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Unethical Website of the Month March 2004
The New York Time Columnist Correction Page 
You can find it if you look around, but it isn't easy. A web log called "The National Debate" put up what it called a "New York Times parody" using the Times logo and such realistic details as information on how to get a subscription. On the page are collected Times columnist misstatements, errors, and in some cases, rhetorical comments obviously not intended by the authors to be taken literally. The Times moved to shut down the site and did. Now its creators are incensed, screaming censorship.
They are wrong.
The site probably does not meet the standards of parody, which would constitute fair use. Its use of Times-like graphics and features could easily confuse a casual reader, and there is nothing satirical or humorous about the site, which is one of the measuring sticks for parody: all it does is correct the columns. Nor does the use of the Times graphics contribute to the criticism being offered…another parody standard. The site misappropriates trademarks and is intentionally deceptive. The Times has every right to ask that it be shut it down. Should it have bothered? Perhaps not…the site is harmless. But lawyers probably informed the Times that permitting the site to continue would make it more difficult to stop a future site that might be truly malicious. The Times was protecting its rights.
Encouraged by the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, which simply likes to tweak the New York Times, "The National Debate" has its fellow bloggers in an uproar, and there are now mirror-sites popping up all over the web…indignant screeds…threatened protests and boycotts….
<Yawn!>
Mere imitation is not the same as parody. The blogs are citing the famous Harvard Lampoon parodies of Time, Life, and other magazines in the 1960s to prove that "The National Debate" is being ill-treated. They don't know what they are talking about.
Those parodies (I have copies of them) were many things the fake Times page is not: clever, obviously a spoof, and preceded by the permission of their targets…not required, but good if you can get it.
It's only fair to mention that "The National Debate" is right about one thing: the Times needs tighter editing. But its First Amendment credentials remain unsullied by this controversy.
UPDATE: Well, just as this was being posted, the New York Times decided that it looked like a bully, that it doesn't need any more bad publicity (true!) and that it could afford to be generous. The site is back, and Blog Nation is happy.
Ethics Scoreboard salutes the Times for its magnanimity.
And still thinks the site is deceptive, not true parody, and therefore unethical.