers from products they've
> purchased or search for codes entered by other visitors to make their own.
> So far, the site claims that it has collected about 150 codes. Barcode
> swapping, say the site's creators, is a way of subverting a chain's own
> inventory management system to really name your own price: "Apply the
> cheaper item's barcode to the more expensive item," the site instructs, then
> go to the checkout where: "Cashiers usually don't notice but machines never
> do."
>
>
Re-Code.com is a project of the Carbon Defense League, an artist and
> activist collective affiliated with the "tactical media network"
>
Hactivist.com.
>
> "Nathan Hactivist," the nom de guerre of one of the collective's operatives,
> who is based in upstate New York, says "We think of ourselves as a friend of
>
Priceline.com, making good on their promises of naming your own price. We're
> carrying out their goal to its logical extreme." He sees the site as a
> commentary on the absurdity of a company, like Priceline, marketing itself
> as "giving the power to the consumer," and as a tool for making a political
> statement about the perceived differences between brand-name and generic
> products, organic-labeled and non-organic foods.
>
> But just days after opening for non-business on the Web,
Re-Code.com has run
> afoul, not of Priceline's legal council, but of Wal-Mart's, the retailing
> megalith and the U.S.'s largest private employer. Despite the legal
> disclaimers at the bottom of Re-Code's home page pledging that the site is
> not intended to be used for illegal ends, Wal-Mart wants it shut down.
>
> On April 2, Janet F. Satterthwaite, a Washington trademark attorney
> representing Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sent a letter to Domains by Proxy, a
> service that the Carbon Defense League used to register the
Re-Code.com> domain name anonymously, demanding that the site be shut down within 48
> hours. It accuses
Re-Code.com of "encouraging and facilitating theft and
> fraud against Wal-Mart," noting that "Wal-Mart barcodes are specifically
> made available on this Web site."
>
> Domains by Proxy responded on April 10 by "canceling our privacy service for
> that domain," says Justin Scholz, the company's spam and abuse
> administrator. But the site is still up, since Domains by Proxy does not
> control its hosting or domain name registration, just the anonymity of that
> registration. Wal-Mart's lawyer refused to comment on the matter, but the
> collective behind Re-Code has gone on the offensive.
>
> They posted the text of the letter on their home page, and added a more
> elaborate disclaimer, which visitors must pass through to visit the site:
> "If you understand that
Re-Code.com is a site of satire then you may enter.
> We are not liable for any misuse of the contents of this site."
>
> Below the disclaimer appears a handy list of "tactical shopping options
> using Re-Code.com" with Wal-Mart products. It suggests barcode swaps as a
> way of commenting on the war in Iraq: "Option 3: If we are to believe the
> mainstream news, casualties are very few in the current war. Why not suggest
> that our military begin strategic Nerf strikes by replacing Winchester Light
> Target Load Ammunition (UPC ID 2089200442) with Nerf Ballistic Balls (UPC ID
> 7628161348). Ain't no war like a Nerf war."
>
> "We thought we'd target Wal-Mart specifically, since they chose to target
> us," says Nathan Hactivist. He says the Carbon Defense League has sought
> legal advice from lawyers affiliated with RTMark, a kind of counter-culture
> artists' front organization that helped
etoy.com fight the dot-com
eToys.com> in a protracted trademark battle (which
etoy.com eventually won). And right
> now, they don't believe that Wal-Mart has a case: Are 10-digit barcode
> numbers intellectual property? And where's the proof that anyone has stolen
> anything from Wal-Mart stores with the help of the site?
>
> "In my mind, this is similar to 'The Anarchist's Cookbook,'" Nathan
> Hactivist says. "If the argument is that we're facilitating theft, then they
> should be going after the people who invented the barcode, which is the
> thing that's making it easier to steal. All we're doing is creating a
> database of the barcodes that already exist on the products that we
> purchase."
>
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> About the writer
> Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon Technology.
>
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info:
majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
> # archive:
http://www.nettime.org contact:
nettime@bbs.thing.net>