Comments on: Best Buy Cease & Desist Letter For Blog Coverage of Parody

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:39:28 +0000

Best By..A company of liars and cheats..There is not one thing i can say good about them. Customer Service is a farce and not even a bad joke can top them. What a bunch of liars..I would not buy so much as an eraser from these morons again..ever..even if they were on Sale..

By: Note Ã nous-mÃªme : Don’t fuck with Best Buy at MancheCourte.com

Note Ã nous-mÃªme : Don’t fuck with Best Buy at MancheCourte.com — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:46:13 +0000

[...] Il fÃ»t un temps oÃ¹ c’Ã©tait la grosse mode. Un site amÃ©ricain vient de recevoir une mise-en-demeure de la part de Best Buy pour avoir OSÃ‰ se servir de leur logo pour vendre des chandails. En fait le [...]

By: Trula

Trula — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:28:16 +0000

LOL! Best Buy wins hands down for best free online advertising campaign, ever. Oh yah it prolly cost them a few cents to give their already paid lawyers for sending out these silly letters.

All done to get bloggers yakking/posting/linking about it. all so ‘Best Buy’ would be in your heads these holiday shopping season. Well done, Best Buy!

hey Scott did they slip you a little kick-back in with the ‘apology’ letter? :)

By: Big Business Suck! » Best Buy has no sense of humor

Big Business Suck! » Best Buy has no sense of humor — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:47:47 +0000

[...] they’re also threatening legal action against laughingsquid.com just for covering the story [link]!Â Hey Best Buy, you going to threaten us next? Share [...]

By: Improv Everywhere turns into “Best Buy” for Bloggers

Improv Everywhere turns into “Best Buy” for Bloggers — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:15:12 +0000

[...] if you’re a blogger and interested in your first amendment rights, check out what happened to Laughing Squid over the past [...]

By: Best Buy Is Not Amused «

Best Buy Is Not Amused « — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:07:04 +0000

[...] mission, they made sweet T-shirts that were being sold at the most awesomest store ever, and this poor guy got a Cease & Desist notice from Best Buy just for writing about the T-shirts in his blog.Â I think Best Buy needs to remove [...]

By: Best Buy will probably follow CompUSA into Outer Darkness — Lawrence Salberg

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:47:26 +0000

[...] at the store level, but now Best Buy has been found to be spending investor’s time and money by harassing bloggers and threatening to sue them when they dare to report about the existence of sarcastic parody BestBuy shirts for sale by a [...]

By: Fun With Craig » Blog Archive » Improv Everywhere get’s a legal present for Christmas

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:59:07 +0000

[...] not the most interesting part. Hereâ€™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! Theyâ€™re [...]

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:04:10 +0000

Dane commented that “The word ‘over’ relates to physical position – ‘more’ signifies a greater amount.”

Not really…

Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage has the following to say about the usage of “over”:

“We usually use ‘over’, not ‘above’, to talk about ages and speeds, and to mean ‘more than’.”

His three listed examples include:

“You have to be over 18 to see this film.
The police said she was driving at over 110 mph.
There were over 100,000 people at the festival.”

Merriam-Webster’s definition of “over” (as a preposition) lists seven different correct usages, including:

3 a: more than

I could list more examples, but I think my point has been made. “Over” has plenty of legitimate definitions not related to physical position–and one of them can take the place of “more than.”

By: trademark registration

trademark registration — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:08:27 +0000

The BestBuy lawyers just need to loosen up. Some people simply don’t have a sense of humor. Their apology letter proves it.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:17:47 +0000

The IE site is down, at least for me. I don’t have a Facebook account so I can check IE’s profile to see whats going on.

Anyone know anything?

By: Best Buy Apologies For Sending Cease & Desist Letter | Laughing Squid

Best Buy Apologies For Sending Cease & Desist Letter | Laughing Squid — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:17:43 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: Matt Castille » Blog Archive » Best Buy threatens blogger over someone else’s parody

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:52:13 +0000

[...] someone else’s parody Best Buy threatens blogger over someone else’s parody: Best Buy sent a cease and desist letter to blogger Scott Beale (Laughing Squid) for having had the audacity to blog news that [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:40:52 +0000

Query: Why did you black out the names of the lawyers sending the letter? “You know who we are, so we ask the same of you.” What’s your motive for throwing up a shield of anonymity for the legal soldiers doing Best Buy’s dirty work?

