Slashdot Mirror
FatWallet Strikes Back Using DMCA
J. F. Miller writes "A recent Slashdot article reported how FatWallet had been the victim of a DMCA attack by several retail chains. After initially stating that they would not appeal, FatWallet was forced to take legal action when Wal-Mart further subpoenaed the name of a person who posted price information. They are accusing the stores frivolous copyright assertions and demanding payment under Section 512(f) of the DMCA"
I'm a member of fatwallet, and I'm glad Tim is taking a stand. Copyrighting prices is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. These stores should have been glad for all of the free advertising, or at least accept that good information will not stay hidden long. I just feel bad that he is having to cough up so much dough to fight something so ridiculus.
I can only hope that this case gets enough media attention to make Wal-Mart lovin' Joe Sixpack stand up and take notice that this whole DMCA thing affects him as well. I would also like to think that this will be a good case to showcase how over-reaching and prone to abuse laws like this are.i d=20021202.112004&time=11%2043%20PST&year=2002&pub lic=1 at ascribe.org.
If anyone finds any more links about how FatWallet.com is persuing this case/counter-suit please post 'em here!.
So far all I found was this http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribe
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse
I didn't realize that it was possible to post at -1, troll.
I sort of thought you had to be moderated down.
But I agree. with the troll.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Unless I am missing something here, which is just about as likely as snow falling outside right now (oh, crap, it *is*), why would corporations be uptight about their sales info getting pushed out to a wider audience? Isn't this exactly what their advertisements are supposed to do?
I think maybe this shows that the people who run/are our economy here in the States are just deranged. Now, if the site took straight files from websites, that might constitute a violation (albeit a very minor and sketchy one at best). And, if they posted this information well before the company's in question had officially released the info, that might also be serious. But I can't tell from either FatWallet post when these ads were published or, to be honest, what all the whoo-ha is in this brouhaha.
sig not found
Depends on who is using it.
How funny is that?
maybe wal-mart is _trying_ to kill the DMCA?
>:-D
copyright? you cant copyright a price any more than you can copyright an idea or a word.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This legislation has been abused like a village bicycle!
/. is full of stories like that. Needless to say fatwallet is an interesting concept that deservers a fighting chance. I am happy that they decided to show spine. Real spine like that is seriously lacking these days.
;)
Why the heck does it still exist? You know its bad, I know its bad, if you explain it to a regular joe, he will know it is bad.
Whats happening? Anyone who wants someone else on the internet to shut up, uses DMCA.
Is it too broad? Heck yeah! Are lawyers using it whenever they can? Sure,
I really hope that fatwallet has a clued-in lawyer for this. I hope that the judge will be half as clued-in as the above mentioned lawyer. I hope fatwallet wins fat damages.
I mean, Fat damages, damages so fat, next time greedy_company_01 comes to their lawyers crying, the lawyers instead of saying "yes sir, straight away sir, we will use DMCA sir" will say "erm, you have absolutely no case whatsoever, if you want to continue legal action, this will cost you way more than its costing you now"
Lawyers aint cheap and when court orders someone to pay for the damages/legal costs, it aint cheap.
Thus, one of the great ways to defeat DMCA absue in the future is to make it costly for those idiots who pull out DMCA whenever they think they are loosing a few cents to competition/someone smarter.
So, in conclusion of my long-winded post, OG OG fatwallet's lawyer! DIE DMCA, DIE!
I would like to contribute to a defense fund of sorts for FatWallet - this is a worthy fight and legal fees are going to be expensive - anyone know if they are accepting donations or not? This case can set a very scary precedent, so hopefully this will gain national news.
- Rick
www.bluealien.org
Prophets of the Blue Alien
It was that little 'Smiley' guy that is always cutting the prices. He was ticked off about being overworked and underpaid.
To be quite honest the absolute absurdity of the DMCA and it's application leave me completely astonished. Now if we could only copyright the usage of written or typed glyphs whereby grouped to represent phonemes. Hmmmm...
This gave me a chuckle. The DMCA is basically being used on itself. I guess it's sort of a mix of silly putty and a swiss army knife, apparently - shape it to anything, do anything you want!
More power to FatWallet. Let's hope this not only saves them, but deters future DMCA stupidity and helps point out how dumb the DMCA was in the first place.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Why would a company want to stop this free advertising?
Well, if their prices are not the lowest, they obviously don't want that to be a well known fact.
Once again, this is just a case of old time, brick and mortar mentality creeping into the global, immediate nature of the internet.
Before the internet was so popular, consumers actually had to get off their fat arses and go to the stores to shop/compare prices/etc. Sure there were newspapers and magazines that made it possible to compare prices, but these can hardly compete with the speed and penetration of the internet.
What happens if everyone knows of a website where they can go to see retailers prices on certain products? They most likely choose to buy from the retailer with the lowest price. That is, unless they have some personal loyalty to a higher priced retailer, or perhaps they had a bad experience from the low price retailer, and won't buy from that particular store.
Obviously, this is bad news for the retailers. I'm sure that they made quite a few sales based on impulse, where the consumer is in the store, looking at the product, and is tired of driving all over town looking for the best price. He's gonna buy at a higher price, right? That's what the retailers are betting on.
Unfortunately for the retailers, the internet is forcing them to rethink their business strategies, and sometimes it's easier for them to bully the little guy than to change their entire strategy.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
What's interesting is that if you read the fax that walmart sent, they don't say that Fatwallet is violating their IP rights by publishing the prices, they instead say that he's publishing their circular. This is definitely splitting a very fine legal hair. It's probably defendable to say that the circular is copyrightable, but the prices contained therein is a serious stretch.
