Best Buy sent us the following Cease & Desist letter (page 1 & page 2) in reference to our blog post reporting on the Improv Everywhere Best Buy Blue Polo Shirts.
It’s so thoughtful of Best Buy to send us this nice gift during the holiday season.
Ongoing coverage:
“Best Buy Hates Satire and Free Speech” – Digg
“Best Buy threatens blogger over someone else’s parody” – Boing Boing
“Greatest Best Buy prank ever!…” – Matt Johnson
“Best Buy Handing Out C&D Letters for Christmas” – Improv Everywhere
“best buy sends cease and desist letter to blogger for writing about a t-shirt” – Tcritic
“Best Buy Cease And Desists Blogger For Reporting Someone Else’s Parody” – The Consumerist
“Best Buy Tries, Fails To Silence Bloggers” – Gadget Lab, Wired
“Best Buy Hands Out Cease & Desist Letters for Christmas” – Slashdot
UPDATE 1: Improv Everywhere has posted an update, along with the original C & D letter they received from Best Buy.
UPDATE 2: I just spoke with someone in Best Buy’s corporate PR department and they are going to check with their legal department regarding the situation. I was impressed by the conversation we had and their responsiveness to the issue.
UPDATE 3: One thing I wanted to mention is that before posting this C & D letter, I called the Best Buy attorney who sent it to confirm that they really meant to send it to a blogger who was just reporting on another blog post. They insisted that I was “promoting, not reporting” and that the demand letter was valid.
My question is would they send a C & D to a newspaper or magazine covering the same thing?
UPDATE 4: Here’s my write-up on the original Best Buy Mission organized by Improv Everywhere, which was the inspiration for the shirts.
UPDATE 5: Just to clarify, there are actually two issues here:
1) Best Buy going after Improv Everywhere and Neighborhoodies for creating and selling a t-shirt with a parody of the Best Buy logo.
2) Best Buy going after a blogger who wrote about Improv Everywhere and Neighborhoodies creating and selling a t-shirt with a parody of the Best Buy logo.
The C & D letter that Best Buy sent us was regarding issue #2.
UPDATE 6: Great new, Best Buy has just sent us an apology letter regarding the cease and desist letter the originally sent to us.
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