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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!'"
Buy More is such a rip of Best Buy.
The American TV show, "Chuck", features a young guy who works at "Buy More", which is clearly a ripoff of BB. I don't watch the show but my girlfriend had it on one night and called my attention to "Buy More" and asked if it reminded me of someplace. Change BB's color blue to green and voila! Buy More.
But that's OK for them to do that on national TV and get away with it on a weekly and ongoing basis. The reason is probably that the people who run and work at BB are infinitely more incompetent than the people who work at the fictional Buy More.
Don't forget 'Big Mart', a competitor of 'Buy More'.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Anyone who's been around a while will recognize this as low-quality legal practice. It's your typical drag net style of litigation.
In better cases, it's simple intimidation. In the worst case scenario, the lawyers actually hope to get something out of everyone. Either way, a polite letter back that says, "Nothing to see here. Move along." will pretty much chase the scum bags away.
Like the RIAA file sharing lawyers, the jokers pulling this stunt should be dragged before their respective bar association and flogged with paper clips. ( or whatever the bar does to punish lawyers)
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Can you send a C&D regarding C&Ds?
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
http://www.improveverywhere.com/2006/04/23/best-buy/
so they went to the chelsea best buy, hundreds of them, in blue shirts, and pretended to be assistants throughout the store, perhaps more helpful than actual staff in some cases
customers were amused and bemused, management went apeshit, the best part is the the black chick who goes "it's like that movie, 'the thomas crown affair'"!
but seriously: this is all a case of people with too much time on their hands: the best buy "actors" in the original "event", AND the lawyers suing them
and isn't there some sort of legal protection for comedy, jokes, mockery? the law that protects political cartoons for example. would they have a case with that? obviously IANAL, as i can't even remember the legal term for this sort of "mockery" that is protected
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Once you've gotten to the point of having full time lawyers (and I'm sure a company the size of Best Buy has many), doing shit like this becomes second nature. I mean, if you've got the manpower, presumably salaried, you can have them do whatever you want as long as it fits in their 9 to 5 work day and not "waste" anything. WHo knows, maybe they just had some downtime in legal and the lawyers got a little bored.
They say that idle hands are the devil's playground. And that's just hands in general. What do you think that says about lawyer hands in particular? Best Buy probably tasked them with this frivolous legal activity merely to avoid unleashing the horrific fury of idle lawyer hands! I wouldn't be surprised if the fear of bored/idle lawyers is the source of half the litigation in the US.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
This box was later sold to somebody at full price. They took it back and were refused a refund.
During the holiday season at Wal-Mart, I see people buy these huge TV sets that can't possibly fit into their little car and discard the boxes in the parking lot. I'm not surprised if someone tried to return the box and the store didn't check the actual contents.
Other than Chuck, which of the Herd members are portrayed as competent?
My standard work 'uniform' used to be a white shirt, plain tie, suit and photo ID name tag. It was almost guaranteed that people would assume I was a manager at almost any store I went into.
Indeed it was the yellow Best Buy tag that pushed them over the edge (the dopey "yellow price tag logo" IS trademarked). But is a generic blue shirt and khaki-like pants really part of their trademark? No. I'm sure the clever people over at Improv Everywhere can come up with a sufficiently distinctive "Best Buy yellow splotch parody logo" that is protected under free speech.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Well, to be fair, BB does have its purpose.
I like to see and hold things I want to buy, if possible, in meatspace....just to make sure I like and want that item.
I then go home, and order it online for free shipping, no tax (about 9% down here), and in a week or so, I have it. Not to mention, ever since I was a kid, I just loved getting things in the mail....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'll admit that mayby I missed something over the past years but when did send an email become a way to serve legal notice of anything? I would have thought that serving a legal notice would have to be done in person or at least via registered mail.
Good point although Anna Wu (Julia Ling) seems to be reasonably competent. The show doesn't really bring out much about the remaining Nerd Herd.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Some guy thought I was an employee at Circuity City once and gave me 50 bucks one time for explaining to him about 16:9 televisions. The other employees glared at me and asked me for their 50 bucks back. I loudly responded with "Are you threatening me?". Damn did those guys back off. I feel that its fellow customers that are more useful in those stores then the employee. They actually own it and have prior experience; unlike those 16 year old employees who don't know and don't care, all they want is their paycheck so they can buy more pot.
Courts do indeed "honor" cease and desist letters. As you point out, they do it by entering an injunction against the recipient upon the request of the sender. And as the OP pointed out, no US court would find fault or enter an injunction in the described circumstances, at least not if the defendant bothered to show up.
Letting tech folks like ourselves get tied up in the legal process details can lead to errors in judgment. We think, "Technically I did X, not Y so I'm not really guilty." Baloney. Put it in front of a judge and the response is generally, "Your actions speak for themselves. Stop wasting my time."
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Yes, we have Best Buy. We also have future shop which is owned by Best Buy. And in the city I live the two "companies" are accross the street from each other making a mockery of competition.
We also have sears and costco, but I wouldn't buy anything there unless they had what I wanted but they rarely do. We have 'the source by circuit city' which seems to own all the old "radio shacks" in the malls, and its pretty lousy. We have costco, but I'm not a "member", but I've been through them and don't find it terribly compelling.
As for the tire store? Canadian Tire, not really. You might buy a $60 DVD player there I guess, or a clock radio... but not an HDTV or a computer.
I buy computer electronics online, or from 'hole in the wall' computer shops (who often mostly deal online).
But home electronics like TV's, speakers, stereos... its "beyond horrible" here too.
BestBuy/FutureShop has driven everyone else out of business, and dealing with bestbuy/futureshop is a nightmare. Product knowledge is what's written on the sticker in front of the product, and they even get that wrong half the time. The best product is the one with the highest margin, or even more likely the one with the best rewards program from the manufacturer. Luckily it looks the best on display too. (That its the one with the blueray player while the rest of the TVs are all connected by RCA splitters to a VCR and someone's gone and turned the contrast down is all beside the point.) And you definitely need a $400 monster power conditioner to ensure that your television picture looks its best...
Sure you can still walk into a Bang&Olufsen but that isn't 'consumer electronics' either. That's 'you have too much money and want a cd player that opens like a flower'... oh and we have "the Sony Store" which is great if you want to pay too much, and see Sony TV's next to other Sony TV's and only want know what size Sony TV to buy while speaking to reps who don't know squat about non-Sony product but still "know" that sony's X is better than anyone elses X. Comparison shopping at its finest! But that's beyond useless as I refuse to buy sony branded products anyway. I suppose the one good thing is that lines are short in there even during the holiday rush. And its fun to ask them if they have Wii's or 360's in stock.
"However, you don't need the shirt to pull that off . . . I get asked if I'm a manager (or people assume that and launch straight into asking a store question) at virtually every large store in which I shop."
Dude, it most sooo suck looking like a retail manager. That's almost as bad as looking like a burger flipper. I'm glad I THINK I look like someone about to go postal. My wife thinks I'm cute and don't look like the nerd that I am. Hmmm...book, cover, and judging seem to fit here somehow.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
As the operator of whitehouse.net, I'm intimately familiar with parody and fair use.
The video and pcictures of their prank? Wonderful. Easily defended as parody. The special edition set with included best-buy shirt? Yeah, that probably gets a pass. Call it gray-zone. The shirt as a standalone, context optional? Sorry, that's pretty obvious infringement.
Not that I'd call Best Buy's lawyers smart given the Streisand Effect, but legally I'd have to side with Best Buy's position.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.