Well, here's hoping that fatwallet gets their wallet fattened by a nice check from walmart. I wasn't aware that there were provisions in the DMCA for getting damages and legal fees for abuse of the law. While I still think much of the DMCA is some of the worst legal authoring this country has seen, it does show that at least somebody was paying attention when it went through the legislature.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
If I came onto /. and wrote,
"Hey guys, CompUSA is having a great sale on routers and hard drives. Over 50% off some items"
does that mean that I'm guilty of violating the DMCA? Can CompUSA sue me then? I wouldn't think so since I'm just some poor dumb schmuck looking to save a buck or two instead of getting taken advantage of by a large corporation. The only time in which I personally can approve of Walmart (and the other retailers) conduct is when "privileged" information was leaked -- i.e. information protected by some type of non-disclosure agreement.
Jeremy
"like a village bicycle" ?
What the hell kind of simile is that?
there is a discrepancy between what walmart and fatwallet are saying. Walmart asks for the removal of "their Circular" and fatwallet claims they had "sale price data" posted. these two things are clearly different. if someone posted walmart's flyer, in it's entirety and unedited, then that IS a copyright violation. after all, walmart does pay someone to make those idiotic things.
if, on the other hand, the original poster was not so lazy, and typed out the data, then walmart has no claim. In fact, fatwallet would have only legitimized their claim by removing anything from their site after walmart requested the removal of the Circular. So was it a link to scans? because if it was, shame on fatwallet, for removing something they weren't asked to remove.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
I think the plan here, though, is to win the case (hav the court say they overstepped the DMCA). That, however, is not the best solution. The best solution would be to "lose" the case, and have the DMCA tossed on appeal. At least, that's the way it seems to me. Opinions?
Full-Featured GPL Web Hosting Control Panel
because of bad laws about (electronic) intellectual property. That's the only way the politicians here in Europa will have their eyes opened before we have similar laws.
So therefor I support any lawsuit based on the DMCA. Not because I am in favor, but because I oppose it.
the pun is mightier than the sword
These tiny davids like Walmart must be helped to stand up against the Evil Goliaths like FatWallet. As soon as you let people find out about a special, they are going to buy the product, causing massive cost overruns as the stores have to RESTOCK the shelves with new product. The cost of the actual wholesale merchandise is a large part, maybe 25% of the cost that the consumer in the end pays. Many people forget about this and only concentrate on the 5% that goes to salaries, 5% rent, 20% marketing and 45% profit. Somebody has to pay this 25%, and you can be sure it's not going to be FatWallet.
I say retailers should fight back, by introducing a copyright friendly pricing structure. Tickle me Barbies only 48 DoodlyDishus Dollars, Ninety N-N-N-N-Nine cents. Surely that creative effort can be copyrighted.
She's a cheap and cheerful one, the Sailor's friend..
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
"This is an outrageous example of a corporation contorting copyright law and attempting to use the DMCA to out the identity of an individual sharing factual information. The DMCA's subpoena provision, which allows an entity to demand the identity of an alleged infringer from an Internet service provider prior to filing a lawsuit, is controversial to begin with. Behavior like this shows how susceptible it is to abuse."
This is the type of info that needs to get out to the public...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
They want the same circular removed that goes out to every person in creation's mailbox as well as every newspaper in existence?
So does this mean if I take the thing out of my mailbox, hand it to my next door neighbor, I'm violating the rules as well? (Not that I would ever punish my neighbor in this fashion.)
Seems to be a rather strange argument:
Wal-Mart: "Don't give it to everyone! WE want to give it to everyone!"
I am in no way advocating the use of the DMCA for anything (it sucks)... but I think most of us here are missing some big points.
1) The sale prices are used by the retail stores to give people a reason to walk into the store. They lose money on these sales, but they do this because they know that once they get you into the store, you will more likely than not buy something else too. This is called baiting the hook. Having prices posted everywhere in advance defeats this entire scheme. Now customers will just already know what is on sale before entering the store and just get what they want and get out. No profit to be made there. This is why they are mad.
2) Prices are NOT protected under the DMCA. This is not what they are mad about. What they are mad about is the DIGITAL MEDIA that the prices were listed using were stolen and posted. To make this clear - Best Buy sends the sale prices on digital media to, say, the Washington Post for advertisement on Friday (the same day of the sale). At the Washington Post an employee takes a look at this digital media and says, hmm... that is nice, and copies it to be posted. The problem with that is this digital media has been copyrighted by Best Buy... so the person posting the prices is guilty of theft of copyrighted data. It doesn't matter what the copyrighted data is (happens to be prices in this case), it is still digital media theft, and that is what the DMCA is for.
3) The web site has been subpoenaed to reveal the name of the poster. Most likely this poster is someone who works for a publishing company such as the Washington Post or whoever. This person will most likely be fired if his name is revealed. I am sure publishing companies like the Washington Post have an NDA agreement with its various advertisers. Posting prices is a blatant violation of those NDA's. And the person who stole the digital media knew this, and did it anyway - I am not sure why but he was thinking Best Buy would not care. How wrong he was.
4) I hate the DMCA - I don't like how it controls me and the stuff that I own. I am not advocating the DMCA in any way. I am just showing you all WHY the DMCA applies in this case. It is not the prices itself - it is the digital media the prices were on.
Ctrl-Z
It's the responsibility of the owner of the trade secret to protect the information. By giving it to so many people outside Walmarts direct control, they have demonstrated that they are not protecting the trade secret.
