Office Depot DMCA

Overview

Office Depot DMCA was a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice issued by the legal representatives of the Americans office stationary retailer Office Depot to request for the removal of an image that was posted on Reddit's self-satirical /r/circlejerk community in April 2013.

Background

On April 5th, 2013, Redditor heisenberg69 submitted a post titled “TIL that the Nazi swastika fits perfectly into the Office Depot logo” to /r/circlejerk,^[4] a meta-subreddit that pokes fun at the subculture of Reddit. The post linked to an Imgur page containing a logo of the office product supply retailer Office Depot with an asymmetrical swastika drawn inside of it. While the image was well-received within /r/circlejerk as a clever satire of TIL (today I learned) posts and Nazi conspiracist theories that are all too commonly shared on the site, the satirical edge was less apparent to those unfamiliar with the premise of the subreddit.

Then on November 6th, 2013, Office Depot sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)^[1] notice to Reddit, requesting the removal of heisenberg69’s "racist, hateful and violent" post from the site.

Notable Developments

The same day, the tech news site Tech Dirt^[2] mocked the unfounded basis of Office Depot's copyright infringement claim in an article titled "Office Depot Sends World's Worst DMCA Notice To Reddit." The article was subsequently linked to the /r/technology^[3] subreddit, where it received more than 19,600 up votes and 1,600 comments in the first 24 hours.

Also on November 6th, Redditor RalphiesBoogers submitted a post titled “Googled ‘Office Depot CEO.’ Was not disappoint” to the /r/circlejerk^[6] subreddit, featuring a screenshot of a Google image search results page for the keywords “office depot ceo” containing images of the Nazi Germany dictator Adolph Hitler (shown below). In less than 24 hours, the post garnered upwards of 7,400 up votes and 200 comments.

As of 3 p.m. (ET), November 7th, at least 275 discussion posts ridiculing Office Depot's DMCA notice have been submitted to the /r/circlejerk^[5] subreddit.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References