This is amazing. Best Buy’s legal department has just sent us an apology letter for sending yesterday’s Cease & Desist letter regarding our blog coverage of the Improv Everywhere Best Buy Blue Polo Shirts parody.
The letter was the result of my call yesterday to Best Buy Corporate Public Relations Group explaining the situation regarding their demand letter. Best Buy did the right thing here, by quickly responding and issuing an apology for their legal threats against a blog that was simply reporting on another situation.
I think this will serve as a great example to other companies whose legal department sends out these demand letters without fully researching the situation or considering the possible negative PR that they can generate. My advice regarding situations like this is that their PR departments should become more involved and aware of what their legal departments are doing with regards to the community at large.
Ongoing coverage:
“Best Buy Apologies For Sending Cease & Desist Letter” – Digg
“Best Buy apologizes to blogger for nastygram” – Boing Boing
“Best Buy sends cease and desist letter to blogger” – Shake Well Before Use
City Room – New York Times
“Best Buy Apologizes For Cease & Desist Letter to Laughing Squid Blog” – Chilling Effects Clearinghouse
“Best Buy Goes After Polo Shirt Bloggers” Jason DeRusha
“Best Buy Apologizes For Sending Cease And Desist Letter To Blogger For Reporting Factual Information” – The Consumerist
“BEST BUY threatens blogger. For reporting on someone else’s parody.” – Instapundit
“Many Times PR Pros Have To ‘Run It By Our Legal Department’” – Market Presence (By Marketing Matters)
“Best Buy Takes On Bloggers Over Polo Shirts” – WCCO-TV Minneapolis, MN
“Don’t Even Blog About Trademark or Copyright Infringement, or You’ll Commit Infringement” – Legal Blog Watch
“Laughing Squid squirts ink at Best Buy” – Channel Register
“Episode 623″ – Buzz Out Loud, CNET (starts around 7:20)
“The Other Story on Twitter Tuesday: Best Buy and Laughing Squid” – Conversation Agent
“Best Buy Tells Comedy Troupe to Cease the Satire” – Dealerscope
“Innovation: Best Buy Apologizes for Cease and Desist to Laughing Squid” – Fast Company Expert Blogs
“Best Buy v. Laughing Squid” – Citizen Media Law Project
UPDATE 1: Jason Van Steenwyk has a really great write-up on the whole situation over on Market Presence (By Marketing Matters).
UPDATE 2: Local TV station WCCO in Minneapolis, MN, where Best Buy’s headquarters are located, did a segment on the story: “Best Buy Takes On Bloggers Over Polo Shirts”
UPDATE 3: Here’s what Laughing Squid’s traffic stats looked like during this time.
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- Best Buy Cease & Desist Letter For Blog Coverage of Parody
- Best Buy Cease & Desist Traffic Stats
- A Special Surprise Holiday Gift From Neighborhoodies
- Improv Everywhere Best Buy Blue Polo Shirts
- Flickr Adds New Stats Feature
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Now all we have to do is reasset Improv Everywhere’s rights to sell that shirt! A harder battle, I fear.
Good for them for paying attention… if not initially, at least when you poked them.
“We apologize for sending you the demand letter†= Apology.
“We’re sorry for sending you the demand letter†= Apology.
“We regret sending you the demand letter†= “We wish that we hadn’t sent you the demand letter (because it was probably not legally appropriate and we’re now looking a little stupid) but we’re not in any way admitting that it might have been wrong.†~= Apology.
I’m a reporter for Minneapolis’ WCCO-TV, and placed a call to PR this morning… they called me back a couple hours ago, and told me they were backpedaling on your C&D letter.
My story will air at 6pm, and will show up in the video viewer of my blog, wcco.com/jasonblog
Now if only they would permit photography in their stores – you can buy a camera there, but they’ll ask you to leave for using it.
Ahh.. I love America. Shoot first and ask questions later. What happened to research?
Oh, you were WAY too kind to them. You should have waited a few days, to give the rest of us a chance to put up OUR blog pages commenting on the Blue Polo Blogging Affair. The surest way to get somebody to do something on the Internet is to tell them they can’t do it.
It’s like buying bullets at a gun store, and the owner getting pissed when you rob him. Good for you Scott. Hold on to that letter, it may get you out of “jail” some day.
Well, at some corporations you do work with the legal teams – but mostly the legal team looking over press releases to make sure that all statements are true and can be defended.
It’s why you rarely see a public company calling itself the best, but one of the best – you always have that quantifier.
The other way – not so much, but would save some heart aches at the end of the day.
Yay Scott!
This was a mini-landmark in blogger’s rights. Way to stick to your guns!
As Tad says, that’s not an apology. There’s no apology in it.
They also haven’t retracted their legal threats.
Well, they did half the right thing here. The other half would be stating “We are taking serious steps to insure our legal representation does not make such mistakes in the future.” Otherwise they are just, as Tad pointed out, just saying “we’re sorry we got caught being stupid.”
Awesome. I guess I don’t have to worry about them coming after me for blogging about YOU now :D
Wow, pretty fast moving legal department. They were obviously expecting some schtick in response.
Way to let that zoom on by and crash into the window LS.
Mick
P.S. I’d also like to apologise for drinking your beer while your back was turned at the SF Beta event back in August…. I respect your 21st Amendment Rights.
I’m glad that Best Buy owned up to their mistake. Most big companies these days would just deny they made a mistake and act like they are somehow above apologizing for an error. If anyone from Best Buy is reading this: VERY good move.
Um. They regret sending the letter, but have they withdrawn it? I don’t see that anywhere.
You know, I regretted having to put down a dog of mine, but I had it done anyway……
You should consider a complaint with his local bar. Dumb lawyers shouldn’t practice law.
Too little, too late.
I can only suppose they were like, “you’re saying this guy Scott Beale has HOW many readers?? That many?? Oops. Uh, better clean this up, and quick!!”
Kinda like ticking off BoingBoing. A supremely poor marketing decision.