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Reason
Reason
Politics
Eugene Volokh

"Preparing for the 20th Anniversary of the Streisand Effect: Cooley v. Afroman"

A very interesting post by Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizen, Consumer Law & Policy Blog), which I reproduce with his permission:

It was almost twenty years ago that Barbra Streisand filed a lawsuit that attempted to block access to a photograph of her oceanfront estate, bringing unwanted attention to the photo and leading to her being enshrined by Techdirt's Mike Masnick in tech/legal terminology as the progenitor of "the Streisand Effect."

Now we have Cooley v. Foreman.

Several police officers executed a search warrant at the home of a musician named Joseph Edward Foreman, who performs under the name "Afroman."  Outraged by what he considered rough treatment of his possessions and the lack of justification for the search, he created two songs about the raid and recorded them in music videos, consisting mainly of footage of the search, entitled "Will You Help Me Repair My Door" and "Lemon Pound Cake"  (to the tune of "Under the Boardwalk"). He also posted images on social media of the officers who conducted the search and printed Tshirts and other merchandise containing photos of the police officers and of the judge who had signed the search warrant, bitterly complaining about the officers' conduct in searching his house and asking that the judge be voted out of office. He promoted these to his fans who, it appears, responded eagerly.

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