Autism speaks: Friend or foe?

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Sorry I just wanted peoples current opinion of them. They may have been annoyed with them in the past but now changed their minds for some reason. For all their flaws as far as I can see they've also done a lot of good, so I'm unsure about them.

One of the major fears expressed here on this site was that Autism Speaks was seeking to provide a prenatal test, and that the majority of pregnancy's identified as Autistic would be terminated as a result of that prenatal test. While the results of the research funded by Autism Speaks might have led to a prenatal test, it appears that instead the research is providing evidence that a prenatal genetic test may not be feasible, because of the environmental factors involved.

Regarding copyright issues, apparently "Autism Speaks" takes what they are doing seriously and are intent on helping Autistic people; while it may seem harsh that they won't allow anyone to infringe on their copyrights to speak against what they are trying to do, they are within their legal rights to do this.

The idea behind a trademark on a phrase like "Autism Speaks" is it brands an organization where everyone that hears the term associates it with that organization. If the trademarked phrase is taken out of context and used for another purpose, the phrase can lose it's intended meaning for the general public.

While it might give some satisfaction to do this when they don't like an organization; an organization can't afford to allow individuals to do this; Most organizations protect their copyrights, "Autism Speaks" is not alone in this. If they didn't exercise their legal authority immediately, this type of activity would have probably continued.

From a business perspective it costs them some bad PR within the Autistic community, but overall the cost could have eventually been greater to the organization, within the general public, if they didn't take immediate action.

The easy alternative for those wishing to present non-slanderous opposing views is to leave "Autism Speaks" or other copyrighted information out of what is expressed.

The information that Autism Speaks provided funding for research that suggests the environment plays a bigger role is new information that hasn't been talked about before on this internet site, so it is indeed updated information about what Autism Speaks is currently doing; and may allow some to view the organization more objectively.

I don't see a problem with you bringing it up again, I'm sure there will be new developments in the future regarding the topic in the future, that warrant additional topics to discuss what has been a very controversial and heartfelt topic.

Last edited by aghogday on 13 Jul 2011, 11:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Legally speaking, parody falls under "fair use" and is not a violation of trademarks or copyrights. So...in that case, autism speaks did not have to defend their trademark as it was not being violated. That doesn't mean they couldn't take legal action, and they clearly did, but it is not reasonable to present it as such a black and white issue as you did here.

And when it comes right down to it, silencing criticism has a downright chilling effect on public discourse.

Autism Speaks... the mission they implied is to strip us of who we are... with their "cure."

While I understand parody falls under "fair use", several factors come in to play in determining fair use. One of which is how much original content is used. The site that is currently displayed about NT Speaks, is not a mirror image of the original site that was closed. It no longer exists, but those that viewed it state that it was basically a screen shot of the Autism Speaks website that was altered. At this point opinions vary as to whether or not the site met the requirements of fair use, a definitive answer cannot be provided because a court of law did not determine the issue.

Also, while it's possible the fourteen year old individual that created the website reviewed the laws regarding fair use of copyrighted material on the internet, seeking legal counsel to ensure they didn't overstep their bounds. I doubt it. Most people wouldn't know what the boundries were without some kind of counsel on this fairly complicated issue, so a letter to cease and desist was a fair enough notification, to let the individual know that they were beyond acceptable boundries as determined by legal counsel.

Autism Speaks employs lawyers to provide counsel on issues like this as do other large organizations. It's standard business practice; nothing out of the norm. It's not likely it would have been as controversial if someone outside of the spectrum was involved. Organizations pay big bucks for their websites; not many would take it kindly if a screenshot of their website was superimposed with parody.

Many resources on this topic present the opinion that it is a black and white issue that the site was indeed legal. Regardless of the source of the opinion, only a court of law could determine whether or not it met the definition of fair use, which is subject to analysis of factors other than parody.

I personally, would like to have viewed the site, to make a subjective judgement for myself, but since it no longer exists, we only have second hand accounts of what it was.

