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Infinium Labs Threatens HardOCP Again
XBox4Evr writes "In a follow up from two weeks ago, Infinium Labs is again threatening the tech website HardOCP with legal action. This in itself, is no big deal, but to actually read the letter from Infinium Labs lawyers will make you wonder if an educated person actually penned the documents. This seems to another huge blow to IL's credibility in the console market in general, now that ex-Xbox manager Kevin Bachus is on board with Infinium Labs."
Just speaking from experience with corporate lawyers, what often happens is that a corporate leader (i.e. CEO, etc.) is upset by some event (i.e. the article), and they demand that Legal take some action. The lawyer, not wanting to be disbarred for malpractice, points out that they have no legal claim, but to avoid beign fired they then fire off a letter that simply states what the higher-ups say, with a small note about a law suit. I'd bet solid money no law suit ever solidifies.
The writers at Hard are pretty fucking funny though: they've done an excellent job of reforming their statements to accord with the demands, even while making them more acidic.
"Stumble before you crawl"
These guys are trying pretty hard and haven't got one yet.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I think HardOCP made it pretty clear last time that they stand by their reporting. If Infinium wants to keep making threats they're going to keep getting ignored.
I know there's nothing but wannabe pretend-experts on slashdot, but I'm going to ask this anyway, on the offchance maybe there happen to be some wannabe pretend-experts who mostly post on Groklaw who wandered in by accident. I've been wondering for awhile:
From a legal standpoint, exactly how far and how often can you move toward *threatening* a lawsuit before it becomes illegal to not actually declare one?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Hurrah! Free ammo for Penny Arcade. Maybe this will give some more inspiration to the penny arcade guys! They haven't posted a new comic in a while now.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
People talking about Penny Arcade are leaving out the funniest bit. The best part of the Penny Arcade comic is the response from Roberts (or whatever the Infinium guys' name is). He claimed in a forum post that the penny-arcade comic was a response that they put all console designers through as a part of an initiation process and that they were hungry for bandwidth. Kind of funny when talking about a site that gets millions of hits a month. Read the post and the site's response at their site.
Lines like
"You allege that Mr. Roberts was employed for Worldcom for a period of time. The innuendo is that Mr. Roberts was employed for a significant period of time. You need to correct your article to state that Mr. Roberts worked out of his home for WorldCom for 90 days as a non-officer"
90 days is a freakin' period of time! 20 seconds is a period of time! the sentence is a true statement! Under what US law is publishing a true statement a crime? (well, other than copyright, patent, and trademark laws; depending on the context, but those aren't being argued here).
anyways, its-a funny readin'
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
Their site puts Mozilla into an infinite reload loop. They're probably trying to do something annoying involving a forced ad, but Mozilla is resisting.
Maybe it's just me...but everytime I see someone make such a MP reference they always say "kuhnigit" or "kinigit" or something similar.
Maybe he actually is saying "kinigit," but I always thought he was just mispronouncing "knight." And if this IS the case, why don't people spell it right, even if it's pronounced wrong?
I am am Phantom suporter, as you can probably tell by my sig: [Disclaimer: I am a Phantom Beta Tester and Moderator at the Phantom Forums]. When the last article hit about the lawsuit, the trolls on the forum were saying how Infinium was going to get reamed even more by HardOCP. The "Phanboys", as they are called on the forum, were saying HardOCp was going to get sued into the ground. you do a good job of summing it up:
Infinium Labs has a pretty good case at some points. HardOCP has a few reasons why they would win. I however, think that HardOCP will win though, because I heard somewhere that Libel cases are hard to win (for a company facing a member of the press at least).
Did anybody else sign up for the beta test. I submitted for the test. They emailed me, told me they were having trouble and resubmit at their website. I had to write a fucking essay AGAIN. Worst, they never sent me the email that said that they have made the decisions for who got into beta, and didn't list the news on their site, like they said they were going to. These people have been full of shit from day one.
For me, the top three results for a search on litigious returns an accurate result:
1. Infinium labs gets litigious with HardOCP
2. Hollywood turns litigious tail while music industry lawyers are set to go worldwide
3. SCO: Litigious Bastards
You know if this whole lawsuit thing had not happened I would never have gave that article a second thought.
I read Hardocp, I'm sure I must have seen the article and forgot about it. Now thanks to this threat of legal action I will avoid Infinium products. While before all this I would have been blissfully unaware.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
In case anyone is interested
I'll let you know if they write back. *smirk*
You don't have to be the person you've become.
Penny arcade difficult to say as they removed the Tart As A Double Entendre comic in responce to an objection by American Greetings, but came back with the quite subtle Read It Before They Take Legal Action retort.
This is not a sig.
Do you or do you not have a beta phantom console (Gen I or Gen II) in your possession?
