Coal industry forces closure of anti-global warming activist site
Posted by: "stuartmunckton" stuartmunckton@...
Sun Mar 4, 2007 6:13 pm (PST)
[This is an outrageous attack on freedom of speech that is a warning
sign of what corporations and the government sin theirpocket want to
be able to get away with - closiong down websites that challenge their
interests.]

Industry closes anti-coal website

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/industry-closes-anticoal-website/2007/03/04/\
1172943275688.html

Wendy Frew, Environment Reporter
March 5, 2007

THE mining industry has used copyright laws to close an anti-mining
website launched by a small protest group in Newcastle.

The NSW Minerals Council has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on
a TV, print and billboard advertising campaign and launched a website
extolling the virtues of mining. The campaign's slogan is "Life:
brought to you by mining".

The anti-coal group Rising Tide created its own website sending up the
campaign with comments such as "Rising sea levels: brought to you by
mining".

The website's hosts were forced to remove it within 24 hours of its
launch, after the Minerals Council issued a notice under the Copyright
Regulations 1969 complaining the content and layout infringed copyright.

Rising Tide remade the website, using its own photographs and layout.
However, the council lodged a second complaint.

"They are trying to silence us," said a Rising Tide member, Steve
Phillips. "We have issued a counter-notice rejecting the Minerals
Council's spurious claims. [It] now has 10 days in which to take the
matter [to court]."

There is growing public concern about coal's contribution to climate
change, and mining's threat to underground and above-ground water
supplies.

The council's chief executive, Nikki Williams, said its complaint was
not an attempt to silence Rising Tide. "They have to abide by the
[copyright] laws," she said. However, she admitted she had not seen
the revised website, and did not know if the council would take the
matter to court.

Dr Williams disputed claims by Rising Tide that the council was
running the campaign to counter growing concern about coal.

"It is a community awareness campaign . it is about establishing a
fair voice for the mining industry; it is simply a matter of the
facts," she said, referring to the benefits flowing from the industry
such as jobs, cheap electricity and export revenue.
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