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Best Buy Uses DMCA To Quash Black Friday Prices
Sethb writes "It looks like Best Buy didn't learn from Wal-Mart last year, and has now invoked the DMCA in order to prevent FatWallet from posting information about what items they will have on sale the day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully FatWallet will stand up for themselves again, and Best Buy will be laughed out of court."
What about the rest of us, who are 'merely' people, and not incorporated profit-driven organisations?
At first read I thought to myself "What the hell?!" but now that I sit back, chug my daily dose of caffeine, and think about it, I wonder if maybe Best Buy is in the right and has an interest in keeping their items and prices under their hat.
;)
As said above, releasing such data would cripple Best Buy's ability to price and stock their items strategically. But on the other side of the coin, I believe BB would benefit much more by having the data released to a limited degree and allowing people to at least see WHAT will be on sale. If I wanted a new notebook all year (I do... Christmas gifts anyone? =P) and saw that BB had the model I wanted on sale, I would be inclined to stop in and see just how much cheaper it would be.
In the end, BB has a vested interest in keeping the exact prices secret, but can benefit from the releasing of rough item descriptions and price deductions. Also, the negative publicity they would get from this would just be shooting themselves in the foot and making them seem like they have something valuable to hide.
I wonder... if they want to keep the sale information secret, will BB have big men in suits standing at the door searching for camera and writing utensils as individuals walk in and out?
Thinking outside the box is so big now that doing so is really putting youself back in the box. There is no box.
I still have my response emails from Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy from last November/December when the same thing went down. They basically said, "Our prices are designed to help our customers save money and these 'hackers' are violating your rights as a consumer as well as ours. We shall defend ourselves by any means neccesary"
What a joke.
i have to laugh to myself every time i see Big Business using the DMCA to inhibit competition, filter innovation and silence people talking about pricing rumors.
It's silly things like this that further illustrate that the DMCA is a Bad Thing(tm).. it's this kind of evidence we'll need when it comes time to take it to SCOTUS
*prays*
"Is it the primary purpose of society/government/law to protect business?"
Not exactly but it is their responsibility to foster a healthy economy and promote jobs for its citizens. If a company is not doing well then the economy will be affected and jobs will be lost so in a way it is the primary purpose of the government and laws to protect businesses.
By law, Universities can not release grades to anyone but the person they belong to, not even the parents of the student unless the student give's his/her permission first. Want to keep your parents from seeing the grades? Don't send them to them.
Space for rent, inquire within
Much of a store's profits are made on strategy. When this kind of data is released, it cuts into the ability of a business to price things appropriately to the demand.
I'm not saying the DMCA oughta cover this, but this is definitely something that can hurt business.
There is no such thing as a right to profit.
Businesses will try to get as much money as they can from their customers, while customers will try to get what they need/want for the cheapest price.
Using the DMCA to deny a customer's right to find a beter bargain is just another sympthom of how much the system is skewed in favor of business.
Okay, the DMCA is designed to make illegal to circumvent the copy control technology on a copyrighted work. So how, exactly, does the DMCA apply here?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Best Buy got sued a while back because a guy in the Washington D.C. Metro Area was shopping for a new laptop and went store to store with his old laptop writing down prices and features because he wanted the best value. Best Buy didn't allow this and even when so far as ripping off price tags. This guy took them to court for false advertising saying their attitude didn't reflect their name "Best Buy". Judge ruled in favor and said if Best Buy wanted to practice that type of behavior, they would have to post a sign in the front that said "We do not allow competive shopping". Needless to say, Best Buy changed a few things and I think the guy got a free laptop out of them to boot.
America has been based on consumerism for the last 50 years. Doesn't that make it part of American culture?
Yes, it does. It is sad that our [American] culture is defined by consumerism as opposed to food, literature, art, music, fairy tales, and social events.
