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!'"

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

[tmroyster (309750)]

Buy More is such a rip of Best Buy.

Fuck Them

[MistaE (776169)]

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.

Re:Fuck Them

[Anne_Nonymous (313852)]

>> punitive damages to the company

Yeah! I hope the lose their shirts.

Re:Fuck Them

[by 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:Fuck Them

[Apple Acolyte (517892)]

Courts don't honor C&D letters. C&Ds are sent to meet the requirement of giving notice to a party before filing suit against said party. You may be thinking of an injunction.

Best Buy apologizes to laughingsquid.com

[Bananatree3 (872975)]

looks like Best Buy has apologized to Laughing squid for this [laughingsquid.com]

They are still militant against the blue shirts, though. (rolls eyes)

Re:Fuck Them

[Stanislav_J (947290)]

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

The Constitution? Is that thing still around?

Re:Fuck Them

[networkBoy (774728)]

We've had this argument before:

You host can censor you. While possibly unfair, that is not a breach of the first amendment.
Someone can pay you to remove content. Assuming you consent to the "bribe" that is not a breach of the first amendment.
Someone can *not* sue you for speech, as that uses the courts(a branch of the government) to silence you, and that is prohibited by the first amendment.
-nB

Re:Fuck Them

[tommertron (640180)]

Yes, but that means that corporations can't go to court to get someone to stop staying something they don't like, because the court is a part of the government, and that would mean the government is abridging someone's free speech. Best Buy is entirely within its rights to kick you off its own property for criticizing them or pretty much saying anything they don't like, but they're not allowed to go knocking on your door and telling you not to say something. Well, I guess they're allowed to, but you don't have to obey them by law.

What is Best Buy thinking?

[log1385 (1199377)]

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 /.

Re:What is Best Buy thinking?

[creimer (824291)]

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.

What about Chuck?

[PingXao (153057)]

The American TV show, "Chuck", features a young guy who works at "Buy More", which is clearly a ripoff of BB. I don't watch the show but my girlfriend had it on one night and called my attention to "Buy More" and asked if it reminded me of someplace. Change BB's color blue to green and voila! Buy More.

But that's OK for them to do that on national TV and get away with it on a weekly and ongoing basis. The reason is probably that the people who run and work at BB are infinitely more incompetent than the people who work at the fictional Buy More.

Why not?

[Linux_ho (205887)]

Best Buy long ago alienated all customers who watch the news and refuse to shop at businesses which regularly practice sleazy business tactics. I doubt this bad PR will affect their business at all. Nobody who cares about stuff like this has shopped at Best Buy for years.

Don't estimate. Litigate!

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor (1089561)]

How can companies run like this? IN my mind I see this as a big waste of effort and money on Best Buy's part. This wasted money would have to translate into Best Buy's bottom line, and thus affect we, the consumers as higher overall prices.

I've worked in the corporate world long enough to know that departments and other corporate entities show amazing survival instincts - but the legal departments of these mammoth companies are certainly the most predatory. Really, they must drum-up this kind of litigation.

I wonder if there was even any kind of financial-impact analysis or at least some kind of brand image analysis presented to the board prior to sending these notices. I would guess that the legal department simply sends them out under the "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" assumption.

Are you sure..

[rambag (961763)]

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

This looks like MY big chance...

[zappepcs (820751)]

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?

back story

[circletimessquare (444983)]

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2006/04/23/best-buy/ [improveverywhere.com]

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

Re:back story

[fm6 (162816)]

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.

Why they happen.

[Sneftel (15416)]

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.

Re: vanishingly low?

[icepick72 (834363)]

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!

Best Buy apologies for sending C & D letter

[laughingsquid (871087)]

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/ [laughingsquid.com] Here's the original C & D letter: http://laughingsquid.com/best-buy-cease-desist-letter/ [laughingsquid.com]

Re:Best Buy apologies for sending C & D letter

[stormguard2099 (1177733)]

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

Best Buy has already apologized...

[1729 (581437)]

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/ [laughingsquid.com]

Re:Slashdot is next

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

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

Re:BestBuySux

[by Anonymous Coward]

wayback machine ftw:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070410022442/www.bestbuysux.org [archive.org]

well for old entries anyway.