Obamessiah: The Hugo Chavez of MySpace

In that he appears to kind of like this whole "confiscation of other's work" idea.

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.

Hmmm...I don't have a MySpace page (because I got tired of seeing my "friends counter" stuck at zero because I haven't descended to that level of internet geekery yet) so I am, admittedly, not familiar with the Terms of Use that might accompany the opening of an account.

Keep this point in mind however: Anthony's operation of the site was done with the apparent express permission of the Obama campaign for over two and a half years.

This will be an important fact later.

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.

On one hand, I understand the Obama campaign's concern. Hell, for all they know Anthony could embarrassingly decide to start associating himself (and by implication the Obama campaign) with the most moonbatty of ideas.

Like, say, voting for Barack Obama in 2008.

On the other hand, they were comfortable with Anthony's control over the site for two-plus years, and they appear to have had equal access to all editorial control features.

So what does Obama do to resolve this dilemma? Err on the side of those who would seek to blow a chill, dissent-stifling, wind by confiscating Anthony's site.

How very progressive.

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.

Now, this is not a case of illegal cyber-squatting here. Remember my point raised earlier? Anthony's actions were condoned by the Obama campaign from the earliest stages. They knew what he was doing, that he was doing it under a site bearing the Candidate's name, and they were even aiding him in his efforts.

Which raises, for me, a couple of interesting questions that I would love the lawyers who read this site (Michael/Sobek/et. al.) to consider:

1) Mr. Anthony lost his site. Additionally, he was not compensated for his work by the Obama forces. The Obama campaign evidently considers the work that has been put into the site over the past two years to have been of some value to the Senator, as evidenced by their own participation in it and also as evidenced by their having divested Mr. Anthony of it.

A) At what point, if any, could Mr. Anthony's work be considered an "in-kind" contribution to the Obama campaign, given that Mr. Anthony has apparently received no financial compensation for his services.

B) Given that it would be possible to set an approximate "value" on these services (as similar examples there are campaign consultants who specialize in the development and maintenance of mailing lists, as well as consultants who are paid solely to work on raising a candidates "brand awareness" among the public), what limits (if any) would apply to what Mr. Anthony could legally contribute?

MySpace reluctantly stepped in to settle the dispute and decided that Obama should have the rights to control http://www.myspace.com/barackobama 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.

This paragraph bothers me. I'd like to know more about MySpace's Terms of Use. It sounds to me like MySpace's rules didn't really govern this situation, so they basically dicked Anthony over. Sure he gets the "friends list", but he lost the site to which all those friends aggregated and which he built, which would seem to me to be the most valuable of the two assets. Popular sites are not built overnight, after all.

Which begs these questions for the lawyers:

2) Even if MySpace had express contractual rights to allow Senator Obama to take over operations of the site in this fashion, at what point does equity kick in (I'm thinking primarily about doctrines involving estoppal) to offer Anthony the opportunity to fight back or to recover for the time and effort he invested into the site with the knowledge and approval of the Obama team?

3) Further, Mr. Anthony's "ownership" of the friends list is essentially meaningless in the absence of the site. A section of the story I didn't excerpt says that over 17,000 of Anthony's site's "friends" have already re-joined the new Obama-controlled enterprise. This again makes me question the decision reached by MySpace, as Anthony walks away with a redundent asset, if indeed it remains an "asset" in any real sense at all. Would equitable doctrines prevail here should Mr. Anthony bring suit?

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.

Well, if it is any consolation, Mr. Anthony, I can assure you that I won't be voting for Senator Barack Hussein Obama-Chavez either.

posted by Jack M. at 05:25 PM

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