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FatWallet To Sue Best Buy Over DMCA Threat
jkeyes writes "Online deal site FatWallet announced today that they will be suing Best Buy and other companies that sent them DMCA takedown notices. They are seeking a declaration from the court stating that Best Buy and other companies' demands were an abuse of the DMCA, and also violate the 1st Amendment." We covered Best Buy's original DMCA invocation a few days back.
This isn't the first time FatWallet.com has stood up to DCMA-pushers.
Since when is posting an ad flyer online illegal?
Ad flyers are copyrighted. However, posting excerpts therefrom should count as news reporting, giving it a boost under the fair use criteria (17 USC 107). Heck, I'd guess that the prices themselves are facts or ideas and therefore subject to the exclusion of copyright on ideas (17 USC 102). You're right as far as I can tell.
According to an article linked to by another poster, they were represented by a law clinic at Berkely, so yeah, pro-bono.
I've never cared for Fat Wallet's layout, and as such, spend a lot of time lurking in Anandtech's Hot Deals forum. Basically, if there's a deal on anything computer-related going down, you can probably find it there, and most of the better deals from FW manage to drift there fairly quickly as well. =)
Best Buy Offers Day-after-Thanksgiving Specials
Remember, the other side has more money to buy a verdict with.. and if they do that, it will be even harder to overturn later if the DMCA is upheld this time..
free speech ( among other things ) will be lost for a LONG time...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sure, but all of the big box retailers (Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, etc..) have their ads out in the wild. It's not like the Best Buy ad is the only you could find on FatWallet. All the ads are printed for the chains, it's not like they can change much.
So if it's trade secrets, then they can attack
under trade secret law. But no, that takes too
much time, and the DMCA has this nice immediate
takedown capability. Only problem is that prices
are facts and so not copyrightable, so the DM_C_A
doesn't apply.
Please get your law straight. They are alleging
a copyright infringement when only the factual
elements were copied.
* You must have your reciept, otherwise we will laugh at you
Feh... Best Buy will laugh at you even if you DO have the reciept. Best Buy's entire business revolves around:
Shameless editorial: I don't see what the big deal is about them shooting themselves in the foot on Black Friday deals. Only a masochistic idiot would shop there for anything more valuable than a CD anyhow.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Yes, fatwallet did remove the Best Buy and Target postings after getting takedown notices. But the point of countersuing isn't to get the sale notices up again for this year, but rather so that a legal precedent is established for the future. I'm sure next year people will post more info, and Best Buy will sue again... unless a court has decided that they don't have a legal basis for suing because pricing info isn't considered copyright material under the DCMA. The fact is that it has never been tested in court, and FatWallet thinks that they will prevail if it is.
The other thing is that Best Buy also supeoned FatWallet for the names of the people who posted the info. FatWallet didn't give that up because they said there were technical errors with the notices, but I'm sure in the future they want to make sure that people can continue to post in their forums without being sued.
I have blog like everyone else
I can assure you that the legal fees are being paid 100% out of pocket. There is no pro bono representation this year, although we did use pro bono counsel last year.
Many folks on FatWallet have offered financial assistance, but we are not accepting any of it. If the time were to come where additional funds would be required, we would first look to other businesses that would be benefited by the suit, and as a last resort to consumers themselves.
Ummm, they give pretty good deals and thier extended warranty is just fine. I dont know what your story is but we took a monitor back with no box, no receipt, and the only thing wrong with it was a dead poxel or two. They took it back and gave us our purchase price in credit to go get a new one. I love Best Buy.