When someone says "American Culture", what is the first thing that pops into your head? I think Coke, or something along those lines. Say "Russian Culture" and I think ballet, itsy-bitsy figure skaters, and vodka. "Italian?" Pasta mama mia! And opera. Ferrari is there, but somewhere down the list.
Granted, cultural history here starts about 300 years ago, versus 2,000-4,000 years in much of the rest of the world. I'm not including Native Americans because we, for all intents and purposes, exterminated them. Lack of an ancient heritage doesn't have to mean that all we think about is obtaining "stuff". We can do better than this.
On that "black friday" day, buy nothing. In fact, buy nothing (or little) whenever you can. Instead of working extra hours for money to buy christmas presents, take that time and spend it with your kids/family. Heck, make them something with your hands. They'll remember it for a heck of a lot longer than an expensive piece of anything from a store.
</rant>
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
Remember, the day after Thanksgiving is also the Buy Nothing Day. A day to be celebrated.
t ml
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/tour/1.h
http://www.ddh.nl/nwd/english.htm
http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/
Join in, spread the word. Buy nothing.
Announced today on Wired News - A lawsuit by a garage door manufacturer that tried to use the DMCA to stop another company from making replacement universal remote controls was dismissed, with the court noting that the entire area was well outside the boundaries of those issues the DMCA was intended to address. This law started off a shade rediculous, but is getting reined in. We can hope (and work) for more such decisions.
Who is John Cabal?
there is one more reason that I think is very important:
8. Credit card companies charge vendors between 3% and 5% of your purchase. This means that this price is already reflected into your purchase price. If you're buying with cash, the price is still the same (in most cases) and the vendor pockets the difference. If you're buying with a credit card and you're smart about it, you can either get some of that cash back, or get get some of it back in the form of "rewards" or frequent flyer miles.
Same reason I never use a debit card.
That's all we ever hear these days...
"While this isn't technically a violation, maybe it should be because it could cost [Big Business X] some money."
That's a pretty fucking lame excuse. How about they get the same protection under the law as everyone else and if they want to keep a secret, they just don't fucking tell anyone?
1. While facts are not copyrightable as far as I know (IANAL), still isn't there a "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine? One shouldn't profit from illegal activity. If someone violated BestBuy's copyright, e.g., by photocopying a flyer before release, then there would be a legal (and certainly moral!) problem with FatWallet profiting from the information derived from the illegally made copy.
/. is all for privacy. But isn't this really a privacy issue? Someone has taken BestBuy's private information and published it. That BestBuy is a corporation doesn't mean that their privacy doesn't matter: after all, a corporation is just constituted by a bunch of individuals (shareholders or owners and their employees). I am myself rather minimalistic on alleged rights to privacy, but anybody who thinks I have a right not to have the contents of my private documents published on the web by hackers should surely accord that right to BestBuy.
2. Normally
Our history on this continent is only 300 years or so old. But our culture, just like that of the Europeans is thousands of years old. Just because our ancestors moved to a new continent doesn't mean they gave their culture up. We got our culture from our ancestors; the Europeans got their culture from their ancestors. We've changed that culture since then, the Europeans have changed that culture since then. Why should the Europeans somehow have more of a right to that culture just because they live on the same continent that our shared ancestors lived on?
Legitimate criticism (like criticisms of American consumerism) are justified as long as clear arguments are presented to show that those are indeed features of American culture and that they are indeed harmful. The yogurt joke* is just bigotry in one of its variety of forms.
Oh and by the way: my father spent 2 years with the Navajos and I have Cherokee indian ancestry. Native American culture has had a direct effect on the way I view the world. Stating that Native American culture has no effect on our culture today is just as inaccurate as stating that European culture isn't a part of our cultural heritage. Just as one example: did you know that the turkey, the potato, tobacco, the tomato, the pumpkin, the cranberry, corn, kidney beans, bell peppers, pecans, squash, and many other crops are American? Many dishes which are made from these foods still cannot be found in Germany today (cornbread, pumpkin pie, candy corn, sweet potato casserole, cranberry relish, pecan anything, etc.)
