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Don't Even Blog About Trademark or Copyright Infringement, or You'll Commit Infringement

Most reasonable people try to steer clear of copyright or trademark infringement.  After all, who wants to receive a nasty cease-and-desist letter if you can avoid it.  But now, it turns out that even the act of blogging about an alleged infringement will invite one of those C-and-D's anyway, as New York Personal Injury lawyer Eric Turkewitz (himself a recipient of a C&D in another matter) shares here.  As Turkewitz writes, Improv Everywhere started selling shirts with a parody of the Best Buy Logo.  Not surprisingly, they received a C&D from Best Buy's corporate department.  But then, a Web site called Laughing Squid blogged about it, and they too, received a cease-and-desist letter as well.  When the Laughing Squid blogger inquired about the reason for the letter, Best Buy corporate explained that the site hadn't just blogged about the event, but also promoted the shirt sale, i.e., the copyright violation.

Laughing Squid got smart.  Rather than deal with Best Buy's lawyers, most of whom don't understand the negative repercussions of a heavy-handed cease-and-desist letter (with this exception), the Laughing Squid blogger contacted Best Buy's PR department, and was impressed by their responsiveness.  Chalk up one more loss for the lawyers in the e-court of public opinion.

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on December 12, 2007 at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Comments

That's hilarious. Best Buy's lawyers need to learn that there is life outside the law...

Posted by: trademark registration | Dec 12, 2007 2:51:31 PM

Yeek! I dont have any comments( no Infringement, right?).

Posted by: Beautiful Minds. | Dec 13, 2007 3:17:56 AM

You have got to be kidding me. Does someone need to fill up some billable hours or what?

Posted by: Larry | Dec 15, 2007 8:09:33 PM

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