Removal of `T.W.I.N.K.I.E.' webpage causes uproar
Due to a complaint about possible copyright infringement, the world-famous T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project webpage was temporarily shut down by Rice officials last week
The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. (Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations) webpage, a tongue-in-cheek collection of scientific experiments performed on Hostess Twinkies, is maintained by Lovett College junior Todd Stadler and Lovett sophomore Chris Gouge. Their efforts have earned them a number of Internet awards and have attracted the attention of newspapers all over the world, including the New York Times .
The widespread publicity attracted more viewers to their website, but it also caught the eye of Paolo Fassari, who, according to Gouge, sent a complaint via e-mail to Andrea Martin, Director of Users Services.
"He claimed to be with some advertising agency and that the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project violated a copyright that he had," Gouge said.
In accordance with Rice computer policy, Martin decided to temporarily shut off public access to the page. She then forwarded the complaint to Patricia Bass, Judicial Affairs Officer.
To resolve the situation, Bass has talked with a vice president of Interstate Brands, Hostess' parent company, about the webpage and the complaint.
From her conversations, she expects that the company will have no objections to the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project and that the webpage will soon be allowed back online.
"I'm optimistic that things will work out fine," Bass said.
The source of the initial complaint has been called into question in the past few days, according to Stadler.
"It's just becoming apparent," Stadler said, "that [Fassari] does not represent Hostess or Interstate Brands."
However, while Fassari's complaint has been "resolved to some semblance of satisfaction," according to Gouge and Stadler, it raised issues about the trademarks that Rice felt still needed to be resolved before the page was allowed back online.
Martin stressed that the shutdown was standard Rice procedure in handling a complaint against a webpage.
"It wasn't an attempt to discredit the [T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S.] homepage," Martin said. "In fact, I think it's a great page."
The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project's fame derived from its unique take on the scientific method. Gouge and Stadler subjected Twinkies to a variety of experiments, including a Rapid-Oxidation Test (the cake was set on fire), a Gravitational Response Test (the Twinkie was dropped off the sixth floor of Lovett) and a Turing (intelligence) Test against a Rice freshman (guess who won).
The duo published the results of their work on the webpage in straight-faced, scientific prose accompanied by explanatory photos and diagrams.
Now that the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. webpage is off-line, Gouge and Stadler have put a short page in its place updating visitors on the status of the complaint. The page's address is http://www.rice.edu/~gouge/twinkies.html.
After the shutdown, Gouge and Stadler received a large amount of e-mail from fans of the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. webpage offering their support and sympathies.
Some have offered to write letters in support of the Project; others have offered to put the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. page on their servers, outside Rice.
Some of the e-mail was from junior high and high school teachers who have used the page as examples in their science and computer classes.
Officials first tried to contact Gouge and Stadler about the complaint on April 3. Stadler, who did not find out about it until he returned from the four-day spring recess, said he was "completely surprised" by the news and "angry because no one was explaining how [the situation] was going to be resolved."
Stadler was also frustrated by Fassari's complaint, one that Stadler said "he had no basis to make."
"The page has been out there for a year," he said, "and [the media] contacted someone with Hostess every time they wrote something about it.
"[Hostess has] had plenty of opportunities to hear about it."
However, Stadler proposed that the entire affair may have been initiated for a very non-legal purpose.
Citing the timing of the initial complaint, and the fact that Paolo Fassari's name is a close (though inexact) anagram of "April Fools," Stadler thinks that the whole thing may be a prank.
He stressed that it may only be a "paranoid theory" and that he in no way wants to offend Fassari, if indeed that is his name.
After talking to Fassari over the phone, however, Stadler thinks that "parts of his story don't match up" and finds himself drawn more and more to his "paranoid" conclusion.
If the complaint was indeed an April Fools' joke, it still raised the attention of Rice's lawyers and caused Gouge and Stadler plenty of unwanted headaches.
"If this was a prank," Stadler lamented, "I'm still waiting for the punchline."
This item appeared in the News section of the April 12, 1996 issue.
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