Arun Gupta comments for The Atlantic on Occupying the ‘Wall Street Journal’

Occupying the ‘Wall Street Journal‘

By Susie Cagle

The protest movement is appropriating the names and logos of corporate-owned publications. Is it copyright infringement or satire?

excerpts:

“I think it is great how it became a meme so quickly,” says Arun Gupta, one of the founders of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. “Like many other aspects of Occupy Wall Street, this idea just spread rapidly across the country.” The Occupied Wall Street Journal, a project originally put together by Gupta and a collective of other Occupy Wall Street activists, raised more than $75,000 in a Kickstarter campaign.

“It’s direct action — another form of occupying,” says Gupta of the newspapers — physical protest objects, and historic artifacts. “They make the movement real in a way digital media never can.”

To Gupta’s knowledge, The Occupied Wall Street Journal hasn’t received any complaint — or praise — from the original Wall Street Journal. “In fact, all the media reports would actually say the WSJ declined to comment,” says Gupta.

[snip]

“This is why I say it’s political,” says Gupta. “Occupy Wall Street had such a huge kind of ideological and political presence that to go after them this way actually validates everything the movement is talking about: that the 1% is trying to use their power and wealth against the 99%.”

“Because they’re on such weak legal ground, to bring suit would come across as a case of bullying. They have nothing to gain from it,” says Gupta. “I think, though, when you get into other cities, people freak out when they’re being approached by lawyers with intimations of legal action.”

[snip]

The full article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/occupying-the-wall-street-journal/252601/