Slashdot Mirror
Countering a DMCA Takedown In the Magnet Wars
An anonymous reader writes "Zen Magnets, a maker of neodymium magnet toys, has been under assault by the much larger and better distributed Buckyballs, maker of a nearly identical toy. After Zen Magnets listed a couple of eBay auctions with a set of Buckyballs and a set of their own, asking customers to decide which was of higher quality, Buckyballs replied with a legal threat. Zen Magnets countered with an open video response, in which they presented the voicemail from Buckyballs and demonstrated their claims of quality through repeatable, factual tests, providing quantitative data to back up their assertions. Soon after, Buckyballs CEO Jake Bronstein got the video taken down from YouTube via a DMCA takedown, despite the fact that the only elements not made by Zen Magnets are the voicemail he left and some images of himself, which are low-resolution and publicly available online. Zen Magnets has decided to file a counter-takedown notice — not effective yet apparently, since the video is still marked as taken down." Slashdot's sister company ThinkGeek sells Buckyballs. No, we don't get kickbacks, but we totally should.
Update: 09/23 13:23 GMT by KD : Reader Coopjust (872796) points out one place where the disputed video has been mirrored.
Update: 09/23 13:23 GMT by KD : Reader Coopjust (872796) points out one place where the disputed video has been mirrored.
I disagree. Renewable energy == doubleplusgood
And telling people to use Firefox/Chrome because IE5,6,7,8 rarely display pages correctly is not self-righteous. It's +1 Informative (also factual).
As for not writing HTML correctly? False. It's IE that doesn't *interpret* HTML correctly that is plusungood.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'm just going to call bullshit on everything you just said.
Land's End and Walmart use the EXACT SAME CHINESE SWEATSHOPS to produce their goods. They use the EXACT SAME MATERIALS. The use the EXACT SAME PROCESS. They likely use the EXACT SAME WORKERS.
Land's End uses the same quality materials and same processes as their competition.
They simply have more.
With regards to WalMart forcing manufacturers to drop prices annually, the trend has simply been to loosen quality control tolerance. This is why WalMart has a ridiculous return policy. They know they're forcing manufacturers to let defective product through. They're banking (correctly) on the majority of people not returning the subpar items.
At WalMart, you can return nearly anything they sell, in any condition. I believe the only exceptions are the obvious ones - alcohol, prescription drugs, and food you bought out of the McDonald's that happens to be in the same building.
Indeed, rejects from shit destined for Land's End or some other label will be sold off to other stores.
You can buy a major label and pay tons of money.
Or you can go to WalMart or some such and get the exact same thing for far, far less. Hell, at Ross, you get the exact same items, that were destined to be the exact same brand, you just have to put up with a minor, typically cosmetic, defect.
There's no difference between the clothing industry and the pharmaceutical industry (buying generics), or the cable industry (Monoprice vs retail), or the bottled water industry (filtered tap water vs filtered tap water vs filtered tap water).