Clearly corporate America sees the DMCA as authorizing them to censor any material on the Internet that they disapprove of.

Last month, Xeni blogged about the photoshop disaster that is this Ralph Lauren advertisement, in which a model's proportions appear to have been altered to give her an impossibly skinny body ("Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis"). Naturally, Xeni reproduced the ad in question. This is classic fair use: a reproduction "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting," etc.

However, Ralph Lauren's marketing arm and its law firm don't see it that way. According to them, this is an "infringing image," and they thoughtfully took the time to send a DMCA takedown notice to our awesome ISP, Canada's Priority Colo.

For a brand like Ralph Lauren, class matters. This obviously photoshopped image was pretty classless and it placed RL in rather philistine company on Photoshop Disasters. But, it was forgettable. An attempt to use baseless legal threats to enjoin the fundamental rights of a popular blog will not be so quickly forgotten. RL ought to apologize, lest that little horse become a symbol for having absolutely no respect for the right to freedom of speech.