Slashdot Mirror
Best Buy Hands Out Cease & Desist Letters for Christmas
arrenlex writes "Improv Everywhere, a NY-based comedy group, was served a Cease & Desist notice by Best Buy for selling 'improv everywhere' shirts modeled after the blue Best Buy uniform. But that's not the interesting part. From the blog post: 'Here's where the story gets interesting. Today, Best Buy sent a C&D to our friend Scott Beale over at laughingsquid.com threatening legal action unless he removes the blog post referencing our shirts! They're threatening to sue someone for just covering the news story of the shirts!'"
No court in a million years would honor a C&D sent to a news site covering a news story in good faith. This is what Fair Use is all about, regardless of which Intellectual Property we're talking about.
In fact, this is the kind of shit I want to see taken to court in the hopes that a judge will give punitive damages to the company that abused the C&D.
Honestly, what does Best Buy have to lose if they let someone print shirts that look like their shirts? All they're going to get is bad publicity by asking these guys to C&D. Even worse, they're trying to keep the story off of the internet, which is impossible, as evidenced by the fact that it is here on /.
Seek and ye shall find.
Best Buy long ago alienated all customers who watch the news and refuse to shop at businesses which regularly practice sleazy business tactics. I doubt this bad PR will affect their business at all. Nobody who cares about stuff like this has shopped at Best Buy for years.
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How can companies run like this? IN my mind I see this as a big waste of effort and money on Best Buy's part. This wasted money would have to translate into Best Buy's bottom line, and thus affect we, the consumers as higher overall prices.
I've worked in the corporate world long enough to know that departments and other corporate entities show amazing survival instincts - but the legal departments of these mammoth companies are certainly the most predatory. Really, they must drum-up this kind of litigation.
I wonder if there was even any kind of financial-impact analysis or at least some kind of brand image analysis presented to the board prior to sending these notices. I would guess that the legal department simply sends them out under the "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" assumption.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Costs vs. Benefits of sending a doubtfully valid cease and desist notice:
Costs:
* Postage.
* Paralegal staffing costs (assume 15 minutes to prepare the boilerplate).
* Small chance some guys on Slashdot get grumpy for a while, until the next time there's a sale on DVD-Rs (whereupon all is forgiven, transactionally speaking).
Benefits:
* Decent chance the guy stops doing whatever it is you feel like stopping him from doing.
It's not even a close call. A C&D is a warning shot, an initial skirmish. It doesn't commit them to anything legally, and the public image repercussions are vanishingly low.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
They did NOT pretend to be employees. When asked, they were simply guests, they were shopping, they were waiting for their girlfriend who is in another department, etc. They didn't try to help anyone, nor try to hinder anyone. The shirts used were just plain blue polo shirts with no special embroidery or logos. They simply arrived in the same colors as if by coincidence. Yes, they knew it would cause confusion. Sometimes confusion is just a part of joie de vivre.
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Really?
Just because you are harried and in a hurry does *not* give you the excuse to be rude, especially to some sap making damned close to minimum wage who's just there to help you. If she had been polite to start with, his response itself would've been rude. However, being rude in response to rudeness is perhaps the only valid response.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.