In September 2009, "Photoshop Disasters" -- a blog covering egregious photo editing missteps -- published a photo of a Polo Ralph Lauren ad in which the model's body was grotesquely smaller than her head. Internet culture blog Boing Boing noticed the oddity and reposted the picture, with some additional commentary....

In 2003, while the public was coming to grips with the perils of electronic voting, voting machine manufacturer Diebold used a series of baseless copyright claims to silence critics and sweep evidence of e-voting flaws under the rug.
In the course of pitching various governments on e-voting machines, Diebold...

When the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) posted clips of talk radio host Michael Savage to criticize him and the content of his show, the incendiary Savage simply couldn't take the heat. Savage alleged that CAIR infringed his copyrights by posting the excerpts online and filed a baseless copyright suit...

The Penrose Triangle is an “impossible object” created by Oscar Reutersvärd of Sweden in the mid-1930s.Thingiverse, a site where users share 3D designs for printing, received a DMCA takedown notice for a 3D design of the triangle. Who sent this takedown notice? Not Reutersvärd. The...

The Dervaes Institute is claiming broad ownership rights over the term "urban homesteading"—a commonly used phrase to describe a social movement dedicated to achieving more self-sufficient, sustainable living in cities—and is sending takedown requests and warning letters targeting individuals and organizations that have been using the term for years. Even...

Anonymous satirists created NYTimes-se.com, a website which parodies The New York Times. It included an obviously satirical advertisement for the diamond conglomerate De Beers, which read in part: "Your purchase of a diamond will enable us to donate a prosthetic for an African whose hand was lost in diamond...

The National Organization for Marriage produced an advertisement in which various actors posed as individuals scared of gay rights. Another organization found video recordings of the dismal auditions for the ad, and responded by posting the audition videos online. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow later played the audition tapes on her broadcast...

Of all of the sources of baseless and ill-conceived takedowns in the Hall Of Shame, one stands well above than the rest: Warner Music Group.
In January 2009, after a behind-the-scenes spat with YouTube over advertising revenue, WMG began (mis)using YouTube's Content ID (i.e., audio fingerprinting) tools to remove...

Two weeks before a statewide vote on legalizing same-sex marriage initiative, Stand for Marriage Maine (SMM) created an ad criticizing same-sex marriage that excerpted a brief portion of an All Things Considered interview. Although the ad's use of the content was clearly necessary to its critical political message, NPR sent...

After gossip blogger Perez Hilton recorded a video in which he called Miss California Carrie Prejean a "dumb bitch" in response to her public opposition to same-sex marriage, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) incorporated a clip of his tirade into an advertisement called "No Offense," depicting same-sex marriage opponents...