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The Mastercard Fiasco...

Sometime around August/September 2000, following a local newsgroup posting, I posted a few Priceless pics on the web. Shortly after that a hardware site linked to the pics and people started to come from everywhere to see them.

Ever since then the Priceless collection has grown. From only 5 pictures a year ago to over 300 today. The whole thing is simply a parody of the successfull Mastercard Priceless advertising campaign - nothing more. I'm not trying to compete with Mastercard in anyway whatsoever. The whole aim of this site is for people to get a laugh, some relief, or just to have some fun.

A couple of weeks ago I got a letter in my email from Solicitors in Australia representing Mastercard. It went something like this:

Dear Sir

MasterCard International, Inc

We act on behalf of MasterCard International, Inc. ("MasterCard"). Since 1999, in Australia and worldwide, MasterCard has aired and published a series of television and printed advertisements (the "MasterCard Priceless Advertisements") that feature the names and/or images of a series of goods and services purchased by one or more individuals in which, either voiceovers and/or other visual displays, convey to the viewer the price of each of these items. At the end of each of the MasterCard Priceless Advertisements, the phrase identifying some priceless intangible that cannot be purchased (such as "a day where all you have to do is breathe") is followed by the word and/or voiceover: "priceless". Immediately following "priceless" are words and/or voiceover "there are some things money can't buy, for everything else there is MasterCard". All of these words appear in lower case letters, except for "MasterCard".

In addition, MasterCard is the owner in Australia of the registered trade mark MASTERCARD in a number of classes and the registered trade mark PRICELESS in class 36.

It has come to our client's attention that you are currently publishing at URL http://orsm.ii.net/priceless/index.html (the "Orsm Website") offensive and obscene content using the format of the MasterCard Priceless Advertisements. This content also uses the PRICELESS trade mark without our client's consent or license (the "Infringing Material").

Please be advised that by publishing the Infringing Material you are:
" Breaching MasterCard's copyright in the MasterCard Priceless Advertisements; and
" Breaching the PRICELESS trade mark.

Accordingly, our client demands that within seven (7) days of the date of this letter, you will:

1. Remove the Infringing Material from the Orsm Website; and

2. Refrain from publishing or distributing the Infringing Material or other material which infringes MasterCard's rights as set out above.

Our client reserves its rights.

Yours faithfully

Karen Hayne

Basically, all they are saying is that if I don't get rid of the Priceless collection - I am in deep shit. They also put the pressure on my web host saying that they would commence procedings against them if they didn't pull down my site.

What a joke. This is scare tactics at it's finest. From what I understand, my site is protected under laws relating to parody material. Ie. I or whoever wants, is able to produce parodies in any form of whatever the fuck they want so long as they are not using it as a way to compete with the party being parodised... in this case Mastercard. [is parodised a word?... looks like it is now huh!?]

The response that I have recieved from you guys who surf my site has been unbelievable. I've had a constant stream of email from people who really do wanna see everything stay where it is and continue to grow. Check it out below:

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Greetings Mr Orsm, top class website!!

How stupid can Mastercard as a corporation be? How the fuck can you call a word from the English language your copyright or any other language for that matter?

Secondly as a Mastercard customer myself, I shall endeavour to transfer my account balance elsewhere and close my Mastercard account! PRICELESS!

Keep up the good work, regards Gareth Williams.

The last thing I want anyone to do is stop using Mastercards products or services on account of this whole fiasco. At the end of the day they are a business and only trying to protect their interests. To be honest I'd rather see people using Mastercard as a thanks for all the enjoyment these spoofs on their ads have given us.

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Dude

Don't let those high affluent dildos put pressure on you. I believe the word "priceless" is in the dictionary meaning:

a.. Of inestimable worth; invaluable.
b.. Highly amusing, absurd, or odd: a priceless remark

I'm not sure where they get off claiming rights to the word "priceless" Does that mean Budweiser has claim on "whassup?" I see no reference to MasterCard anywhere on your "Priceless" section. Keep us all informed of how you do with those corporate DILDOs.... Hey can I use that word or does the pR0n industry have rights to that??

-Greg

Macquarie Dictionary
Priceless: / adjective 1. having a value beyond all price; invaluable: she was a priceless help to him. 2. Colloquial delightfully amusing; absurd.