Walmart loses!
why dont we all go over to fatwallet and post things like "Walmart sale today only - buy a pack of gum, get a free diamond ring"
this country is getting more and more ridiculous, and the sooner the leeches we put in charge of representing us arent allowed to take bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H lobbies from big business, the sooner we can get back to reality of true representation and justice.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
I'm glad I saw this blurb, otherwise I would have never known there were sales after Thanksgiving.
I will become a user of fatwallet. I will support thier advertisers. Any company that has the balls to do this deserves my support.
Software Wars
Make filing frivolous lawsuits a criminal offense for the attorney and plaintiff.
(Sarcastic: -1)
From this linky dinky,:
Support a few technologists in Washington.
And a list of prices is a collection of facts. Had the prices been printed on a nice ad with formatting and pretty designs, the whole can be copyrighted, but the mere facts presented on the page are free to redistribute.
Read the DMCA response letter by FatWallet's lawyers to get the appropriate Supreme Court rulings.
I'm not sure that you could even put a price 'in your own words'. Perhaps a script to change the 'offending' price into words, such as, "Thirteen dollars and twenty-seven cents". But that is plain dumb.
A price can't be copyrighted, any more than I could copyright "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890". If this weren't true, I could have just copyrighted all the letters in the Alphabet, and Walmart and Best Buy would be fighting over who owns the copyright on '$9.95'.
I'm not sure where the DMCA comes in to the original complaint, as reading a price or marketing blurb is hardly 'reverse engineering' or 'breaking copy protection'. If these companies encrypted their prices prior to publication, it would be easier to track who has access to them, and we would then be talking DMCA.
If anything is wrong here, it's the fact that there are leaks in the companies. Perhaps if they were paid to keep their mouths shut, the employees wouldn't talk. Or still would. There is something to messing with your company, especially when you're just a cogwheel out of zillions and can be replaced or removed without notice. Maybe a rush of power comes over these people, or they have just watched 'Office Space' 32 times. But I digress.
There was a issue similar to this going on here in Minnesota, when big grocery store chains got into a sue-fight over the 'theft' of prices that had yet to be released.
To sum all this up, as long as fatwallet is 'reviewing' prices and service, I can't see how they can be liable.
Cool, I didn't realize we had a colony there...
The bickering is good and all, but you should just fight back a different way. Boycott Wal-Mart. I already have. I can't stand a company that will clear cut acre's of land to build a store, when they have one down the street already! I see more "former" Wal-Mart's than I do open ones. All of them empty dinosaurs of wasted, asphalted, land!
So, tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell Wal-Mart what you are doing and why! "No more business for you from me" is the message that needs to be sent. As Tim said in his article on FatWallet, "The Customer is always right". It's my money and I'll spend it where I want to. So if you don't like what they are doing, shop somewhere else!
All you need is a google search to find a local walmart boycott near you.
The truth is usually just an excuse for lack of imagination.
Why the heck does it still exist?
Because Hollywood/TV/Music industry gave $21,480,772 in soft money during 2002 to keep it there...
Lawyers aint cheap and when the court orders someone to pay for the damages/legal costs, it aint cheap.
Lawyers gave $12,074,762 in soft money during 2002 to make sure these disputes can't be settled without them...
This public service announcement was brought to you by Open Secrets
People who truely believe in free market economies would never let the government regulate technology like this, or sanction a virtual monopoly to the Baby Bells, or give the FCC the powers it has to stifle communications.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
That should be:
cough up $200 and send it to 742 Evergreen Terrace, Portland, Oregon.
Apparently, you haven't remembered other postings on Slashdot about Visa self-appointed owning of the word "visa" in all its forms.
Now, some may argue that it is a trademark and doesn't fall under the copyright arguement, but think of this. There are only so many things you can name a company before you will have used up the English language Even recently, things like this are going on, so my serious question is that how long do we have before every word truly falls under the arguement of copyright is no longer applicable?
Just a thought. I have no idea where I was going with it.
Slashdot - Come for the creative thought, stay for the lesbians!
"Your demand ... is an abuse of copyright law. ... Sanctions for perjury may also be applicable, as well as penalties for violations of the ethical cannons governing attorneys."
Looks like they're going to seek sanctions for perjury and go to the state bars and file ethics compliants against the lawyers representing these companies.
Although, I did think it was ironic earlier when they weren't appealing, because FatWallet didn't have enough money to go up against WalMart. But I'm very glad to see they've grown a pair.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
When I first heard about Fatwallet giving in to the retailers I was very disappointed, and in fact it made me wonder if the general freedom-fighting spirit of the "internet community" was a long-lost relic of the past. (Does anyone actually track this as a trend?)
This news gives me some hope, and brightens my day! Give it to the man!
It's called barratry.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
I've noticed that a lot of big retailers, including one who is on the list of complainants against FatWallet are now allowing web site visitors to "review" products that they sell.
I'm wondering if the manufacturers of these products could sue the retailers under the DMCA in a similar fashion for allowing their customers to badmouth their products...
Just something to think about.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
From : smallpond@juno.com
To : customercare@joann.com, sales@joann.com
Subject : DMCA abuse
Date : Wed, 4 Dec 2002 15:04:47 GMT
This is to inform you that I will no longer be shopping at Jo-Ann
Stores due to your decision to apply the DMCA to prevent the
internet site FatWallet.com from posting your sale prices.
Abuse of the DMCA law by large corporations to stifle competition
is a good example of what is wrong with laws enacted to protect
special interests. It was a concern cited by opponents of the
law when it was proposed, whose worst fears you have now realized.
Not only that, but they're using the DMCA to fight the DMCA.
