In a world where technology giants wield immense power, a curious incident has unfolded. Clownstrike, a parody website poking fun at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, found itself in the crosshairs of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice.
But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the Clownstrike saga is more than just a battle over trademarks – it’s a cautionary tale about the delicate balance between corporate interests and the right to free expression.
Crowdstrike literally just said "It worked in our computer, so you on your own" 🤡. RCA or Root Cause Analysis should clearly state why this bug didnt happen for Crowdstrike and why it happened to others. Instead this release just hides all the material fact and blurs the line. https://t.co/3qBsfUQeCR
— ClownStrike (Parody) (@clownstrike_og) August 7, 2024
The Clownstrike saga begins
It all started in the aftermath of a massive IT outage that rocked the world, with CrowdStrike bearing the blame for a buggy security update that caused chaos across airports, hospitals, and businesses. IT consultant David Senk, a proponent of decentralization, saw an opportunity to mock CrowdStrike‘s role in the debacle. Thus, the Clownstrike website was born, featuring the CrowdStrike logo morphing into a cartoon clown, complete with circus music.
Senk’s creation was a clear act of parody, poking fun at CrowdStrike‘s ability to cause “literal billions of dollars of damage” through its centralized security solutions. But CrowdStrike, it seems, was less amused. The cybersecurity firm’s anti-fraud partners soon sent a DMCA takedown notice to Cloudflare, the hosting provider for Clownstrike, demanding the immediate removal of the CrowdStrike logo from the parody site.
XDDDDDDDpic.twitter.com/iJbIal2scW
— Vee Overdose (@v1ckxy_overdose) August 6, 2024
Defending the “Obvious” fair use
According to interviews given to Arstechnica, Senk refused to back down. It immediately disputed the DMCA notice, arguing that the use of the CrowdStrike logo in Clownstrike was a clear case of fair use. Corynne McSherry, a copyright expert and legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), agreed with Senk’s assessment. She explained that even the use of an unaltered logo can fall under fair use, as long as the context identifies it as a parody. “There’s plenty of ways in which you could use a logo, and it would still be clear parody and perfectly lawful,” McSherry said.
Cloudflare’s ineffective counter-notice process
Faced with the DMCA notice, Senk immediately responded to Cloudflare to contest the claim. However, Cloudflare failed to acknowledge or even respond to his counter notice, leaving him little choice but to relocate the Clownstrike site to a Hetzner server in Finland, where it would be “less susceptible to DMCA takedown requests.”
Senk was rightfully outraged by Cloudflare’s handling of the situation. “The DMCA requires service providers to ‘act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the infringing material,’ yet it gives those same ‘service providers’ 14 days to restore access in the event of a counternotice!” he complained. “The DMCA, like much American legislation, is heavily biased towards corporations instead of the actual living, breathing citizens of the country.” If the problem of companies is with individuals, it is solved immediately, but if the problem of individuals is with companies, it takes years to solve the problem.
When reached for comment, CrowdStrike declined to address the Clownstrike takedown directly. Instead, the cybersecurity firm offered a generic statement about its “proactive fraud management activities,” which had resulted in the issuance of over 500 takedown notices in the past two weeks.
Cloudflare Acknowledges Parody as Fair Use
When news of the Clownstrike saga spread across the internet, Cloudflare finally reached out to Senk. The company acknowledged that it never received its counter-notice, but stated that it would not take action to remove the content in response to a trademark misuse report if Senk moved the site back to Cloudflare’s hosting and provided “a legitimate counter-notice regarding the parody nature of your website.”
However, Senk has no plans to return to Cloudflare. Instead, he suggested that the company update its abuse reporting system to confirm receipt of counter-notices, create a web portal for users to track abuse reports, and potentially revoke the ability of CrowdStrike’s anti-fraud partners to submit abuse reports as a penalty for fake takedowns.
Centralization and online speech
The Clownstrike saga highlights the larger issues surrounding the centralization of power in the tech industry and the impact on online speech. As McSherry pointed out, major service providers like Cloudflare can become “chokepoints” where lawful speech gets taken down, simply because they lack the resources to precisely determine the legality of every content removal request.
“There are indeed a relatively small number of companies that have outsized influence over what is available online,” McSherry said. “And that can be difficult or create a real problem because sometimes they don’t have any choice but to sort of over-censor.”
In the case of Clownstrike, the two-week counter-notice period could have allowed CrowdStrike to potentially take down the parody site during the most heightened period of criticism, effectively silencing online commentary on the cybersecurity firm’s role in the IT outage.
The Clownstrike saga serves as a cautionary tale about the imbalance of power between companies and individuals and the need for a more balanced and thoughtful approach to online content moderation. As Senk aptly puts it, “Companies like Cloudflare are so afraid of being sued that they would rather forward fake requests and remove legitimate content than apply any reasoning and common sense to the requests.”
The Clownstrike story is not just about a parody website – it is a reflection of the larger challenges we face in maintaining a free and open internet where the right to expression is not clouded by the interests of the powerful.
Featured image credit: Clownstrike
