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.

Comments

one small step for man. one giant leap for mankind

[mgoodman]

let's hope this is the first of many, so that our children don't have to deal with this nonsense.

media whores 101

[segment]

If they really gave a shit about the privacy of others etal, they would oust their logfiles entirely. Like Cryptome does, and many others do. They're not obligated to keep log files under any binding law, and now they're bitching about being targeted for user id's etc.. Here's a noble idea for those who want to protect the privacy of others ln -s /var/log/access_log /dev/null otherwise wake up and smell the coffee... You will be targeted... Some of my own logs? I parse them out, all I mainly get are gov visitors to my https://www.pol*/foia/ directories. I keep them in case some fscktard makes a move and I have to report something to an ISP, so it's a trade off for me. As for them they're not obligated to keep the logs, and they're not obligated to remove publicly posted information. What's Bestbuy going to do after, sue Google for keeping it cached... Get real

Positive effect of DMCA

[fiannaFailMan]

Fatwallet is another cool website that I would never have heard of if it weren't for this. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

It's like the Fox News Channel giving Al Franken's book sales a huge boost by suing the guy.

Re:Truly...

[SophtwareSlump]

I'm guessing that Best Buy is going after FatWallet this year (last year it was Wal-Mart) since most of the 'Black Friday' specials are loss leaders. You know get people in the door with a cheap digital camera and hope they need to buy some batteries, a USB cable, a CompactFlash card and the 4 year protection plan. I'd like to think the people that read FatWallet aren't going to buy the accesories on an impulse if they can get them cheaper elsewhere.

I still don't understand what the big fuss is because there's always limtied quantities of the really good deals. You can't get a raincheck and you have to deal with the masses. Does Best Buy really care if they sell out of something 5 minutes after doors open, instead of 10? Are they trying to intentionally alienate their customers? Do they think people sharing information on the Internet is going to go away?

I've looked at most of the ads for Friday already via links on Anandtech forums and the only remotely 'great' deal is at Office Depot for a Lite-On dual format DVD burner for $89 out the door. Or $79 if you price match it to Best Buy ;)

No holds barred.

[mrsam]

The linked press release includes a link to a copy of the lawsuit filing by fatwallet.com

fatwallet.com is not just going for a declaratory judgement that these DMCA complaints are bunk. fatwallet.com's complaint also directly challenges the constitutionality of the DMCA (see paragraphs 40 and 41).

If fatwallet.com gets lucky, there's a small chance that this lawsuit might, just might, result in the DMCA being declared unconstitutional!

Re:Goatse.cx webmaster to sue for DCMA violations

[FraggleMI]

I know and talk to him frequently, and that is not a picture of him. He gets something like 4 million unique hits a month.

Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!

[benna]

As was explained to me by a Lawyer who worked for Congress at one time, most laws are the result of knee-jerk reactions to public/corporate demand. Unfortunately, not much thought goes into the consequences of these laws. They just want to keep their jobs.

Another problem is that Congress makes some of these laws so vague as to leave too much interpretation up to the judges who try cases under these laws. Unfortunately, organizations such as the EFF don't have the clout or the resources that the corps do.

Impacts RIAA too...

[utlemming]

If you read the legal brief (and for a pre-law student like me, it is interesting reading) the implications are far-reaching

One of the arguments made that will impact RIAA and the MPAA is that the DCMA shifts the burden of proof of the copyright from the person claiming copyright to the person accused of violation. FatWallet claims that this violates the Due process clause gaurenteed in the Fifth Amendment -- in other words, you have to go to court to prove that you did not violate a copyright; whereas with Due Process, they would prove that you did violate the copyright Same concept as guilty until proven innocent. FatWallet is arguing for innocent until proven guilty. FatWallet also is arguing that they should be given adiquate time to notify the poster.

The implications would be chilling for the RIAA. Why? Because instead of firing off a couple hundred law suits, they would be forced to prove to the ISP that the subject of the supeonia had in fact violated copyrights. Then your ISP would have to notify the alleged offender of copyright infringment so that they can defend themselves.

The whole message of the legal brief is to take out the DCMA one leg at a time. First they attack the copyright that Best Buy, et al., has and then they go for Fifth Amendment issues. It is a great thing. It is just interesting that the people who used the DCMA in the wrong way to provoke a law suit is retailers trying to prevent Black-Friday prices from being let out.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding?
A private company wants to create an advertisement.
The day before they release the flyer - RAM prices double.
Said company changes things as necessary (this is a business) and can continue to make a profit in a regular business sense (or choose to eat the price change and move on - but they have a choice).
Your scenario is someone working at some printer operation can be paid off to release company confidential information (people at the company locations - even if they know the next "sale" price are not allowed to talk about it). Now people are arguing in the customer service line about what they were told on "the net" two days earlier and what they see in the store now. Said store looks bad if they don't cave to what was on the net and eventually said store employees feel the "pinch" (lower salary, harsh attitude daily) of the bull**** you're defending ("I think I can publish things on the net as if there factual if I have spyed well enough") - nuf' said.

Not fair use, unregulated by copyright law.

[jbn-o]

However, posting excerpts therefrom should count as news reporting, giving it a boost under the fair use criteria (17 USC 107).

No, you are incorrect. The decision in Feist says facts are not copyrightable (see the decision in section II A says "This case concerns the interaction of two well-established propositions. The first is that facts are not copyrightable; the other, that compilations of facts generally are."). This would mean we're not dealing with fair use, we're dealing with something outside of the US copyright regime. As Lawrence Lessig made quite clear in his "Free Culture" speech in 2002:

Talking about fair use, this is not fair use; this is unregulated use. To read is not a fair use; it's an unregulated use. To give it to someone is not a fair use; it's unregulated. To sell it, to sleep on top of it, to do any of these things with this text is unregulated. Now, in the center of this unregulated use, there is a small bit of stuff regulated by the copyright law; for example, publishing the book--that's regulated. And then within this small range of things regulated by copyright law, there's this tiny band before the Internet of stuff we call fair use: Uses that otherwise would be regulated but that the law says you can engage in without the permission of anybody else. For example, quoting a text in another text--that's a copy, but it's a still fair use. That means the world was divided into three camps, not two: Unregulated uses, regulated uses that were fair use, and the quintessential copyright world. Three categories.

So if citing facts were fair use that would mean ordinarily citing facts is regulated activity but you're allowed to do it in certain circumstances. But since we're dealing with activity not regulated by copyright law, this means fair use is not the key to understanding why we can cite the price of Best Buy's goods any time we want without first getting permission from Best Buy. This is also a very potent rationale for FatWallet against Best Buy.

customers

[morgajel]

Last year I remember hearing about this story, and sorta had a "good for them" feelgood moment.

A year later I'm a little wiser and felt that someone should say this.

Thank you.

Since I don't know a whole lot about your business, I plan on checking it out and trying to become a paying customer solely because I believe you are a "good" company. I'll make sure to spread the word to my family so they can know what's going on.

there aren't many out there with the balls to do what you do, so again, Thank you.
-Morgajel