The sad case of non-hoaxster James Conradt

James Conradt

When does a hoax become ille­gal? When does par­ody become libel? What con­sti­tutes good taste and what makes par­ody into forgery? Those are some of the ques­tions peo­ple ought to be ask­ing about the unfor­tu­nate case of James W. Conradt.

A cou­ple of weeks ago, Conradt, a University of Nebraska Sooner fan, “bor­rowed” a page from the Oklahoman news­pa­per to use as a tem­plate for his own fake news story. Oh, he also bor­rowed the byline of sports­writer Jake Trotter.

Conradt, who is well-known in online sports forums as DarthHusker, spun a story about how a pair of University of Oklahoma Husker quar­ter­backs were arrested for intent to dis­trib­ute cocaine – a com­plete fabrication.

Somebody, maybe Condradt, maybe not, then posted a link to his site on a sports dis­cus­sion board. From there, it was a short leap to law­suit land.

The Oklahoman and Trotter sued Conradt in fed­eral court. The plain­tiffs argue that the arti­cle was an attack against the play­ers and their fam­i­lies. In addi­tion to dam­ages, the suit asks Conradt to declare that he will never again vio­late the pub­lish­ing company’s trade­marks and pub­lish “cor­rec­tive adver­tis­ing” to make up for the trou­ble he’s caused.

Conradt, whose site is no longer online, has said in inter­views that he “wasn’t think­ing” when he posted the fake news arti­cle and that he was “just try­ing to get the Sooners fans riled up after a Sooners fan was talk­ing smack on another mes­sage board.”

Conradt is apol­o­giz­ing left and right, but that may not be enough. The rich father of one of the play­ers has already promised to pros­e­cute Conradt to the full extent of the law, what­ever that means.

So, was it ille­gal? Is this worth a law­suit? How can Conradt be punished?

Having not read the arti­cle — Conradt’s site was down before I got the chance to read the arti­cle — I can’t say for sure. Most of the com­ments on the Web say that it was juve­nile and in poor taste, which would lead me to believe that Conradt’s sense of humor is juve­nile and in poor taste; but that doesn’t make what he did illegal.

You could also say with a fair degree of cer­tainty that Conradt vio­lated the newspaper’s trade­marks when he just bor­rowed their HTML code to make his par­ody. Maybe that wasn’t wise, but it cer­tainly wasn’t a severe trade­mark violation.

Trademarks are designed to pro­tect those logos and marks that are unique to a par­tic­u­lar busi­ness — things like logos and designs. Another per­son using those designs is cer­tainly vio­lat­ing the trade­mark, but “using” is the oper­ant word there. What sort of “use” mat­ters to a trade­mark vio­la­tion? Certainly, uses that would steal prof­its or busi­ness away from the trade­mark holder are ille­gal, but Conradt wasn’t try­ing to make money here — and unless he sold ads on his Web page and then placed them next to his false arti­cle, he wasn’t mak­ing any money from this par­ody, and that frankly would have ruined the hoax.

Hoax. We’ll come back to that word before we’re done.

If it wasn’t a severe trade­mark vio­la­tion, was it an attack? Has he defamed these ath­letes in such a way that he’s harmed their rep­u­ta­tions? I can only see that if he meant for peo­ple to think that his arti­cle was gen­uine. If he set out to design a copy of an Oklahoman page with the intent of pass­ing it off as real news about these ath­letes, then I’d say he’s guilty of an “attack.”

But Conradt has said that he wasn’t think­ing when he posted the arti­cle. He just wanted to get back at other fans by insult­ing some of their favorite play­ers. In this case, I think it was more about the effect he’d have on fel­low Web forum posters than the dam­age he’d do to either the ath­letes or the sports­writer. Again: hard to prove that he meant any harm.

Was it stu­pid? That depends on the matu­rity of the par­ody. I’d lean toward yes. Was it ille­gal? That depends on how the court looks at the trade­mark vio­la­tion issue. I’d lean toward yes.

Now, was it a hoax?

No. Hoaxes are tricks. Hoaxes are meant to be believed until the moment the hoaxster wants to lift the cur­tain and show us how stu­pid we all are for believ­ing him. Hoaxes require intel­li­gence, plan­ning and fore­sight. They require some thought into the way an audi­ence might look at the hoax. Conradt did none of those things. He merely reacted to other fans and took a flame war one step too far.

What pun­ish­ment should Conradt receive? That’s a legal mat­ter, and I’m no lawyer. I think it’s an inter­est­ing exam­ple of how heav­ily intent weighs in the mat­ter of trade­marks and copyrights.

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