Posted on 05/02/2007 12:55:15 PM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Is MySpace always mine or can it belong to someone else? At the cost of losing 160,000 friends, Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign has taken over control of the MySpace page listed under his name on the popular social networking site.
For the past two and a half years, the page has been run by an Obama supporter from Los Angeles named Joe Anthony. At first, that arrangement was fine with the Obama team, which worked with Anthony on the content and even had the password to make changes themselves.
But as the site exploded in popularity in recent months, the campaign became concerned about an outsider having control of the content and responses going out under Obama's name and told Anthony they wanted him to turn it over.
In this new frontier of online campaigning, it's hard to determine the value of 160,000 MySpace friends — about four times what any other official campaign MySpace page has amassed. But the Obama campaign decided they wouldn't pay $39,000, which is what Anthony said he proposed for his extensive work on the site, plus some additional fees up to $10,000.
MySpace reluctantly stepped in to settle the dispute and decided that Obama should have the rights to control
as of Monday night, while Anthony had the right to take the contact information for all the friends who signed up while he was in control. That includes the right to tell them exactly how he feels about the Obama campaign.
Anthony referred The Associated Press to his MySpace blog, where he has written that he is heartbroken that the Obama campaign was "bullying" him out of the page he built. He said the candidate has lost his vote.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is trying to rebuild
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Tell me this is satire. Please.
How racially insensitive of Mr. Anthony.
Golly - eminent domain for intellectual property - what will they think of next (or what will someone else think of that they will appropriate)...
This is satire.
"Absolutely. There was this time, see, where someone had a MySpace page, and it talked about me, but I wasn't happy with the content. I stepped right up to that challenge. I said, "Hold on. I'm taking control here ..."
I’m considering establishing a myspace account strictly to add all of the politicos are getting “top page cool new friends” profiling on myspace.
See which candidates are using it and how they are using it. When anyone from the campaigns posts a bulletin, I’d get it. Might even be interesting to see which other accounts try to add me as a “friend” (and fellow traveller).
It does leave open the question of how much claim someone “famous” can lay to an account when they already work together WITH the person running an account. In the absence of a signed contract, can they claim ownership? Or was that something that the operator of the profile needed?
“...Obama campaign was “bullying” him out of the page he built.” Nedra is up to her usual AP tricks. Why not just use the word that describes what the Obama campaign did: “stole” the page he built.
I realize Hunter has a mySpace pages as well, but the more I think about it the less I want to support ANY Presidential candidate that has a mySpace page.
That's a better indicator of his platform than any of the debates.
Typical Liberal — he sees somebody doing good (for him), fears a possible lack of control, cheeps out, and ends up in the mud screaming that he did nothing wrong.
B. Hussein Obama is a joke. Will that suffice?
Zero, zilch, nada . . .
“You don’t remember me, but I remember you. ‘Twas not so long ago, you broke my heart in two. Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you”
So Anthony has been working on Obama’s campaign for two and a half years, and has been managing a page with 160,000 people signed up.
And Obama’s campaign, which has amassed millions, won’t pay him a fair value for the page, and instead got an evil corportation to steal his property from him.
You would think this would be disgusting to the radical left on sites like DU.
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