Wal-Mart has cast-iron gonads to pull this shit. For $DEITY's sake, they're the sneaky underhanded outfit that sends spies into all the neighboring stores with UPC scanners and laptops so they can undercut the competition by $.01 and drive them out of business. If you try to throw a Wal-Mart spy out of your store, they get all up-tight and start screaming about freedoms and rights and the law and all that shit.
Sounds to me like Wal-Mart is way overdue for a taste of their own medicine.
Don't forget the Google News - just search for FatWallet or DMCA- there's a lot out there now and it's (finally) not just coming from tech mags.
D... M-C-A!
It's fun to sue with the
D... M-C-A!
Are there any organizations that provide defense support for these types of things? Maybe the ACLU would be interested since from FatWallets perspective this boils down to a privacy issue (not revealing the source of the prices)
NOTICE NOW EFFECTIVE We'll speaking of coprights i just copirighted the price of $19.99. I will let everyone who has ever bought or sold an item for $19.99 give me a cashiers check for the the amount of $19.99 and you not be sued. Ron popeal i'm hunting for you since everything you sold has been at my copirighted price. seriously this all has to stop These mega corportate companies have to be stopped. My local paper the Detroit free press reported that on friday the 28th walmart$ brought in $288,617,195 in sales for one day. There are only 239,552,771 in the US, thats $.83 a person. Don't feed these fuckers your money go to anywhere else with your money but not walmarts. This is why they can sue people that report prices out of the ad fliers. thanks but I'll be waiting for my checks
SCREW FLANDERS
But there is no way any of those stores could reasonably claim copyright. That means their letters under the DMCA subject them to fees under the DMCA and possible purjury and ethics charges for their lawyers.
However, the letter did mention the possibility of the stores claiming trade secret, but dismissed that possibility fairly well too.
Wal-Mart was supposed to decide whether to withdraw the subpoena yesterday. If not, FatWallet reserves the right to wait until the 10th to file a motion to quash. Since Wal-Mart claimed copyright violation as the reson behind the subpoena, then their subpoena is baseless and will probably be quashed. They should have claimed trade secret.
I think everyone is looking at this wrong. Those of you who think this is going to show how evil the DMCA is have it backwards: It's going to show that the DMCA is fine, because when companies use it incorrectly, they're going to open themselves up to big nasty lawsuits like the one Fat Wallet just filed.
Yes, people have been abusing DMCA until now, but this'll be the big correction that puts everything back into balance. Especially if Fat Wallet wins.
Remember, if oyu use the DMCA, one of two things is true:
1) You own the copyright, in which case you're perfectly justified in asking that the material be removed, and DMCA saves a lawsuit
2) You don't, in which case you just committed perjury and can be sued for easy money.
(IANAL)
paintball
Just think along the lines of a 'communal ride'
Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put into it...
I'm a semi-regular visitor of FatWallet and the thing that disappoints me the most is that people continued to post published deals for those retailers who sent DMCA letters to Fat Wallet. It is a sad commentary to how whoreish people will be just to get "a good deal", no matter how morally-corrupt the retailer (or their attorney team).
If these retailers are crap and you don't approve of their actions, then quit shopping there and stick to it. Merely saying that you think it sucks and then when the ad comes out talking about all the "kewl goods" you picked up at the sale shows that you approve of their actions.
Because no matter who wins, on one end it proves that the DCMA can be abused, and it just generally stupid.
I almost forgot to include the obligatory DMCA comment. The DMCA bites.
Even if they won't win, they might bleed fatwallet to death, that is a big concern.
I'm a longtime member of Fatwallet and I'd like to point out some facts to those people who claim that FW "finally got some balls". The reason the ads were taken down in the first place was that Tim (the mod) was not interested in fighting with the retail giants over information that he knew was easily accessible regardless. In the original response to retailers threats he mentioned that in order for the site to qualify for "safe harbor" status and avoid litigation the site was obliged to remove the information when he found it. However, given the nature of FW it was impossible to quash every post dealing w/ BF and the site allowed links to other sites (some hosted outside the US) which hosted the same information. The only reason litigation is being pursued now is that Wal-mart forced his hand by subpoenaing the personal information of one of FW's members. IMO, FW has done exactly what they should have. Avoided a pointless legal battle until forced into it and then protected the anonymity of it's members when threatened.
IANAL, of course, but I'm sure WalMart sees prices not as "prices" but as notices of "strategic intent."
a dvantage-over-our-competitors -- is something that's not been discussed much.
The prices themselves aren't copyrightable I suppose, but the fact that the prices -- in the case of Black Friday, in particular -- are part of a larger strategy.
In other words, WalMart probably doesn't care that that XBOX is ten dollars off -- or whatever -- but they do care that the fact of discounting that specific item at that specific pricing level is, in fact, a strategic bid to gain an advantage over shoppers at a specific place and a specific time.
Now, before you flame, I'm not saying that WalMart is justified in what it's doing, but I do think that the idea of "prices-as-strategy" -- or better yet, Black-Friday-as-the-core-of-our-strategy-to-gain-
I suspect they view the overall prices as a kind of "war document" -- much like any war plans that cross the president's desk. There will be a multititude of plans, of course, but part of the tactical decision making process is to sign off on a particular set of a plans, at a specific time, based on specific intelligence.
Retailers, I'm sure, view Black Friday in very much the same way.
"Prices" are not a digital medium. If the prices came in some PDF file and he then decrypted it and posted a cracked version, THAT would be a DMCA case. Him hearing someone (say, an employee) telling him that "Item X will be on sale Friday for $20" and then sharing that information is not a DMCA violation - neither is him reading it in some kind of uber-leet digital protected system. Parent comment was probably written by a Wal*mart lawyer. ;)
Feel free to give whatever money you want to Fat Wallet, but I personally think the reason they are going through with this is twofold.
