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!'"

Slashdot is next

[webmaster404]

So, if this trend continues, \. will get a C&D order for the "broken windows" icon for MS related stories.

Re:Fuck Them

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> punitive damages to the company

Yeah! I hope the lose their shirts.

Re:Fuck Them

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Who knows? It might be that Best Buy will send a C&D to Slashdot for covering the website that was covering the shirt. Or even worse, they'll send it for the dupe!

Re:Slashdot is next

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, I'd say the more immediate threat is Best Buy issuing a C&D for Slashdot's coverage of this story.

Re:Slashdot is next

[LiquidCoooled]

Its ok, /. will send out a cease and desist against the obviously fake \. site you are advertising.

Are you sure..

[rambag]

that the C&D came from a Best Buy lawyer or just someone in Besy Buy lawyer's clothing?

What's next...

[__aaclcg7560]

The Goon Squad will go out to the offender's house to uninstall the HDTV and replace it with an old CRT TV.

Re:Fuck Them

[sepluv]

...or maybe arrenlex is the codename of a Best Buy employee who submitted it to /. to bring down the site without legal action. Best Buy will now inform the owners that the DOS attack will only be stopped when all mention of their shirts is removed.

There are no Best Buy shirts.

Re:What is Best Buy thinking?

[__aaclcg7560]

They don't want someone wearing the shirt to enter the store to pretend to be an employee. The customer might think they're getting excellent customer service from an imposter.

This looks like MY big chance...

[zappepcs]

I have not done a lot of things yet in life, and receiving a C&D letter is one of them. What do /.-ers think is my 'best' chance of getting one from BestBuy?

1 - YouTube channel?
2 - BestChance.com website?
3 - changing my middle name to bestbuy?
4 - suing bestbuy for discrimination, on the basis that I didn't get a C&D leter?
5 - Setting up a store in SecondLife called BestBye? Giving away uniforms for other SL stores?
6 - Call the secret whitehouse telephone line, claiming to be the bestbuy ceo?
7 - Getting GreenPeach to name a whale 'best buy'
8 - Setup a reddit account under the name bEsTbUy, and only submit stories on best buy?
9 - Number nine left out because the writers are on strike
10 - buy 300 hours of blimp advertising, with sign that looks like the best buy sign, but done in crayon and written upside down?

What does /. think?

Re:Are they going to go after the T.V. Show "Chuck

[DaveAtFraud]

... and the "Nerd Herd" is obviously a reference to the "Geek Squad" (other than the Nerd Herd folks are portrayed as being competent).

Cheers,
Dave

Re:What is Best Buy thinking?

[GwaihirBW]

Heh. So true.

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. I have on several occasions now had *employees* assume I was a manager. It's kinda amusing when the aisle you're in turns into a helpdesk . . . (I do tell people "actually, no, I don't work here" but then do my best to answer their question, as I often can)

Re:Fuck Them

[Stanislav_J]

I believe the constitution is quite clear on the whole 'freedom of the press' type thing.

The Constitution? Is that thing still around?

Re: vanishingly low?

[icepick72]

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!

Re:Best Buy apologies for sending C & D letter

[stormguard2099]

Don't mod this guy up! he's probably just an imposter!

Re:back story

[fm6]

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

Dude, litigators charge (a lot) by the hour. For them, there's no such thing as "too much time".

As for the event people: hey it's art. Maybe not to your taste, but no more a waste of time than, say, sports.

Re:What is Best Buy thinking?

[SargentDU]

Did you stay at Holiday Express the night before? :)

Re:Best Buy apologies for sending C & D letter

[laughingsquid]

Wait, are you supposed to be commenting over with your friends on Digg? I think you'll be welcome over there.

My BB Blue Shirt Experience.

[mr_resident]

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?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You can't always wear what you want..

[Fatal67]

I went down to the Chelsea boxstore
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, ...oh yes

Re:What is Best Buy thinking?

[realthing02]

Do you often wear wrinkled khakis and a slightly large button down shirt?

Just kidding, Every time i wear a red shirt at target, i always get asked questions by customers. God i wish they'd leave me alone and let me stand around for another 8 hours.

Re:Are they going to go after the T.V. Show "Chuck

[russ1337]

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' )

Re:Are they going to go after the T.V. Show "Chuck

[Anonymous Coward]

... and male punctuation, cockhead.

Re:Best Buy apologizes to laughingsquid.com

[hawk]

Rats. I'm wearing a blue shirt today.

I'm going to look pretty silly after I cut it off and come home in my white cuffs, collar, and tie.

My wife will probably expect a dance . . . :)

hawk

Appropriate Reply

[jetpack]

I think the correct response to this cease-and-desist letter would be a fuck-off-and-die letter.

Re:Are they going to go after the T.V. Show "Chuck

[PitaBred]

That's still one too many

Re:Best Buy apologies for sending C & D letter

[ucblockhead]

I thought the whole point of an apology was to say your sorry for something you never should have done in the first place.

Personally, I never apologize for things I should have done in the first place.

Re:DMCA

[RealGrouchy]

Did their lawyers just refer you to the Wikipedia entry on the DMCA?!?

- RG>

C&D to the TV show "Chuck"

[spazoid12]

Clearly their lawyers are bored and need things to do. I suggest somebody tell them to watch the TV show "Chuck"... there's a C&D in the waiting...

Re:Are they going to go after the T.V. Show "Chuck

[dfsmith]

Did you try yelling "PINEAPPLE!"?

Re:Fuck Them

[Lunatrik]

Geek Squad: Topless edition! Pornography everywhere... oh, wait, too late :)

Re:Fuck Them

[arootbeer]

and requested a read receipt

Re:Fuck Them

[fatphil]

I was speaking to my (Finnish) boss about his (French) boss as we were about to take a business trip from Finland to France. In Finnish, 'boss' is 'pomo', and 'bomb' is 'pommi', but I didn't know that at the time, and I happily mispronounced everything. I wondered why my bomb was very twitchy, but he didn't want to explain it to me while we were in the airport. At about that point, I received an SMS from my girlfriend, for whom, in the context of sending or receiving SMSs, my nickname is 'bomb' (simple puzzle - can you now guess what her name is?), which I vocalised. My bomb told me he never wanted to fly with me again...