| 1. The US Olympic Committee (USOC) Enforces Intellectual Property against the Shithead [CENSORED] Games |
| Due to the letter received from attorneys at the USOC (below), we may no longer refer to the Shithead [CENSORED] Games as the Shithead [CENSORED] on this site or in any published material. |
| We have withheld all personal information from the email below, but we have every reason to believe it is real. We respect and support America’s athletes and the USOC, and are happy to comply with their request. |
| Previous contestants, including servicemen and women, will attest to the fact that the competition is no joke, and that it really does “recognize the ‘finest athletic achievement’ among participating athletes.” |
| This email is dated Friday October 5, 2007. |
| To Whom It May Concern:
It has recently come to the attention of the United States Olympic Committee (“USOC”) that your web site, www.burningshithead.com<http://www.burningshithead.com/> is using Olympic trademarks to depict an event that has been occurring for several years. From what appears to be a satirical website created as a joke, you are using the terms OLYMPIAD and OLYMPIC to characterize your annual competition, which is designed to recognize the ‘finest athletic achievement’ among participating athletes.
I’d like to have an opportunity to discuss our trademark registrations with you, the protection granted to the USOC by Congress of the marks you currently use, and our extensive investment in those marks which support America’s Olympians and Olympic Hopefuls. Your combination of profane language with Olympic trademarks in the “Shithead Olympics” creates an association with the USOC, and harms our reputation by diluting and tarnishing our famous trademarks.
I would like to ask that you take the necessary steps to rename your competition by removing our intellectual property from your web site. If you have any questions, I can be reached at [phone number withheld].
I look forward to receiving your reply.
Very sincerely yours,
[name withheld]
United States Olympic Committee
One Olympic Plaza, Colorado Springs, CO 80909
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| It is worth noting that the USOC quietly announced the same weekend that they are considering moving locations. We know that they have scrutinized this website… could it be that they are now eying Joshua Tree also? |
2. Wikipedia removes The Burning Shithead Festival |
| What ever happened to Wikipedia? What a sellout! We thought the whole purpose of the project was to catch stuff that wouldn’t make it into mainstream encyclopedias, to truly take advantage of the fact that the web offered a vehicle for recognizing more of the legitimate cultural phenomena and in a more timely fashion than traditional encyclopedic media. |
| But what happens when a bunch of tweezer-weenied geeks start getting impressed with their own power to police? They become a bunch of anally retentive No Fun Charlies, eating their own children and squelching everyone’s fun with reckless abandon. Read about how a bunch of these dorks decided in their infinite wisdom that there was no such thing as the Burning Shithead Festival. Find out how Wikipedia is now a sellout, high-brow mainstream project with those who never get laid to protect its virginity like the chastity belts that keep their own balls locked in its viselike grip. |
| Read it, and weep… for a good project has truly been lost to the forces of paranoia and power hunger. |
| |
| We think we have traced the origin of the application of the term "shithead" to a class of breakfast cereal, and have developed an interpretation of the concept of shithead to be consistent with the intention of the framer of the term, an intercollegiate debater for a prominent squad competing in the United States in the late 1980's. |
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| Quickly surfacing as the most prominent controversy concerning the origin of shithead, the appeal of this lone horsemen for shithead (destined to forever fall on deaf ears), captures the imagination of those captivated by the legend. Wandering from town to town in search of shithead only to be denied by everyone – for they all know that if they weaken to the demands of the horseman they will forever end the quest of the Shitheadless Horseman. |
| 5. DigitalWork Censors No Fun Charlie. |
| After a complex marketing, technology, and content alliance (see the letter from the CES for more information), No Fun Charlie attempted to distribute a press release promoting the Burning Shithead Festival. The service provider, DigitalWork, refused to distribute the release covering the deal and the festival, even though No Fun Charlie and the Burning Shithead Festival hosted a promotional event together at the Chicago Hilton for the National Communication Association. |
| Now this is what I call censorshit in action! According to a letter which was obtained exclusively by a crack team of No Fun Charlie reporters after exhaustive and painstaking research..... DigitalWork.com has refused to distribute a press release about No Fun Charlie sponsoring the Fourth Annual Burning Shithead Festival (where people are rumored to consume shithead). The "nature and topic" of the press release was deemed "inappropriate" by the firm's Product Consultant. |
6. Moontribe gets pissed off. |
| We got the emails below: |
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who are you and why do you call us a over commercialized pseudo neo-tribal gathering?im really interested in what this is about especially when you add a link to our site calling us names.have you ever been to a moontribe gathering?you do know that they are free and we usually lose money on our parties right?or are you just one of those people who loves to be competitive and talk down on others who have worked really hard to establish themselves like us and burning man?please tell me more about you. |
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peace and light |
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treavor |
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Hi there whoever you are. I'm really touched to see how your positive love gathering is making headway by slandering other groups such as our own. It's nice to know that you're beginning a wonderful collective journey by saying lovely things about our collective like: "The only REAL alternative to mainstream and over commercialized pseudo neo-tribal gatherings such as Burning Man and Moontribe." I love to think that we are a overly commercial endeavor, especially because we charge the incredibly high price of $0, donations of course are made purely out of people own kindness. Wait, why am I explaining this to you? You obviously know everything already and can make these comments otu of pure knowledge of what we've been doing the past 7+ years. Next time, do your own thing without mentioning us. ===== Keep on keepin on.... Brian :) |
| We took the offending reference off the website. We concede that we went too far in talking about other festivals this way. We were sort of trying to be self-effacing in a way about the fact that we weren't really a festival at all when we first wrote that. So since we've gotten smacked down we have taken Brian's advice and we're doing our own thing without mentioning them or anyone else. |
| 7. Laird & Company demand product removal. |
| In 1999 Laird & Company (makers of a fine whisky called AppleJack) emailed Festival officials, requesting the link be taken down. After consulting with our attorney, we kept the link, but moved it to a page full of apple-related links. We think this company should not be angry with us for linking to their site. We think our attendees patronize this whisky in quantity (when we can find it) and the company should be happy. Their email is below: |
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| Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 09:54:48 -0400 |
| From: Brian Morris <webmaster@lairdandcompany.com> |
| To: burningshithead@yahoo.com |
| Subject: Remove our link! |
| Please remove the link on your page. We do not want our product shots used on any other sites. I will check back shortly to see that you have removed it. Thank you. |