1. Walmart is threatening thier business
2. Fighting Walmart will generate A LOT of publicity
I never heard of them before, but you can bet I'm going to check them out now.
Seriously, The press loves David and Goliath stories like these, and I'm sure it will be picked up beyond Slashdot.
I hope FatWallet milks this situation for what it's worth.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Well, I suppose I do not have to educate anyone here on the bad parts of the DMCA. But from the article I read: "They are accusing the stores frivolous copyright assertions and demanding payment under Section 512(f) of the DMCA".
/. about companies who brazenly proclaim IP to be their core business, and file copyright/patent infringement suits against smallish firms with cash but little legal clout or stamina, hoping for an out-of-court settlement.
Seems to me that a law designed to stop people from frivolous copyright assertions is a Good Thing (tm). They need to extend this law to cover frivolous patent assertions as well while they are at it. We've had enough stories here on
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
a shitty one at best.
the normal usage is something along the lines of, "She's like a village bicycle... everyone's had a ride on that one."
Your understanding of copyright is off. Too much exposure to the RIAA/MPAA, I suppose.
Physical objects (like digital media) can not be copyrighted. Copyright only applies to information - to the content on the media, not the media itelf.
Physical objects are property, and theft of property is a crime. But since the phyiscal media itself was never stolen, and the information on the media is not copyrightable (as you already acknowledged), no crime was committed here.
Are facts not copyrighted everyday? Look at research papers, news articles, biographies, anything that is published or presented. Most everything is copyrighted these days. I can refer to the facts in my my own works, but I need to give credit to the source of information unless it is public knowledge. Remember citing things in papers in the 6th grade onward.....?
No kidding, since it isn't possible to copyright factual information.
But is it really factual information? The prices weren't in effect yet, and have always been subject to change.
There's a line that has to be drawn: How specific must a fact be? Must it be something as specific as a mathematical definition of a law in physics? Or is something with a very general definition also eligible? (Like an emotion, or the difference between sharp and dull.)
On the other hand, can it really be copyrightable if it is not intended to be viewed by the public? Anyone have reasons why/not?
What's this Submit thingy do?
A DMCA-compliant notice is made under penalty of perjury - by sending one, you're taking an oath to the fact that your claim is true.
So yes, if you use the DMCA and you're BSing, you're committing perjury. It's an oath on paper.
paintball
Guys, it's an instant Loss for Fatwallet.
Think about it. Thursday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Walmart alone did 1.1 billion of business in ONE day.
Their pricing is their edge. Sure, product has a bit to do with it, but pricing is where Walmart and the other mega-stores make their business. Lower price wins.
So if Walmart sends the prices to their stores and it is posted, now the other retailers can all go a few bucks cheaper on certain products and make it a big deal.
And if you don't think it IS a big deal, then you're delusional. Sites like Wallet exist solely because there are so many people who want the best deal possible.
It's a competitive advantage and a trade secret, and anyone who isn't in on the whole "Corporate America is out to get me" paranoia knows it.
Use a little common sense please.
The book, which was far better than the movie, did not have the last two lines.
Of course, the book didn't have the stupid coldwar bullshit either.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
News Flash!
Walmart places copies of competitor ads inside thier stores. They use these to show the consumers which prices they will match from a competitor. If Walmart ads and prices are copyrighted then so are everyone else's ads and prices.
Well, a number of the items on Black Friday were free after rebate. Unless they are making massive interest on your money during the 6 weeks before they send the rebate check, they are losing money by giving away items for free and then paying someone to mail you the check. Stuff I got free after rebate included a DVD drive, 256 megs of RAM, keyboard, video tapes, and CD-R's. Things I think have SOME value. The irony, though, is that while I think while the stores might do it to draw people in, the people who get to the store an hour before it opens don't stick around to buy other stuff - they grab the sale stuff, pay, and run to the next store. At least that's what I did.
I have blog like everyone else
If this price information was only available to employees who had signed an NDA, then someone broke the NDA to leak the prices. If it is clear that an NDA was broken, couldn't Walmart bring a case against a John Doe then subpoena the identity from FatWallet without broaching any copyright law or the DMCA?
All of this is based on the assumption that Walmart was duly diligent in keeping their secrets by having NDAs.
2 reasons.
1. when you ask the lawyers they will always suggest you sue. Its what they do.
2. The eggs are cheap but the milk is sky high! This kind of breaks their ability to get you in because of the cheap price of X and they try to sell you lots of Y. Because you now know clearly that Y is cheaper at the other store. (stupid in this internet era)
I think this has been said a thousand times...
DMCA is not the way to go about this. It can easily be argued that sale prices are a trade secret. But if Walmart's representation is using the DMCA as their banner, then I welcome the attempt. But I don't think they have a leg to stand on. Infact, I think after this loss, walmart should be seeking out new legal representation!!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
... greedy_company_01 ...
I think you've been playing too much EQ
a greedy_company_01's corpse says 'Arg!!!!'
We shoot striking wallet makers!
Why the hell are people upset about this? The reason why Walmart and the 3 others which I can't remember the names of did the stunt of using DMCA against fat wallet was to show how stupid DMCA is. Wal*mart is against DMCA, I think Fat wallet went to court in order to get publicity on the matter, if the general public sees just how idiotic DMCA really is, then something will be done about it.
