Monday, March 27, 2006

zembla scoops the sydney morning herald

It's not nearly as exciting as the time Zembla got ahead of The Onion, but Zembla broke the story of Aussie funnyman Dan Ilic's legal troubles over a parody ad one day before The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story about the legal threats on its front page. I would link to the post on Zembla, but if Zembla weren't abandoned and desolate right now, I wouldn't be hanging out in New Wye.

Rather hilariously, Downwind Media created four "remixes" of the ad, removing the soundalike music that so agitated Tourism Australia in the first place. The "special editions" have been a hit - collect all four! However, you may have trouble accessing Downwind Media, as they've been suffering from a DDOS attack for the last few hours. One must wonder if it's mere coincidence that the controversy and publicity over the parody ad happened on the same day Mr. Ilic's site got bombed.

Although Zembla has also gone down due to DDOS issues this week, informed sources assure me that digital pirates are responsible, schoolyard bullies in hacker form demanding protection money from a poor humble DNS provider. Tourism Australia may be a foolish, litigious, and bullying company that eats dingos and/or babies, but they have probably not tried to take down my website. Just Mr. Ilic's.

Anyway, Mr. Ilic's internet famousness continues to explode, the Sydney Morning Herald continues to set the standard for Aussie print journalism that I read online, and I continue to track the story. What will happen next? A cease-and-desist order? A frivolous lawsuit? Squirrels gnawing on motherboards? Do they have squirrels in Australia? Will Tourism Australia have to train a wallaby to sabotage computers?

Oh, internet fairness and equality, where the bloody hell are you?

You can watch the original ad right here and the parody ad here.

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