Cambridge Dictionary
Priceless: A priceless object is one that has such a high value, esp. because it is rare, that the price of it cannot be calculated.

Your Dictionay
1 a : having a value beyond any price : INVALUABLE b : costly because of rarity or quality : PRECIOUS

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Don't let the bastards get you down. I'll be switching my balance to Visa!!!

I appreciate the support but if you are happy with the services you are receiving from Mastercard I suggest you to stay with them.

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Mr ORSM, I'm from South Africa and hate Banks. I say fuck em. Fuck em good. Keep your series going and change the name to something like, RIDICULOUS or RIOTOUS. We all know your site and your fans are all behind you in SA. Holding thumbs and hope you give those sheepshagging banker arseholes something to think about.
Good Luck
Best Regards
Tofie

If worst comes to worst, I probably will look to replacing the word 'priceless' for something else. I've had countless suggestions so far but at this stage the word 'spiceless' is leading the pack. Suggestions go here.

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I support your parodies of the Priceless ads... Quite frankly, I see no conceivable way those parodies could detract from MasterCard's business.. stick to your guns.. I emailed your webhost to do the same.. MasterCard is only trying to get their name in more of a spotlight by fighting you...

Keep up the great material!!

Robb Fox
Manchester NH
USA

Good point. I think thats what the whole thing comes down to - I am not using Mastercards ideas, intellectual property or copyrights to sell a similar product or compete with them. As far as my hosts go, they have given me their support and I appreciate that. If you are in Australia I highly recommend iiNet for all of your internet and hosting needs.

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I enjoyed this one. The sender actually CC'd me aswell as sending it to a whole shit load of Mastercard staff email addreses.

Dear Sir/Madam:

Recently, I was asked to visit a web site that was being told by MasterCard Attorney (Karen Hayne) to stop using the word "Priceless" on their web pages.

I understand wanting to protect your Trademark. I have one myself. But...

We live with a different generation now. Younger audience acceptance is key to market share these days. MasterCard is pissing off young people by nit-picking over silly things like this. The MTV generation can make or break a business very quickly if they want to. Your attorneys are messing with this generation's interests. You might be protecting your Trademark, but your also pissing these people off.

I believe this is why Visa leads the pack these days (sorry). Because their commercials feature young minded subjects having fun and endulging in contemporary and creative fun, where MasterCard revolves around old time thinking with the messages it sends. AND the actions of your attorneys don't help this matter either.

If one acts like an asshole, nobody will want to deal with that person.

Remember young people love to talk and pass information through Internet newsgroups, chat rooms, and IRK. I can easily see MasterCard getting a bad rap as being against the younger generation.

Or, could it be that your attorneys are just picking on small time web pages just to charge you more time for their services? Who knows?

Best wishes,

Ade

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Man thats fucked up, if the corporation had any fucking sense they would realize that the most you could be doing is fucking promoting their fucking shit mastercard.... but they are so money hungry that they just want to sue you instead of letting you sorta promote their shit for them.... man if i had a company and some one used my shit id be happy its not like your profiting off of the priceless stuff anyway.....

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tell them to go buy a rudimentary book on patent law cause they dont seem to have a clue, get some legal advice but keep your stuff up man, they are just tryin to use scare tatics to get you to take your stuff down, but what you have done (even though you dont make the pics yourself) is not a breach of copyright,

keep up the good stuff

I actually do make a some of the pics myself. There'd be atleast a 100 that I'm responsible for. Others were around before I started the site, others I get from people who have taken the pictures themselves. Priceless submissions go here.

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Hi ORSM

I'm new to your site, since when were we able to copyright the English language, maybe we should do some copywriting of our own! Maybe we should start with words like these: the, at, is, or, if, bite, me, Mastercard (oops that's taken).

Michael Fletcher

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So you all know - I will be fighting this. Attrition.org had similar problems earlier this year. After contacting someone from that site they said Mastercard had not pursued the matter with them any more than a few emails back and forth between the two parties. You can read it here.

As one email pointed out, perhaps Mastercard should turn their attentions to sites such as Priceless420.com as they actually charge fror the stuff that I give you for free.

Thanks again to all of you that have emailed me or posted in the forum and are supporting me with this. It's a good feeling to know so many of you give a shit and don't want to see a corporation like Mastercard use bully tactics to remove something that so many people love.

Orsm.


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