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!'"
Buy More is such a rip of Best Buy.
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.
Its ok, /. will send out a cease and desist against the obviously fake \. site you are advertising.
liqbase
that the C&D came from a Best Buy lawyer or just someone in Besy Buy lawyer's clothing?
wayback machine ftw:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070410022442/www.bestbuysux.org
well for old entries anyway.
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
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.
Best Buy just sent us an apology letter for sending us a C & D letter just because we blogged about the Improv Everywhere shirts: http://laughingsquid.com/best-buy-apologies-for-sending-cease-desist-letter/ Here's the original C & D letter: http://laughingsquid.com/best-buy-cease-desist-letter/
I hate to defend Best Buy, but they've already admitted their mistake and apologized for the C&D letter sent to laughingsquid.com:
http://laughingsquid.com/best-buy-apologies-for-sending-cease-desist-letter/
They are still militant against the blue shirts, though. (rolls eyes)
So you told us you haven't bought much stuff at Best Buy in the past although you visited the store more, and now you are refusing to buy anything in the future. Yep that'll hurt 'em. Hit them where it counts ... in the guy-wanders-around-store-alot-but-now-we-don't-see-him-anymore department!
I'm the sysadmin for improveverywhere's server (currently curled in the corner in the fetal position, sucking its thumb and begging for its mommy), and we got a DMCA takedown notice, in addition to the C&D improveverywhere got.
#####
Subject: Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Dear Sir or Madam:
I represent [OUR ISP]. Attached to this e-mail, or set out below, is a notice [OUR ISP] received alleging that material on your website infringes a copyright. This notice was sent to [OUR ISP] under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). A good summary of the DMCA can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA#DMCA_Title_II:_Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act
The DMCA has three steps. The notice [OUR ISP] received is the first step.
This notice triggers automatic removal or take down provisions under the DMCA. What this means is that the material identified in the DMCA notice must be removed by you, or taken down by [OUR ISP]. This must be done before you can dispute the claims set out in the notice. [OUR ISP] understands that this "guilty until proven innocent" aspect of the DMCA can be unfair, but its required by law.
If you believe the DMCA notice contains errors, you should immediately contact the person who sent the notice. Please let me know by e-mail if they agree to withdraw the notice. I will then contact them to verify the withdrawal.
After you remove the material, you may present [OUR ISP] with a "counter notice." This is the second step.
The elements of the counter notice are identified below, and in more detail in the wikipedia entry. Please make sure you fully understand the DMCA before presenting [OUR ISP] with a DMCA counter notice. It may be helpful for you to consult with your attorney. Unfortunately [OUR ISP] can not provide you with legal advice on this matter.
It is important that you take action immediately. Please let me know, within 5 days of the date of this e-mail that you have taken down the material. If I do not hear from you within this period of time, the DMCA requires [OUR ISP] to take down the material.
On behalf of the staff at [OUR ISP] I thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
[THEIR LAWYER]
A couple of years ago, I ducked into my local BB completely unaware that I was dressed very much like all the people who work there. I had the khakis and a (Penguin logo) blue shirt, same shade as their official "uniforms". As I'm walking by the laptop display, this harried looking soccer mom stops me and starts asking me a bunch of questions about the laptops in that "Hurry up young man, I've got to pick up my kids in 20 minutes" way. Completely not understanding her insistance, I told her I couldn't help her. So, she says, "Well, if you can't be bothered, I'll just take my business elsewhere!" I replied something like, "Whatever makes you happy sweetheart." and went on with my shopping.
About 2 mins later, I hear her shrill voice and look over. She's got the floor manager out and she's yelling at him about "That rude young man! That one! Right there!" Pointing at me! Okay, now I figured it out and started to walk over to explain while the manager is going, "Ma'am, he doesn't work here. He's a customer too."
Now, I kind of feel bad about the next part, but I honestly couldn't help it. I saw his nametag had "Scott" on it, so as I walked up, ignoring the unconvinced customer, I said, "Hey Scott, sorry, but I've already punched out and I'm in a real hurry. See you in the morning! Bye!"
The poor guy was still trying to talk her down as I was leaving!
Scott, buddy, if you're out there - Sorry, but really, it was kind of funny, right?
Yes, they're called counter-notices and (as far as I understand) the only recourse after receiving one is to take legal action. Though the 'under penalty of perjury' claus probably discourages people from using these handy tools.
A nice template for such a notice can be found at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
I went down to the Chelsea boxstore
/.
...oh yes
To get my wii that was on sale..
I was standing in line with a fake assistant,
And man, he did the job pretty well.
We decided that we should have a party,
My favorite pastime, mocking newbs.
My storys been posted up on
My servers dead, guess we filled the tubes.. .
You can't always wear what you want,
You can't always wear what you want,
You can't always wear what you want,
But if you try sometimes you just might find
A cease and desist,
I was in Best Buy (Rockwall,Tx) last Sunday, and I swear the guy thought he was a secret agent. He spoke like Captain Awesome and wore an ear piece putting his finger to it to inform the front desk we were on our way with our new purchase.
Perhaps this Best Buy should be sent a cease and desist for ripping off 'Chuck'.
To the sales rep's credit, he stopped trying to sell me Antivirus/anti-malware stuff after I said I was going to stick Ubuntu on the new laptop.... he just said 'Awesome, good choice'... (in his Captain Awesome voice... with a 'thumbs up' )
... and male punctuation, cockhead.