Your NDA does not preclude you from stating that you have a unit, just doscussing any technical or operatinoal details in a public forum.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
"It's just paragraph after paragraph of them saying things like that... it reads so very, very badly"
I've seen far worse. I witnessed a letter from an attorney sent to the very large agency in California that administers the health department (and others). The letter was a "fishing exercise" whereby the attorney was trying to goad the agency into proving his own case against them, which is a clear abuse of the legal concept of discovery. He was representing a couple of (probably illegal) immigrants who claimed they were discriminated against because some health clinic that participates in State funded programs did not provide an interpreter for their obscure languages. And I'm talking obscure like a language such as "Toltec." I mean really, there's probably more people on our planet that can speak "Klingon" (or "Esperanto") than "Toltec." But that didn't stop this toolboy. He (the attorney) did not even understand the statutes that governed the agency nor did he even know which departments and offices fell under the jurisdiction of the statutes (I guess he couldn't afford a WestLaw subscription). To me, that's a very compelling argument against law schools who are not accredited with the ABA or even ABA schools that are near the fourth-tier level. However, comparing that letter to the Infinium Labs legal staff, I'd have to say the Infinium Labs guy is a law lord compared to the previously mentioned example...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
While I'll admit on the surface Infinium looks like BS (and probably is) and that letter from their lawyers is laughable, I can't say I'm impressed with HardOCP's efforts with the initial article or their follow-up.
Maybe it's forthcoming, but I'd like to see them address the points one-by-one, because while many of them are silly they do refer to their article. I know this is Slashdot, but I actually read it... =)
And one big point that's not very clear - is HardOCP saying that they *weren't* invited to come visit the labs? Because if they were I'd expect them to follow up on that, or give a reason why they declined.
...with a lot of contacts throughout the industry (the exodus from two imploded companies that had a lot more industry experience), I can say that these /. stories are the only reason I have heard anything about Infinium since their comical launch way back when. Haven't seen them at GDC, haven't seen them at E3: if they have a presence at the shows, it's a very small one.
I know no developer working on an Infinum title: unless their box emulates something else, or plays PC games or something (which cannot possibly be the case if the thing has a TV for a head), or they are porting or creating titles themselves, then they Have. No. Developers.
No one I know anywhere in the industry even has any awareness of Infinium.
Granted, legalese is tiresome to wade through and quite often seems to complicate matters just for the sake of it, but this is just plain unprofessional, I mean statements like "Clearly this is not the case or you are not very good at finding publicly available information." Have no place in a legal document surely?
Something more like "It is our belief that there is ample information freely available to the public to back up our stance in this matter." It states the same thing but does so without sounding like a school child. "You're crap you are" is not a sound legal defence surely?
Can we get some photo's of Infium Lab's "Actual" headquarters. I mean they told us where their "offices" are. They gave us an adress. Can we get someone from slashdot down there to take some photo's of this set of "offices"? *Note to Infium Labs" I am making no such innuedo that infium labs does not have a headquarters but I DO refuse to correct this post. Please do not sue me.
Does anybody else think they are shooting themselves in the foot?
;)
I mean, if they had left the article alone, it would have gotten limited coverage and would have been forgotten by most by now. Instead, with these threats, they 1) bring attention back to the article, and 2) make a larger audience aware of the article (I hadn't seen the article until 2 weeks ago - I'm not a hardocp regular sorry)
Also when they say in their letter "This is not what Laura Roberts told you. Laura Roberts told you [blah blah]" I think they really wanted to say "These are not the droids you are looking for"
Cheers,
Skilf
What would you expect the closing to be? "I Hope You Die in Agony"?
I mean, sure, business protocol sometimes sounds a bit silly because meanings have diverged from their original meaning (How many *nice* business letter writers really mean "Very Truly Yours"?)
It's a polite nothingness, part of the protocol surrounding the actual content. One could have a word processor simply inject the same closing (I do in my emails) in each communication.
If you want a technology analogy, consider the use of HTTP's "Referer". Yes, it's a misspelling, and so an error in actual content. However, it serves no actual purpose other than as a convenient placeholder, a tag. It is not used for its English meaning any more.
Nobody tries to derive meaning from business letter closings either.
May we never see th
Much as I hate spoiling a good conspiracy theory, I really don't think so.
IANAL, but from what I can tell, "legalese" is so verbose because it tries to be watertight and cover all the possible cases. "Normal human beings" say things more concisely, but that relies on the goodwill of the other party to not deliberately find holes in it. When it comes to legal stuff, all that is turned on its head.
Have you ever been in a debate with an RPG or TBS "rules lawyer"? Or have you followed what happens on MUDs or MMORPGs with the rules? (By your sig and username I would assume so.)
The MUD might have a rule that says "Bugs shall be reported. Abusing bugs to gain unfair benefit or advantage will be punished." It's clear, concise, and understandable by everyone, right?
It's however also the prime example of why IRL we need legalese. People will argue until they're blue in the face about stuff like:
- "How do you define a "bug"? I thought that combining these peculiar moves to steal furniture through walls was a feature. Yeah, the overflow error message looked like a feature too."
- "I wasn't abusing it, I was, umm, thoroughly testing it so I can bug-report it later. Yeah, that's why I did it 1000 times. Gotta be sure it's reproductible."
- "I wasn't using it to gain a personal advantage, since I didn't loot the newbies' corpses. I was using it to put someone else at a disadvantage, which isn't against your rule."
