“Harlem Shake” DJ Taking Action Against Ajit Pai
Ron Perillo / 7 years ago
US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is quite possibly the most hated man on the internet at the moment. He has successfully voted to repeal net neutrality protection rules put in place by the previous administration yesterday. Rules which were put in place to preempt the increasing efforts of telecoms in subverting open internet standards.
AT&T for example wants customers to pay more for using the FaceTime App back in 2013. Verizon, who Pai used to work for, also openly admits plans to grant favored access to content or sites. This was actually during an FCC hearing in 2013. which shows how brazen they are. There are many more examples, with increasing frequency leading up to the 2015 ruling. Which is why enacting it was important back then.
After an appointment by President Donald Trump, the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai became the name and the face of pushing to break down open internet standards. Pai makes for the perfect mascot for President Trump’s agenda. He does not seem to mind the hate, he seems to revel in the attention from it. In fact he released a video with right wing news website The Daily Caller rubbing it in to FCC advocates yesterday. He does not seem to care who he affects, as long as he gets paid. Two people specifically have valid reasons to be personally hate him more than everyone else on the Internet right now.
A Tale of Two DJs
Ajit Pai sounds like an exotic name to most Westerners but it is not entirely that rare for South Asia. With over a billion people, odds are there is another person with the same name as the most hated man of the moment. That man just happens to be a DJ from Goa, India.
He has been receiving pleas to not repeal the vote. There are those who harass and some even resort to threatening him. By all accounts, if there is one person with justifiable hate for the FCC Chairman, it would be the Indian DJ. However, DJ Pai is taking it all in stride. After all, his social media accounts say have the username ‘AjitPaiOfficial’, which could confuse some people. The American Ajit Pai is not nearly as cool as DJ Pai, although he tried to be in his video with The Daily Caller.
Which is exactly why another DJ named Harry Rodrigues, also known as Baaeur is mad at the FCC Chairman. Unlike DJ Ajit Pai, he wants to take action directly against the American Ajit Pai. His song “Harlem Shake” is in the Daily Caller video without his consent. It is in the scene where Pai and the Daily Caller Staff dance around doing the now 4-year old meme. Moreover, the video is promoting a message which Rodrigues is completely against.
I'm Taking action. Whatever I can do to stop this loser https://t.co/Ajo6wBATdF
— BAAUER (@baauer) December 14, 2017
Taking Legal Action
Speaking to The Verge, Rodrigues says:
“The use of my song in this video obviously comes as a surprise to me as it was just brought to my attention. I want to be clear that it was used completely without my consent or council. My team and I are currently exploring every single avenue available to get it taken down. I support net neutrality like the vast majority of this country and am appalled to be associated with its repeal in anyway.”
YouTube has now taken down the DailyCaller video at the time of publishing this article. However, the video is still live on the Daily Caller website.
