Improv Everywhere is now selling Best Buy blue polo shirts through Neighborhoodies, inspired by their infamous Best Buy Mission. Just add a pair of khakis and you can embark on your own solo Best Buy mission.
Here’s my write-up on last year’s wonderful Best Buy Mission.
UPDATE: Best Buy has sent us a Cease and Desist letter regarding this blog post.
illustration and photo by Improv Everywhere
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Post the C&D, Scott. Should be interesting!
In reference to the C&D, it seems that Improve Everywhere has removed the page in question themselves and are no longer selling the shirts — probably due to a C&D they received.
Legally IE is on a bit of a shaky ground since the shirt is not obvious parody to those who don’t know Improve Everywhere’s antics. Parody needs to be fairly obvious and all IE us doing is replacing BB’s logo with their own. It could still be argued that the IE shirts are not effecting the BB market since BB does not sell said shirts, but I think BB has the upper hand here.
Your case is slightly different since you are only reporting in it and not selling t-shirts for profit. Still it’s tricky since IE has already taken down their own images of the shirts.
Trademark parody links
http://www.patentfla.com/articles/trademark_parody.htm
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/332727_christiansbux22.html
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/parody–satire.html
Blogged.
http://mattjhsn.org/blog/2007/12/11/greatest-best-buy-prank-ever/
Apparently Best Buy is looking for some publicity. Maybe they are bored with the Christmas shopping season.
Best Buy has the upper hand because they are a large corporation. Rest assured they will push the decision to the very edge of the law, if not over, something private individuals and small groups like Improv Everywhere can’t afford to do.
Don’t give BB any publicity. They don’t need it. I personally would remove it as to not draw attention to BB.
Thoughtcrime! Ungood Info! Crime! Report Immediately.
Guess I won’t be spending another dollar at Best Buy this holiday season. Or ever.
well to be honest, the whole purpose of these shirts is to go to a store and act like an employee? As fun as it is to watch you’re videos, im gonna have to side with BB, due to the fact that not only is it going to cause issues for the people working at the store, its gonna inevitably cause issues with customers shopping, which can potentially effect their bottom line… Or their name… All be it as crappy as the name may be in most consumers eyes, doesnt need any help getting any worse by a person in a fake bb shirt inside the store blowing off customers
Very brave to do what you did with your group of friends along with an amazing job documenting everyones stories. My hat is off to you, I hope you don’t lose any ground over a business who can’t realize how useless they really are.
I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV, but having been in business for about thirty years I’d say that Best Buy would win this hands down if it went to court. There’s no guessing that the things created were done to create confusion… thats the very nature and beauty of parody. Where it crossed the line was selling the shirts or doing other things to profit from the copied trade and service marks. A blog site that also posts them could be considered to be conspiring to help the parody site make money, but would not be nearly as liable.
I’m not going to shop at Best Buy this holiday season or ever.
I understand sending a letter to the people who made the shirts but to a blogger blogging about it!?!! WTF!!!
We need yellow tags everywhere! (website link is to a page for the yellow tags everywhere campaign – I receive no compensation for this – I just love improv)
Oh when will then learn? Best Buy truly sucks. They don’t get it.
I love improve too….
Best Buy would win this hands down if it went to court. There's no guessing that the things created were done to create confusion… thats the very nature and beauty of parody
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