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Suing Your Customers: Winning Business Strategy?

Posted by michael on from the history-lesson dept.

Cobarde Anonimo writes "The Knowledge at Wharton has an interesting text about the RIAA strategy of suing its customers. As Wharton legal studies professor G. Richard Shell writes below, this same tactic was tried 100 years ago against Henry Ford. It didn't work then, and it won't work today."

4 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. One big difference by Tebriel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The judge wasn't constrained by laws such as the DMCA and other nonsense that favors business over innovation. The same scenario today would probably have swung against Ford, despite public support.

    --
    The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
  2. The best thing about the strategy by chia_monkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They best thing about the RIAA's strategy is that their heavy-handed tactics have brought them to the mainstream press and now has A LOT of people pissed at them. Before, it was just rumbling amongst the geeks and a few other industry players. But suing 12-year olds, suing thousands of people, going after anyone and everyone with reckless abandon, has forced even the most average news-reading Joe to go "man...what a bunch of sleezeballs". Had the RIAA kept this an underground fight and sued more discriminately, they may have succeeded in their scare campaign. Luckily they didn't and now that it's in the mainstream press maybe something will be done to halt their actions.

    --

    "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
  3. Reminds me of Pets Warehouse by Dynamoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Reminds me of the infamous Bob Novak of Pets Warehouse who decided to sue some unhappy customers who moaned about his company in a forum for the tune of $15,000,000.

    A Slashdot favorite, you can read about it here, here, here and a synopsis here and another one here.

    Basically, suing the customers backfired horribly and Mr Novak ended up being countersued and lost. A cautionary tale!

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    Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
  4. SCO is a completely different case by njdj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    First, you will never win your market by suing your customers

    SCO is not suing its main customers. SCO knows it doesn't really have a viable Unix business. It knows its Unix customers will go away, whatever it does.

    Its real customers are Microsoft and Sun. They have paid (and Microsoft will continue to pay) millions of dollars to SCO. They are buying a service, the service of generating FUD around Linux. Selling this service looks like being a viable business, until the IBM lawsuit comes to court in 2005, when SCO will presumably cease to exist.