Will be an economy where retailers will be forced to compete in a true floating market, much like the stock exchanges... and they don't like it. While you can't copyright factual information, you could argue that next week's prices are not facts yet, as they have not taken effect yet... I would liken it more to a business plan. I could say WalMart will sell personal spaceships in 2075, and this would not neccessarily be a fact, but a business plan. As a FatWallet member, I am torn... the Slashdot story forgot to mention that FatWallet is suing these companies for damages and attorney fees as well.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Well of *course* Walmart would like to restrict things to their advantage.
Walmart would like it if there was a law that said you had to spend $100 a week minimum at Walmart.
But just because they *want* it, and just because it would *benefit* them to restrict the widespread distribution of their prices doesn't mean that its correct or right.
The idea that corporations have a right to make money at the publics expense or at the expense of common sense is a fascinating one. How do you personally justify it?
What kills me is that even with the massive profits WalMart took in on Friday, an estimated 1.42 BILLION dollars, that they'd still go after someone for such a frivalous reason as this. IMHO a nice compensation to Fatwallet would be 10% of Fridays gross plus legal fees.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
I'm suprides to see FatWallet not being represented by the ACLU or EFF, this kind of thing seem right up their alley. It's not just FatWallet.com and members that were told to shut the hell up or pay dearly by big corporations, they told EVERYONE to shut the hell up or pay. It seemed like a frivilous lawsuit to begin with and I was sad to see FatWallet comply, but I certainly understod why. Now they are fighting not only for Black Friday sales prices, but rights to republish factual information. Hopefully this will show those corporation participating that if they brndish a big stick, we'll just take it from them and beat em down with it.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
The chasm between "illegal" and "wish it was illegal" is a big gulf.
Walmart may wish it was illegal for someone to say something bad about them.
But that doesn't make it illegal.
Walmart may wish that any behavior by consumers that undermines their business strategy should be illegal and actionable. But that doesn't make it so.
Walmart may even wish they control every piece of information about their business under threat of jail. But so what.
Walmart isn't *entitle* to sue someone just because they feel it affected their profits. You're thinking like a consumer instead of a citizen.
You have *more* rights than a mere corporation. Don't you ever forget that.
We have one of each in my area. Guess who just won my business...and who just LOST it.
...Forgive Him, for he is a consumer and not a citizen. He seems to believe Walmart has more right s than a normal person.
He is pitiable.
"They were still in raw digital media form and the prices were lifted from the raw digital media form."
Sounds like you're speculating.
Since a human being has to come up with the prices, isn't it just as likely that a Walmart employee looked at a computer monitor and wrote it down?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
When I read the first article posted on Slashdot, I thought the same thing everyone else does: prices aren't copyrightable, so Walmart's and the others' claims were baseless. However, at the bottom of this new article, there is a link to Walmart's letters to Fatwallet and Fatwallet's replies to those letters. In their letters Walmart claims that the Circular was posted.
The Circular definitely is copyrighted, because it's more than just prices. It's a way of presenting those prices, along with pictures and other things. If the actual circular was posted, as Walmart claims, that's copyright infringement. However, Walmart didn't make a claim of copyright infringement. They made a claim of violating the DMCA.
If the person who posted the prices bypassed some "technology" that controlled access to the actual circular (not just a list of prices) in order to get the prices, then the DMCA applies. If they didn't, then it doesn't. In that case, it doesn't matter what was actually published, and Fatwallet would not itself be guilty of violating the DMCA.
Personally, I think it's unlikely that the DMCA was violated in any way, but it is possible based on what I know about what happened.
The only thing I know is that I don't know anything; and I'm not even sure about that.
DO NOT CLICK
it's a link to something gross.. The parent is obviously very disturbed...
You're assuming that the *ony* factor in where people shop & what they buy is price. That isn't true. In fact anyone in business will tell you that competing on price alone is a surefire way to fail. Why? Price is easy. Someone bigger can always take a loss on price to force you out. That's business. I own a retail establishment and I can tell you that not all people are brain dead zombies that shop at superstores for the best prices on the shittiest products. Not everyone is speeding down towards the lowest common denominator of Wal-Mart. In my shop, I offer high quality products at reasonable prices, and I'm doing just fine. There are plenty of people in my area that, like myself, are willing to shop elsewhere if they can have a decent shopping experience, and find better quality merchandise. Not everybody is willing to go into a loud, filthy, obnoxious, crowded Wal-Mart just to be able to pick up merchandise off of the floor or out of a pile, and then stand in line for hours to be "waited on" by drones who really don't give a shit about what they're doing.
And yes, I do happen to compete directly against a mega big-box superstore and yes, I am winning.
To copyright a certain number-sequence, (i.e. a PRICE), you would have to fill out and file copyrights for each number-sequence that was your price. Obviously, numbers are in the public domain, so this is not possible, otherwise it would be:
12.34 (c) 2000 Some guy,
and because of this, there are restrictions on what can and cannot be copyright.
So, unless walmart can present documentation, (forms), then they're SOL.
Who needs FatWallet when you can you can have the much better FatMouse?
You must be one broke-dick bastard if you shit out of your dick! Screw you , anonymous dickwad!
...? He did get modded down..
slashdot!=valid HTML
I read an ad for a Hard drive (TV, Stereo, car, whatever) in the paper. Stores are now claiming that I can't use digital means (email, VOIP, whatever) to tell my friend about it? Or I might be violating a federal law by emailing him that I was at K mart and they have a sale on pants? This is beyone ridiculous! This is prior restraint of free speech! OKAY..so let me violate federal law right now then: In their ad in last week's Los Angeles Times, Wal Mart had Apex DVD players advertised for $49.88. COME GET ME YOU WALMART COCKSUCKERS!!!! I DARE YOU !!!!!