It would indeed be chilling if criticism were silenced for that reason alone, but the reasoning behind Autism Speaks actions in these two cases, is within legal rights, and not uncommon among organizations. It would be just as chilling if copyrights infringement could not be defended, in fear that someone using the material might be offended because they were notified they could not legally use the copyrighted information without permission.

In the cut and paste era of the internet, people no longer see it in quite the same way as it was seen before electronic media made it so easy to copy and modify copyrighted content.

Sites that parody information such as NT syndrome are clearly parodies in that there is no duplicated content and/or copyright infringement.

er sorry, this has really got my mildy socipathic tendancies aroused. Why can't we quote their stuff in articles and accademic papers - isn't there some law stating any accademic paper , thesis etc, has to make reference to the original sources?

Is Autism Speaks copyright protected by intenational law?

Which law takes precedence, copyright or need to clearly state source? -copyright infringeme /need to declare orignator?

I'm in the Uk do I get extradited to your fair country if I do this stuff anayway? - this is civil law not criminal law can I be extradited on a civil case?

Its not like they are going to waterboard me for questioning research and stating opinion is it?

Meme.

Something in between the two.



People are against them because they have different values and attitudes than most of us here do. Personally, I think there's some overreacting going on in the negative reactions to Autism Speaks. People seeing them as worse than they are. People thinking things are true that aren't. But, I think there are also very good reasons not to see them as "friend".

Personally, I dislike that they call themselves "Autism Speaks" when they are an organization by and for parents of those with autism.

Autism, of course, can't really speak, but people with autism can, and it just seems wrong for an organiation by and for people who don't have autism, even if autism related, to call itself Autism Speaks.

That's trademark, not copyright. Though, other than using the wrong term, I think your explanation gets it right.

Why don't you take a stroll over to the Politics, Philosophy and Religion forum and see just how endless the debate really is.

Also something else that struck me was the way the govenment in the USA announced it was funding groups "comabting autism",it seemed maybe bit of a wind up to some guys who think hey I'm Ok, why the hell would anyone want to combat me, what did I do?

In the Uk when the govenment talks about combating stuff its usually terrorism or some deadly disease or some nutty extreme political group and crime .

We don't fall into those catagories.

Meme

Last edited by memesplice on 13 Jul 2011, 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's quite a lot of parody out there that looks similar to the source material, and in fact such similarities are often central to the humor in question.



This is a meaningless objection. Most people don't seek and even cannot afford legal counsel for such things, and in most cases it is likely unnecessary.



Actually, I am aware of how large businesses use the threat of legal action: They often know they do not have a valid case, but they also know that most of the people they send C&D notices to cannot afford to fight them, so the end result is that people are intimidated out of fair use and it never goes to court. This does not mean every case is invalid.

For some examples: Viacom sued Youtube over what Viacom claimed were intentional copyright violations, even though Youtube removes videos reported as violations:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/busin ... m.web.html

And in 1996 sued several webpages for hosting images and soundclips, although these were also fair use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_ ... gal_issues



I don't find this appeal to authority compelling. No court of law was involved so it doesn't really matter - no court of law could have been involved because there was no lawsuit. You're presenting one side of the case - that businesses go about defending their trademarks and copyrights in a benign way because they are required to in order to maintain their ownership and the right to challenge more substantial breaches, but this is not so simply, and just saying "We can't determine because a court of law didn't say" doesn't mean anything.



You may be able to find screencaps.



I never said anything about not defending copyright infringement. It's not an either/or situation. It's not necessary to shut down any instance of parody - especially parody used to highlight criticism - in order to defend trademarks. It is especially not necessary to threaten legal action against someone who clearly cannot defend themselves as an intimidation tactic to remove dissenting opinions.

I hope you'll forgive me if I have significantly less sympathy for the plight of multi-million or multi-billion dollar businesses who have to deal with satire vs. individuals who cannot defend themselves against spurious and/or frivolous legal claims from those same businesses.

There was also this situation:

http://sites.google.com/site/notautismspeaks/legal



Even though fair use covers parodies, and thus there's nothing actually wrong with using material that resembles the copyrighted or trademarked content.

