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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."
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.
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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
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.)
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."
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