Maybe I'm cynical, but I'll bet in most stupid copyright cases where the assertions are unfounded or ridiculous (like the "Bill Wyman the reporter needs to prove that's his real name" case) the lawyers are acting on their own, without any consent or direction from their clients.
Having experience employing lawyers, I'll say that with few exceptions, this is wrong. What will happen is that you go to your lawyer and you say "I'm mad that this web site is printing bad things about me. Is there anything we can do?"
And the lawyer will give you a menu, essentially -- what you could pursue and what your chances of success are. If they're any good, they'll be realistic -- "we can sue for this, and they'll probably cave, but if it goes to court, it'll take six months and you'll have to consider the public relations issues".
But they'll need you to give the go-ahead to file, to pursue certain actions, to negotiate a settlement. They're not lone wolves.
Now, they're going to want you to use them, generally speaking -- they're hammers, they're going to see nails. The mistake people make is using their lawyers as their only tools, or relying on them above all else.
When you see a reputable law firm (ie, not Lionel Hutz, Law Talking Guy Ltd.) suing for something stupid, that's what's happened -- the plantiff went to them and told them to pursue whatever slim opportunity they had in front of them. And for the lawyers, it's as if you're a home builder and someone's insisting you put their mansion on a flood plain. You can advise them against it all you want, but if they're hell-bent on it, they're the boss.
Now we can argue if ethically they should refuse to prosecute these cases, but the core issue is that reputable lawyers don't pursue cases on their own.
-- q
Fatwallet's goal was to make headlines news so that more people would visit the site... move along people they got their 5 minutes publicity.
Sigh, once more someone cries "CONSPIRACY" based on anecdotal data from a single slashdotter.
Be careful of Occam's Razor. It is quite sharp and I'd hate to see your throat get cut when it is wielded by the invisible hand of Adam Smith.
FreeSpeech.org
Not quite. Stores would love to charge the highest dollar they can to each consumer. The reason why internet based price lists make WalMart, et al. unhappy is it erodes the regional price descrimination that a company can excersize.
WarMarts in California might charge $5.97 for a beachball and sell 10,000. While WalMart in Alaska might charge $1.97 and only sell 100. There is only a small market for beachballs in Alaska while there is a large demand for them in California. Where a company gets pissed off is when a Californian can look on the web and see that a store in Alaska sells the balls for $1.97 so they don't want to pay more than $1.97 even though they were previously willing to pay $5.97 before they were informed of the lower price.
In case you are wondering, this is also why there are regions on DVDs.
Grr. Ok, time to start buying online...
Fatwallet should send a letter to each US Senator, and each US Representative, detailing the issue, and requesting their response regarding their view of this abuse of consumer rights, and basic rights, and of the DMCA act which should be struck down entirely.
In the letter, Fatwallet should indicate that the Senators' and Reps' responses or positions, as well as their voting record concerning the original DMCA, broadcast flags, digital restrictions management and related topics will be listed. Their lack of response will also be listed if that is their tactic.
Then Fatwallet should put up a page on their website, and break it down by State, listing each Senator and Representative, and how they voted on these Jack Valenti/MPAA/Hollywood Berman schemes, and what their response was to Fatwallet's run-in with the DMCA.
While Fatwallet is not about the DMCA, they have now experienced the hammer of the DMCA. Sending out a form letter to 435 US elected representatives will hardly put a dent in their budget, and will go a long way to exposing who supports the public, and who is in the pockets of Hollywood at the expense of the public and freedom of information. It will also put the reps on notice that more people are watching, and paying attention to how they vote.
The Fatwallet website doesn't allow anon posting, so I posted here. Somehow, those that still insist on forced registration will never understand why they don't have a bigger audience.
For more on the DMCA, see these sites:
NYLXS
and for our direct actions in Washington and NY regarding the dmca, drm (is theft), broadcast flag, and more, see:
NY Fair Use
then get involved.
btw, the deadline for posting comments on the broadcast flag, another Jack Valenti/MPAA/Hollywood Reps theft attempt, is fast approaching. See:
Declan McCullough asks "Why have you not written to the FCC?" and Slashdot
responds
As an employee of a rather large retail store, I know a little something about the competitiveness amongst the various different large retail stores. As an example, our store puts out ads weekly, Sunday morning. So does Safeway, but on Tuesday, I believe. We employees usually have access to these ads by Friday the previous week. If one of the ads gets out and somehow gets into the hands of a Safeway employee, and we have something on sale for say, $0.79/lbs., then you can bet that when Safeway puts out their add, they'll have that same something for a lower price, say $0.69/lbs. So if it's only a matter of just a couple days, then you can bet Safeway will run do way better business on that sale item than we do, and we will lose quite a bit of business. The day after Thanksgiving is the most competitive day of the year, and no retail store wants their sale prices posted before they intended them to, otherwise they will lose a lot of business because the other retail stores can then adjust their prices.
What you reap is what you sow
Glad to hear that it's good for *SOMETHING* worthwhile.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Trade secret law binds more than parties to a contract. On point, receiving (or revealing) trade secrets by legal means but knowing that their disclosure is prohibited is illegal. I was a little surprised by this, but it does act to bar publication by a journalist, free speech notwithstanding. So civil remedied such as injunction and damages may be available.
Obviously there is a lot of room for debate about what is a trade secret and what weight free speech concerns carry.
Trade secret theft or "misappropriation" can also be a criminal offense basically because it is considered a form of theft. Example.
YMMV. Consult a lawyer before doing anything adventuresome.
