In 2003, photographer Ken Adleman wanted people to know about the severity of erosion on the California coast. He took aerial photos of the coastline and put 12,000 of them on a website. Out of the 12K pics, one of them showed Barbara Streisand's house, high up on the cliff.
In the ordinary course of events, I would have no idea that Barbara's house was on the internet, but she sued the Adelman, demanding he remove pic 3850. In a month, the views of the went from six to about half a million. Streisand ended up having to pay Adelman's attorney's bills, but she has a house on a cliff in California, so she can afford it.
While it's generally conceded that it's a good thing to learn from your mistakes, it's certainly better to learn from someone else's mistakes. Which brings us to the strange case of the man who sued his cow.
Devin Nunes, the Congressman from California likes cows. His family has been in the cow business since the first Nunes left Portugal in the early 1900s. In that time, Nunes has managed to keep his Portuguese heritage mostly intact, and has only one non-Portuguese grandparent. That hasn't diluted his loyalty to his homeland a bit. He once tried to get the Pentagon to build a military base in the Azores, claiming everything is cheaper there. The Pentagon said, "No, everything costs more. We checked."
However, since Devin went to Washington, there has been some discontent among his cows. One of them has been talking behind his back. This cow went so far as to open a Twitter account and say some things about Devin that aren't very nice, even calling Devin a "treasonous cowpoke."
Devin was not going to take that kind of abuse from anyone, especially from someone with four nipples. He did what any hot blooded Portuguese boy would do, he sued. Devin has gone to court to discover which cow has an Iphone and is demanding $250 million dollars. Unlike most Congressmen, Nunes is not a lawyer. He has degrees in agriculture, so he knows a lot about cows, maybe no so much about suing them.
The Streisand Effect is the label given when somebody with money thinks they can go to court and force someone with less money to bend to their will. Barbara didn't want people to see a picture of her house on the internet, and when she sued, it was a public notice of where to find a picture of her house. She paid about $150K for that experience.
We can assume that prices have gone up, so Nunes is going to be on the hook for more than that. It's strange that a man with a Master's Degree in Agriculture would know better than to sue a cow, but that's probably something taught in law school.
In the ordinary course of events, I would have no idea that Barbara's house was on the internet, but she sued the Adelman, demanding he remove pic 3850. In a month, the views of the went from six to about half a million. Streisand ended up having to pay Adelman's attorney's bills, but she has a house on a cliff in California, so she can afford it.
While it's generally conceded that it's a good thing to learn from your mistakes, it's certainly better to learn from someone else's mistakes. Which brings us to the strange case of the man who sued his cow.
Devin Nunes, the Congressman from California likes cows. His family has been in the cow business since the first Nunes left Portugal in the early 1900s. In that time, Nunes has managed to keep his Portuguese heritage mostly intact, and has only one non-Portuguese grandparent. That hasn't diluted his loyalty to his homeland a bit. He once tried to get the Pentagon to build a military base in the Azores, claiming everything is cheaper there. The Pentagon said, "No, everything costs more. We checked."
However, since Devin went to Washington, there has been some discontent among his cows. One of them has been talking behind his back. This cow went so far as to open a Twitter account and say some things about Devin that aren't very nice, even calling Devin a "treasonous cowpoke."
Devin was not going to take that kind of abuse from anyone, especially from someone with four nipples. He did what any hot blooded Portuguese boy would do, he sued. Devin has gone to court to discover which cow has an Iphone and is demanding $250 million dollars. Unlike most Congressmen, Nunes is not a lawyer. He has degrees in agriculture, so he knows a lot about cows, maybe no so much about suing them.
The Streisand Effect is the label given when somebody with money thinks they can go to court and force someone with less money to bend to their will. Barbara didn't want people to see a picture of her house on the internet, and when she sued, it was a public notice of where to find a picture of her house. She paid about $150K for that experience.
We can assume that prices have gone up, so Nunes is going to be on the hook for more than that. It's strange that a man with a Master's Degree in Agriculture would know better than to sue a cow, but that's probably something taught in law school.
