ThinkGeek's Best Ever Cease-and-Desist Letter

ThinkGeek, sister company to Slashdot, received a meticulously researched (except on one point) 12-page cease-and-desist letter from the National Pork Board. What had the meat lobbyists up in arms was an April Fools product from the TG catalog: Radiant Farms Canned Unicorn Meat, whose copy included the line "the new white meat." The NPB figured this was confusingly similar to their trademarked "the other white meat" (an advertising slogan the pork industry is considering retiring anyway). Geeknet, parent company of Thinkgeek and Slashdot, issued a press release apologizing for any confusion; you can read it on ThinkGeek's site (PDF), because the newswires refused to distribute it for some reason. Oh, and ThinkGeek has no intention of taking down the protected parody.

Comments

Ful disclousure.

[markchd]

We want to take this seriously. Don't downmod ethical posts.

Re:Did they change the submission?

[Sir_Lewk]

Although it is not currently, sheetsda's post to which I was responding was modded offtopic. I understand that it is common practice for slashdot to point out that thinkgeek is a sister company to itself, but lets be honest, not all mods RTFS. I wasn't trying to criticise the article as much as the moderators that downmoded sheetsda's post.

What I did find interesting however was the line from the fucking summary:

the newswires refused to distribute it for some reason.

which refers to the pdf copy of Geeknet's appology. If you read that pdf, it becomes immediately obvious why newswires refused to distribute it, and that line practically sounds like it's actually dripping in sarcasm. It blatantly reads like the piece of marketing, to the absurd.

In fact, it reeks so heavily of marketing, that if I was more of a tinfoil hat type I might even suggest that the entire situation was a joint National Pork Board and Geeknet marketing collarboration. Seriously, read that PDF...