You've probably heard this story before. Website (Something Awful, a snarky pop-culture site) says something a company (Limitless Horizon's Limited, LLC - a software development company making the 400 millionth game about being an elf and stabbing an orc) doesn't like for some reason. Company responds by theatening legal action unless the website removes the offending material. Website points out to company that it hasn't said anything libelous or illegal, and that the company should go away. Like I said, you've heard it before. Although the language the website used to tell the company to go away is somewhat novel:
I ran your complex and colorful letter by the Something Awful Legal Team (inc.), and he informed me that not only was your letter "totally completely idiotically something somethingly," but he additionally said it tasted like "really bad fish" when he attempted to eat it. Our legal team then scurried off and began crouching in a dark corner, perhaps to begin summoning up his legal might against the towering powerhouse that is the Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC behemoth. Or perhaps he was still sore about losing "the one ring" to that short little fellow who came by our house yesterday.
Read the rest of it. Why is it that people feel a need to use the law like a club just because they don't like something?
Posted by baltar at March 3, 2005 01:55 PM | TrackBack | Posted to FunniesIt's not just trying ot use the law like a club, but that they believe they can on a blogger, versus a more mainstream publication. I've read waaaaaay worse stuff than that on Ruthless, for example. I know the guy (?) from Something Awful said he didn't feel like reviewing the game when it comes out, but reading what he had written I thought "oh, this is a review, and he panned this game for being derivative twaddle." That's what reviews do. Well, that's what reviews should do if much of what passes for reviews weren't sycophantic butt-kissing. I almost wrote "what if PCGamer had written it..." instead of the comment about Ruthless, and then realize, PCGamer probably wouldn't write it at all.
Posted by: binky at March 3, 2005 05:32 PM | PERMALINKIsn't PCGamer swahili for "sycophantic butt kissing"?Isn't PCGamer swahili for "sycophantic butt kissing"? Posted by: baltar at March 3, 2005 06:49 PM | PERMALINK
a couple of weeks back (i'm lazy, so i'm not finding it) volokh posted on the disturbing trend of newspapers sending cease and desist letters to bloggers not only for excerpted content but also for even linking the periodicals website. seriously? iiiiii know. the gist of his response was that a) fair use allows a great deal of room for excerpting and comment, though there are limitations (the details of which i won't bother you with, but if you're a non-commercial site, and you're interspersing excerpts with snarky asides you should be okay) and b) the idea that you can stop someone from linking your public site is so patently ridiculous it's not worth taking up in earnest.
Posted by: joshua at March 3, 2005 07:59 PM | PERMALINKMaybe not swahili, but yes, that is what I meant. U-oh, does this mean PCGamer is coming after Bloodless Coup now?
I saw that piece, Joshua. It's ridiculous, but it also shows the degree to which "regular" news outlets 1) feel threatened by blogging and 2) feel superior to bloggers.
Posted by: binky at March 4, 2005 10:18 AM | PERMALINK