Related Resources • AOL.EXE Joke/Hoax • Strunkenwhite • Hoax Encyclopedia • Virus Humor

From Other Guides • Laughing All The Way

Elsewhere on the Web • Joke A Day • V-Myths.com

Ray Owens, owner of the Joke A Day website and author of the controversial AOL.EXE Joke is now trying to bang up against antivirus vendor Symantec's funny bone. Claiming copyright infringement, Ray jestingly demanded $1 million in compensation for Symantec's publication of the hoax without proper attribution. The part neither side was laughing about involved the Fair Use Doctrine which Symantec believes they fall under and Ray believes they do not. Bolstered by commentary from the infamous Rob Rosenberger, Ray persists in his efforts to receive a link back to his site and proper credit for having written the joke turned hoax.

Indeed, Ray's humor may not be shared by all but his is not the first joke to make the archives of Symantec's hoax database. In May of 1999, Bob Hirschfield of the Washington Post wrote a humorous satire about a fictitious Strunkenwhite virus. In that instance, Symantec accurately credited the origination to Mr. Hirschfield. Given that Ray's joke was much more controversial, it seems unlikely Symantec would not have known of its origin. Thus, one has to wonder what the rules are surrounding attribution.

Rosenberger makes an interesting point when he parodies a parallel scenario in which the author of the Good Times hoax demands high sums of money for each time the hoax was forwarded via email or reported on a vendor site. However, whereas the Good Times hoax warned of an email containing "anything called Good Times", Ray's joke instructed readers to locate and delete a file named AOL.EXE. Certainly it seems if the author of the Good Times hoax were to step forward, they could argue that it too was simply a joke and was in fact far more benign than that of Ray's AOL.EXE warning. On the flip side of the coin, Rosenberger's assessment seems to be that intent is the guiding standard and in that case, Ray is guilty simply of telling a bad joke. And even bad jokes deserve proper credit.