By: Will Budreau

Will Budreau — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:31:09 +0000

Gotta say, I’m disappointed. I truly expected this to be the BEST Buy, Cease, and Desist letter EVER.
It’s not even remotely funny.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:01:06 +0000

It’s the season to be jolly!

By: Rob’s blog of posts » Blog about a Best Buy parody, get legal threats

Rob’s blog of posts » Blog about a Best Buy parody, get legal threats — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:23:40 +0000

[...] where it gets really interesting. Best Buy have also served blogger Scott Beale with a C&D, for merely blogging about the existence of the [...]

By: IanSchafer.com » Blog Archive » How NOT To Do Social Media: Best Buy Edition

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:19:11 +0000

[...] Scott Beale over at LaughingSquid decided to just blog about the shirts — and HE got a Cease and Desist letter as [...]

By: Alex Williams

Alex Williams — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:07:33 +0000

I respect all the comments above. The comments that BB must do this to protect their IP rights are correct. It is not clear that this is in fact a parody. The legal definition of parody in TM law is very very narrow. It focuses on whether you are parodying one specific mark or whether the parody is of a larger issue. You only get the parody defense if you can show that you had no choice but to use this mark and it must be a commentary on this mark. Unfortunately if you are parodying society at large then you can not use anotherâ€™s TM. The issue here is certainly one that can be debated.

That being said I hate best buy. They are really terrible to their customers. I have not shopped there for years because they think that their customers can be walked all over. Further, even if they do have a claim here this just shows how companies really have no clue how to treat the public nowadays. It is too easy to get your story out for companies to treat a customer like this.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:29:58 +0000

Don’t confuse copyright and trademark law. They are two entirely different animals. Satire and parody are exceptions to copyright, but not to trademark. If you market parody products using someone else’s trademark, or a reasonable facsimile of such a trademark, you are liable for damages.

This is *exactly* what trademark law is designed to stop–someone creating a product using someone’s else’s logo or trademark. In this case, there was no consumer fraud intended, but its still a violation of trademark protection. Trademark law is all about protecting the identity of your company and products so that consumers know what they’re buying.

BB may seem like jerks and that they lack a sense of humor, but the law leaves them little choice. Unlike copyright, which is yours no matter what, trademarks have to be defended or you lose them. They probably should have just let this one pass, but some cog in the legal department fired off a form letter.

It’s unlikely that BB would take action against either Neighborhoodies or Improv Everywhere. They’re probably just building documentation that they are actively defending their trademark so that when a real competitor infringes on it, they can win in court.

(I am not affiliated with Best Buy in anyway. I just understand where they’re coming from.)

By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:25:34 +0000

Wow, check the Constitution, Bastard Buy — parody is protected free speech. (At least it is while the Constitution is still in effect… ~grumble~)

It’s not even like they were taunting BB with their tag logo… just using something similar for their own purpose. They may as well send C&D to the teevee show Chuck for having a store vaguely similar to BB…

By: Khidr

Khidr — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:01:57 +0000

What bill said – There’s no teeth in the request, and it’s probably just to show ongoing protection of their mark, even if the shirts were not parody, your use of the “improv anywhere” bb logo, is not an infringing use. That said, I actually don’t think the shirts themselves are really parody, they’re really just replacing the words best buy with the name “improv everywhere” and selling the shirts for profit.

I think the original event was probably parody, although bb could probably make an intentional interference with business relations argument, if they’d wanted to.

By: A Different Kind of “WOW” at bstewart23

A Different Kind of “WOW” at bstewart23 — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:32:08 +0000

[...] shirts over at LaughingSquid.com. Claiming that the blog post was not reportage but promotion, Best Buy’s legal “experts” sent a cease-and-desist letter to Laughing Squid. [...]

By: Jeremy Duffy

Jeremy Duffy — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:18:42 +0000

Have you looked at Public Citizen? They have lawyers that defend this kind of thing for free all the time.

Anyway, I blogged all about your issue including linking to the original site and your two articles covering them. Since your in trouble for blogging and I blogged about you and said that I support you, does that mean I’m promoting the promotion of stuff that’ll piss off Best Buy? We shall see…

Article here:

http://www.jeremyduffy.com/best-buy-tries-to-snuff-coverage-of-news-by-bloggers/

By: Jeremy Duffy - Consumer Advocate » Best Buy Tries to Snuff Coverage of News By Bloggers

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:14:18 +0000

[...] In a colossally stupid move, Best Buy triggers the Streisand Effect by issuing a take-down notice to a blogger who wrote about something they didn’t like. [...]