Fundamental to the Capitalist systems is the notion of Free Markets. From what I remember in a Free Market customers and vendors had to have knowledge of the prices for the market to work. So doesn't this kind of behaviour (hiding of prices) goes against the very notion of capitalism.
Just wondering.
Think, think. Suppose FatWallet is successful.
Then supporters of the DMCA will have evidence that the act already contains sufficient protections. And that therefore it does not need to be amended.
I don't find this a cause for cheer. These big retailers are clearly idiots. Unfortunately they are playing right into the hands of real bad guys (you know who they are).
And I have a suspicion that the real bad guys are not idiots.
C'mon, think! (I know, it hurts.) Even Wal-Mart is not stupid enough to try and claim a copyright violation on the *prices*.
It appears the prices were posted prior to store opening on Friday. Assuming this is true, Wal-Mart will obviously try to claim copyright on the *document(s)* that *contained* the prices prior to store opening.
It's safe to assume that the court will view that document as a "work" that can be copyrighted. So PRIOR TO STORE OPENING, the prices were not necessarily "facts" in the sense that is known to be protected free speech.
Assuming that FatWallet will win this case is premature.
From what I understand, the reason Wal-Mart is able to beat people on prices and still make scads of money is that their business model is based on doing lots of research to pick up things at the cheapest (wholesale) prices in town, and then sell them for less than other retailers can.
So Wal-Mart has put a lot of time and effort into how they price things (you notice that Wal-Mart has a lot of things selling for $4.67 and $3.12 rather than the standard $xyz.99 prices everyone else uses?) to get the most money out of the lowest possible price.
FatWallet interferes with their ability to do that, by giving people instant access to information that takes Wal-Mart lots of time to gather. What used to be something only Wal-Mart did, is now something anyone with an internet connection can do.
So basically Wal-Mart's just defending their turf; they know that if more people used FatWallet, it would be harder for Wal-Mart to make so much money from such low prices.
The hubbub is going to hurt Wal-Mart in the end more than help, however. People, like me, who've never even heard of FatWallet.com are going to hit the site to see if they (or rather, I) can save money through the site as well... rather than just heading out to Wal-Mart for a price that may not be the lowest in town, but will beat most retailers.
It's ironic, no? Wal-Mart feels a website is hurting its business -- and in attacking it, ensure that said website will hurt their business even more by drawing people's attention to it. Funny how heavy-handed legal action can have that effect!
I wonder how much money Wal-mart thinks they lost from these prices being posted? The Wal-mart parking lot here in town was filled to the max on Black Friday.
The worry isn't about competition, it is about the consumer.
By the time the price information was available on FatWallet, each company's strategies were in place; prices were set and circulars were printed. There wasn't going to be any price jockeying, because as you pointed out, its expensive to reprint fliers, change advertising, etc.
Where FatWallet causes a problem is, it permits consumers to plan in advance how to best take advantage of bargains and shop for the lowest prices. Before ever leaving their house, a shopper can strategize how to get the most bang for their buck, where to buy each items for its lowest price. This is the last thing any retailer wants. Walmart or Kmart or Target wants to lure a shopper in and sell them everything on the shopper's list.
You should note it was not just Walmart who sent out the cease and desist, it was also competitors Target and Kmart.
Perhaps this is a good thing. Recently we have all heard of many companies using the DCMA to try to bully smaller companies/individuals. Usually the basis for the lawsuits seems to be clearly not be with the intention of the law itself. Hopefully with all the publicity around the DCMA by these companies the courts will finally realize how ambiguois, and full of loopholes this law really is. From what I have read about the law, the law seems to restrict free speech and fair use. I fully understand that an artist should have a right to protect his work, but it seems many companies want us to be a society of consumers. Hopefully the law will be replaced with something that is benificial to both the artists and the consumers.
It's a very fine line we're talking about here. There is no original expression in a list of items and prices since they're facts, but organizing the list into a book (phone book) or distributable flyer or ad is an original expression of those facts. Therefore, posting a PDF of the ad would be infringement; however, posting the facts represented in the ad isn't.
The fact that it was confidential material has nothing to do with copyright and should not be brought up in this discussion as relating to a claim of copyright. As I said, they can make claims under trade secret for that, but they've already hitched their wagon to copyright.
I agree that someone probably needs to be fired for leaking the list.
I think the copyright claim stems not from the fact that they merely reposted prices, but that they reposted the full text of their advertisements.
I haven't seen the advertisements, but I'll bet anything that they had some formatting, choice of font, introductory text and a company logo. I've seen the posted list, and it was just a list of items and prices.
This is the same idea as in the phonebook ruling by the Supreme Court. From 499 U.S. 340 (1991), in which a company copied a whole white pages, most data sections verbatim (=full-text repost in the Internet age):
There is a very long shot that the court may believe that coming up with the prices for those items is copyrightable, but the problem is that once those prices are decided upon, they are mere facts and not copyrightable creative expression.
Why would all of these retail chains be making the same copyright claim if there wasn't some merit to their argument?
Collusion. Baseless legal intimidation usually works as people fear getting drowned in lawyers fees, and intimidation by many works even better. Mastercard did it individually to NetFunny over a parody of their "priceless" ads when they knew that parody was protected (as does anyone who's seen "The People vs. Larry Flynt"). NetFunny told them to get lost.
If Walmart's prices match mine (even if on totally diffrent products) then they've violented my copyrights and I demand compinsation.
I don't actually exist.
Bistromathics is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the
behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space was not an
absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in space, and that
time was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in
time, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend
on the observer's movement in restaurants.
-- Douglas Adams
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