*(what's the difference between a cup of yoghurt and America? -- yoghurt will eventually develop a culture)
(end rant -- sorry. As you can imagine its an issue of some sensitivity for me.)
I imagine in a lot of cases things can be cleared up quickly. If the perpetrator doesn't have your pin, they can't just get cash. And if they use your card like a credit card, then the store obviously didn't do a good job verifying identity. That's why I like when places ask for a picture ID.
I've been the victem of credit card fraud. I had it cleared up, and I was really annoyed, but it wasn't just a phone call and everything was OK. I don't carry credit debt, so it wasn't a big problem, but it did take some time before everything was straightened out.
Now, if you have a marginal bank account (living paycheck to paycheck, like far too many people), then debit card fraud could cause you a LOT of problems. Even if you have several thousand in your account, it only takes a criminal a few minutes at a place like Best Buy to clean you out. Then, at most banks, there's this period of time where your money is in limbo while they verify the fraud.
To put it another way, let's say you have $3000 in your account. Your rent/mortgage is $1100, your car payment is $350. You write and send your checks, then someone steals your debit card and charges $2000. Now my bank, bastards they are, first process debits to your account in order of highest first, then they process credits. So let's say both checks arrive the same day - first the process $1100, and you go $100 in the red (overdraft protection). They pay it, then charge me $30 fee. Then they process $350. They refuse it, and charge me another $30 fee. Now the car payment is late ($50) and they have a returned check fee ($50).
So the bank freezes my account because of the fraud investigation. Now I can't buy food or pay my other bills until they resolve the problem (or you put more money into it). When all is said and done, they credit my account $2000. After enough bitching, they credit my account another $60 for the overdraft charges, but since the fraud is not *their* fault, they won't reimburse me the extra $100 I had to pay the car company. Not only that, but now I get a late payment on my credit report.
The difference with a credit card, if you wanted to pay bills with a credit card, the companies don't get hit with big bank fees if the card is denied - it's just denied, and that's it. So if you had the same situation with credit, and tried paying your car payment, they would say "it's been denied", and you could say "Ok, I'll get a check in the mail." That is, unless you were doing some sort of automatic billing, in which you might get hit with a late fee, but not a returned check fee.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
That's true. All nations still dwell within the U.S., even if they are not still within their sovreign states. The American Culture is much more than a propensity to eat sweet and fatty things, and to buy the biggest thing with the most pizzaz. The culture of the U.S. is a conglomeration of family values, community support, acceptance of differences, in addition to the food, all blended together with a "don't tread on me" attitude.
This became most apparent after 9/11, where each U.S. citizen felt that much closer to their fellow citizen. I'm sure the Red Cross hadn't seen so much blood donated as in those following weeks, nor has New York been offered so much voluntary assistance. The Stars and Stripes became an emblem that shone on automobiles, and though the flag was treated without respect in these instances, the motivation, attitude, and intentions were sincere and honorable.
The culture gets buried beneath things that are clearly against it's members, those things being the superior attitudes of super-commerce, the inherant human want for everything, and the supreme availability of everything to those humans. No culture goes without these problems, though. The U.S. has enemies within that treat the people like cattle being steered towards the butcher. These enemies have arisen from within the culture, but they are not of the culture itself.
The culture of the U.S. is quite possibly the most flexible one, which is why such things can occur. Coca-Cola is not an emblem of the U.S. culture, rather it is a battle-flag of it's children. The culture supports the U.S., it thrives within each of its citizens without them knowing about it.
The culture of the U.S. is not shallow, like many think it is. The culture is possibly more complex than any other on this Earth, precisely because of the number of lives, races, and creeds that went into building it. It has its flaws, yet it is the object of jealousy the whole world over. People look at America and thing Coke, yet people also look at America and think "freedom," "spirit," "steadfastness," and "cohesion."
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.