- "It wasn't abusing a bug, it was abusing at most people's stupidity. If they fell for that trick, however based on a bug it may have been, the real issue is social engineering, not bug abuse."
Etc, etc, etc.
A MUD or MMORPG gets around this by basically being a dictatorship. The MUD's owner is prosecution, judge and jurry, and will claim to apply "the spirit of the rules, not their letter." I.e., punish you anyway even when the wording of the rules doesn't really cover your crime.
The RL legal system doesn't have this luxury, and we don't want it to have this luxury. Hence, the law and the contracts must be written so they explicitly state any potentially relevant aspects. Which means a very boring read for "normal people", but you'll be grateful for all those words when it ends up in court.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually I got the feeling this was a message from the client to his lawyer which was then minimally transcribed and put into the legal document. I had a lawyer for my divorce who did something almost identical - I sent him a long email detailing my arguments for one aspect of the case but couched it in language and a tone which I intended only for him (I never would have submitted that message to the court). I was quite surprised to find that most of that email made it in unchanged as the brief he filed with the court. It wasn't a huge deal and it's not like he charged me for 10 hours of work for doing it, but I had still thought he would take my point and mold it into a good legal document, but instead most of what he submitted was verbatim from my message. Go figure.
You state that you haven't seen me. The innuendo is that I do not exist.
Gaaah!
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Infinium Labs went after tech site Sudhian yesterday. Sudhian has an editorial posted that does not paint the Phantom console in a very good light and it seems as though Infinium Labs took issue with that by asking that their trademark logos be removed. Sudhian followed Infinium's wishes, replacing the images with a bit of poetry.
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Refusing to allow anyone to publish pictures of your product
Implies that it sucks.
Lawyers draft the law to be deliberately confusing because it ensures that they are needed.
If this is the sole reason of making things overly complicated it's also a definite sign that the system is very broken in this respect.
On a second thought, it doesn't seem unlikely at all.. Maybe we could join our forces and lead the revolution?
I was showing the letter to my father, a corporate attorney, and he remarked that it was odd that there was no letterhead on this letter. Does the firm responsible want to hide under anonymity so this doesn't hurt them?
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
I just sent the following email to the abovementioned lawyerly firm:
I have been following with some interest your attempts to thwart the investigative reporting activity of Hard OCP on behalf of your client, Tim Roberts, and his Infinium Corp. The article is available for anyone to read, as are your two threatening letters to Hard OCP. From what I can see as someone who is conversant with the English language is a series of corrections of minutiae and complaints about various "innuendos" that stem from your lack of forthrightness about a product your client continuously refers to in the present tense, e.g., "Infinium Labs IS an industry-leading global entertainment...," "...IS marketing its flagship product the Phantom Game Console," "...IS the performance leader," "...marketS a robust game console," "Phantom(TM) IS the next-generation game console that supportS PC games...," etc.
In the light of these present tense statements about your client's product that any rational individual would take as statements intended to be taken as fact and not as marketing hype of an as yet unproduced product (this is not an innuendo, by the way, it is an inference), it is obvious to me as it should be to both you and your client, that the simple way of removing any doubt about the validity of your claims is not to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), but to produce examples of this product consistently spoken of in the present tense, to a group of reviewers and game afficionados and not to send threatening letters to them as if they were the enemy. They are, in fact your friends--if and only if your client does in fact have a genuine product to sell--and can be counted on to spread the word about his product when it comes to market. To specifically go out and annoy these very people either suggests that your client has a poor understanding of the game market, which does not bode well for the prospects of his product, or he simply does not have a product. I look forward to your reply. The product certainly SOUNDS interesting, and I would certainly consider buying it if it in fact exists.
Regards,
[signature]
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Point 3 reads in part "You allege that Timothy Roberts has helmed several businesses that have failed or gone bankrupt in the last six years. [...] You need to correct the statement to reflect that Timothy Roberts was never at the head or helm of any business while it was in bankruptcy proceedings"
While point 16 reads in part "You allege that Mr. Roberts helmed several businesses that have failed or have gone bankrupt in the last six years...In fact, there has been only one that failed during the time that Mr. Roberts was there."
So which is it, no bankruptcy/failures, or one bankruptcy/failure in the last six years?
It continues "Mr. Roberts personally started three businesses prior to forming Infinium Labs. He did so between 1995 and 2000, and to be succesful in one out of three ventures does not imply a series of failures."
So which is it, one bankruptcy/failure, or two?
If you found this entertaining you might want to check out point 18 too...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
March 3rd. That would be... um... today! Anybody have a ticket to that? ;)
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
I run a video game message board that is fairly active. It seems someone from Infinium Labs (traced their IP) posted the five page letter on my site. Now, I wouldn't be bothered had they identified themself...but they didn't. They called themself "monkey" and titled the thread "Ilabs sues HardOCP, looks like HardOCP is screwed ugly". What is that about? Lawsuit by Mrs. Johnson and her third grade class. http://www.lunabean.com/forums/index.php?showtopic =2428