update > pride has since rescinded the demand letter
A video that was uploaded on Youtube shortly after the shooting on Market street on June 25th has been removed and re-uploaded with a different caption and title because of legal threats from an SF Pride attorney
the video (with new title) and threats are now posted here and embedding disabled
The shooting did not take place AT Pride, but it was very close and most of the people at 7th and Market were there because of Pride. It is obvious from the video itself that it wasn’t in the middle of the Pride festivities, no matter how it was titled. 7th and Market is in fact where the transit hub is for people getting to and from Pride. It is therefore reasonable to assume that people searching the news would use the words ‘pride’ and ‘shooting’ to find out what happened like this. In fact, numerous news outlets have stories with those exact same words, which is no different than the original video that has been removed.
update, SF Appeal is now on this story and they had used this exact same video when the shooting first happened. SF Appeal also never confused the fact that the shooting happened ‘nearby’ and not ‘at’ the SF pride event, despite what the video was titled
update 2 > David Wilton now has the whole story on his own website. SF Citizen also has a story on it
The fact is, Pride is attempting to censor the news and free speech using legal threats, which means that Pride has two new words associated with it besides a shooting – threats and lawsuits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s_cJktTYmo
The following letter comes from the good folks at SF Pride. They say I defamed them by suggesting the shooting occurred at SF Pride. Ms. Oliver makes her case that it did not. I have no information other than what you see in the video. Any prior indication that it was connected with SF Pride was pure opinion based on the direction of the people coming and going in the area and the way these people were dressed. I am very sorry if Ms. Oliver and SF Pride misinterpreted the captions and I recognize others could have misinterpreted the captions as well. With this in mind, the public still deserves to see what’s on the video and happening in their city. And so I have chosen to keep it up sans captions.
Dear Mr. Wilton:
I am General Counsel for the San Francisco Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration Committee, Inc. (“SF Pride”), the producer of San Francisco Pride and the owner of the trademark “SF Pride, among other valuable marks.
The YouTube video that you filmed and display at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOfz0zxDdNc falsely states that there was a “shooting at Pride 2011”. The police and the media have all confirmed and made affirmative public statements that the shooting that happened on Saturday evening, June 25th WAS NOT AT SF PRIDE and was not connected the Pride Festival.
For example, see: http://www.sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=3763&recordi… which quite clearly leaves out any reference to SF Pride or the Pride festival. And http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_f… which notes that the shooting was “blocks from the Pride festivities.”
Your YouTube posting falsely claims in the title and in the introductory splash page at 0:01-0:06. In fact, the shooting was NOT on the SF Pride festival grounds and was not related to SF Pride, or the Pride Festival, or any LGBT issue or concern.
You did not, for example, title your video “shooting in front of Apple iPad advertisement.” Nothing in the video has any connection with SF Pride or the Pride festivities. You simply chose to sensationalize your posting by wrongly associating a violent tragedy with the safe and peaceful, SF Pride. Your advertising harms SF Pride by that false association. It harms SF Pride’s ability to attract attendees and sponsors for future events by creating the false impression that the event and festival were the site of a violent shooting.
Your video constitutes false advertising from an attorney, trade libel, and constitutes tortious interference with SF Pride’s prospective economic advantage by associated its safe event with this tragic and entirely unrelated incident.
According to YouTube, over 3,200 have viewed this outrageous misrepresentation already. Specifically:
San Francisco / Civic Center Shooting at Pride 2011 – Sat 6-25-2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOfz0zxDdNcThe end of the video at about 2:27 in states:
Filmed by David Wilton
Law Offices of David Wilton
http://www.davidwilton.com/
(415) 669-4059SF Pride demands that you at once do the following or we will take all other necessary and appropriate legal action:
1. Take down the above referenced video.
2. Replace it with an affirmative public apology to SF Pride for wrongly associating it with violence, and clarifying that the shooting on Market Street had nothing to do with the SF Pride festival, and was blocks away from it;
3. Pay SF Pride $10,000 in damages and costs. Any delay will certainly see this amount increase.
Very Sincerely,
Brooke Oliver
Outside General Counsel, San Francisco Pride (less info)
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a second, newer video has shown up on Youtube that was taken just minutes after the shooting and can also be found using search terms ‘pride’ and shooting’. It also shows the rainbow flag in the video, but I don’t know if that’s trademarked as well