It depends on what is considered fair use of the material. One would almost need legal counsel to ensure they never broke the rules. The laws are complex. From what I've seen, if someone oversteps the bounds of fairuse without obvious malicious intent or prior knowledge, they are usually notified by the owner of the content to remove it. But whether or not we understand the laws or not, we can be held accountable.

As far as I understand Autism Speaks has only taken action to eliminate the issue, not penalize the individual by taking them to court. If they actually followed through to try to penalize the individuals, then we might present a valid case that they were being harsh, because the individual in question didn't understand the complexity of the laws involved.

I can't make the judgement on whether or not the site in question would or would not have met legal standards in a court of law, but if it didn't, they were fortunate to receive just a civil notification to let them know they overstepped the legal boundries.

If you are interested in copyright laws and the internet there are sources on the internet with a google search. In the fine print of this site it clearly states that each individual is responsible for copyright violations.

Silencing criticism is harsh.

So : one bunch of people equal under law , define another bunch of people defined equal under law as Group A. Those defined as A reject the label and say we regard ourselves as B. The other group then try to apply law to stop rejection of unwanted label.

They either can prove we are A or not, in law.

Like if they can toatally prove we are A not B why are all the related academic instustries still guzzing $150 million research grants?

We should be suing them for unfair /unrepresentative labelling , where appropriate. Isn't there something in an equalities act or something similar that prevents them doing this? Would take precedent over copyright laws you got over there .

We have a concept of Compos Mentis of over here -like if you are this, in right mind , you have rights and can fight to reject any unwanted lablels as long as you have fair and reasonable grounds to do so.

Foe. They started out with a semi-decent idea... just went awry.

I have no objection that the young individual probably didn't understand complex fair use laws. I wouldn't expect the individual to understand the laws. Autism Speaks official statement is they did not threaten a lawsuit against the young girl. That wasn't necessary because she complied with their request to cease and desist.

Fair use only covers parodies if they meet the requirements in US Code as listed in the link you provided.

The T-shirt incident listed on the link you provided that was also provided earlier in this thread has since been admitted as a case of miscommunication between the company and the individual that made the claim, in the following link:

http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthread.php?tid=13631

The same link you provided gave an interpretation of the laws regarding the fair use act.

Regarding factor 3 of the law:

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

The opinion in the link you provided stated the individual used a layout of the website and didn't consider that as a problem, but if it was indeed a screenshot of the website with copyrighted original information and trademarks, it's a matter of opinion. While a limited amount of content resembling the website might meet factor three, a screenshot of the actual website could easily be legally interpreted as not meeting factor 3.

An original screenshot of the website is not available on the internet as far as I understand; others have expressed an interest in seeing it and have also not been able to find it; if it is an abuse of fair use laws, it's not surprising no one else is displaying it on the internet.

I don't see a problem with different opinions on whether or not it was a legal website, but not all parody is legal if it doesn't meet the requirements of the fair use act. That is specifically the misunderstanding that some people have. I understand some companies abuse their authority, but it's not abuse of authority if there is a reasonable indication that laws regarding copyright and trademark may not be met.

Even though the T-shirt incident was proven as not directly associated with Autism Speaks, there are many sites that still are up stating that Autism Speaks ordered the company that made the T-shirts to pull them, when it was proven long ago not to be true. If Autism Speaks lawyers were out to get everyone that criticizes Autism Speaks, they could go after these sites that are misrepresenting what Autism Speaks did.

Autism Speaks official response to the NT Speaks incident is available in the link you provided; if the parodied website was substantially the same as Autism Speaks website, they may of had a valid concern that it might confuse some looking for information, as presented in their response.

It's a matter of opinion on whether or not the cease and desist request was necessary; understanding the facts I as I do now, I question whether or not it was, if I could see the website I could form a better opinion for myself.

I think these factors deserve review in determining an opinion on whether or not Autism Speaks is protecting themselves as an organization or trying to silence criticism.

The fact that the T-shirt incident still remains as a popular topic of conversation, without concern from Autism Speaks, leads me to think they are not too concerned about criticism when it does not involve content that is seen as offensive to supporters on their own turf.