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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.
SPAM is a contraction of SPiced hAM; what is the acronym for Canned Unicorn Meat? Have they considered changing the slogan to "Enjoy some tasty CUM today!"?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
OK, but where is this "12 page C&D letter"?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Soylent Green: the other other white meat!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
...consider that organizations can lose their trademarks if they don't actively defend them against even vague and doubtful potential infringements. If they let this case slip without issuing a token C&D, it could be cited later by an actual competitor as grounds for permitting their own infringement.
That's not to say that the law isn't stupid, but the proper target for complaints about the stupidity of the law is your local congresscritter, not the lawyers who are just dealing with the laws as they are. These lawyers are just writing letters, not trolling for DUI cases on the sides of city buses.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Would you have known about the $10 off any $40 order if it wasn't on the front page? ;)
Article reading FTW!
How many people has the California Milk Processor Board sued for the literally hundreds of infringements of their "Got ____?" Trademark?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"We're sorry your lawyers can't tell the difference between real copyright/trademark violations, and protected parody."
Anything else is a waste of bits.
Unicorn meat is murder!
Stop the needless killing of endangered species!
I can't see anything at all gay about naming a parody of SPAM "Canned Unicorn Meat"!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I thought articles and comedy bits that were clearly satirical were protected under the first amendment. They aren't trying to make money with the white meat phrase except to add to the humor of the article, so what would the damages be?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Actually, there's a shorter name for those.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
i dunno, baconless bacon double cheeseburger doesnt look shorter to me.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
So what are they planning on replacing "Pork: The other white meat" with?
Pork: Hardly anybody gets Trichinosis these days!
Pork: Now with Bacon!
Pork: You know you love to do it!
Pork: If you were a Christian, you could be eating it now!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that Slashdot's audience are rapid unicorn enthusiasts?
my Nick is relevant to a Slashdot story.
ThinkGeek FTW!
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
Companies get their panties in a bunch. We laugh at them. Film at 11.
It's actually an interesting insight into the bureaucratic mindset of the average idiot.
Pork Boss: Smith! Get over here now! There is some company using a slogan on some food that's really similar to ours!
Smith: Uhhh, boss, I don't think that Unicorn meat really exis...
Pork Boss: What? Smith! NOW! Get our lawyers on the horn! This can't go ahead!
Smith: Uhhhh, right on it boss.
*ringing phone*
Pork Lawyer: WHAT? Oh my, I will draft a letter IMMEDIATELY, this can't go on, who owns Unicorn Meat anyhow? Do they have a strong lobby group?
Smith: Uhhhh, again, I don't think that it's really real, I mean it's unicorn mea...
Pork Lawyer: Nonsense! This is outrageous. I will have them by the balls on this one. The letter will be out in the afternoon mail run! *click* Suzie, send a bill to the Pork Board for a cease and desist. Slap on a few extra hours work too will ya darling? Cheers!
All that can now be heard is the soft sad crying of Common Sense in the corner.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
It's not got much spam in it...
That sequence *is* actually common sense, but for everyone independently: the lawyer wants billable work, the manager wants to get ahead by impressing their higher-ups, and Smith isn't really getting paid enough to object strongly.
Extrapolate to millions of people and you get Corporate America.
... and that lawyers always get easily confused (like confusing the word "new" with the word "other"). Numerous surveys have been conducted and found that less than 2% of the public gets these two words confused, while 44% of those on drugs, and 73% of lawyers, will get these two words confused.
The moral of the story is that lawyers always get confused, so you have to always write all text in legalese.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
...it includes a coupon code for $10 off a $40+ order good until the 30th.
I was about to make a joke that this "news release" sounds more like a coupon for thinkgeek, then I realized that that's actually what it is!
For a limited time, visitors to ThinkGeek.com can take $10 off any order of $40 or more by using the code PORKBOARD at checkout. The discount applies to merchandise totals and excludes shipping charges, The coupon is good until 6/30/2010 at 11:59PM ET.
LOL at newswires refused to distribute it for some reason
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
It doesn't matter how much you pay an employee...if it's a public company or institution, the employee won't speak up. The only tangible benefit to speaking up is it saves the company legal fees. But those savings do not pass to the individual employee. What does pass to the individual employee who tries to avoid legal action (i.e. risk mitigation) is that if the risk comes to fruition, that person is humiliated for having decided to take the risk. So the employee has to weigh a potential benefit to the company against the risk of his own personal humiliation.
Unless he's an owner and the legal fees are coming out of his own pocket, he'll [almost always] avoid any possibility of personal humiliation, and instead, allow (or even favor) the company taking legal action, no matter how much he gets paid. (CEOs and other high-paid execs of public companies are often the worst offenders, being most concerned about their personal images.)
You just can't beat the economics of spending other people's money.