Lawsuits Are Not A Business Model. You Idiot.
Pardon me while I go off on a rant.
Nothing cries “I’m a clueless moron” like a frivolous lawsuit. From the lady who sued McDonald’s after spilling hot coffee on her own lap to $67 Million over a $10 dry cleaning bill, these people have clearly given up. Legal arguments aside, these lawsuits are moronic and hurt society.
If one of these people applied for a job with your company, would you hire them? Would you enter into any kind of business relationship with them? Would you even want to risk selling something to them? Filing a frivolous lawsuit is an excellent way to make yourself into a pariah.
You would think that this was self-evident, but it appears that there are several companies and organizations out there who feel that acting like blithering idiots is the way forward. Here are three cases of legal threats and actions. Ask yourself: are you encouraged, or discouraged, from ever doing business with these people or those they represent?
RIAA
RIAA Took My House Away
Out of dozens of anti-RIAA videos I chose this one … and now watching it again I’m wondering why. Ah well.
Most people had no idea who the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was until they started suing kids and dead grandmothers around 2003 for illegally downloading music. Of course, it wasn’t illegal until they lobbied to make it illegal - but hey, let’s not split hairs. At least, not until we’re in court.
The war against children encouraged the development of new kinds of digital rights management (DRM) which infected hard drives with spyware, crippled a number of devices, restricted the number of times you could play a file, and occupied a legal gray area nobody had the time or money to challenge. They eventually dropped this not because of the bad press, but because it cost a lot to produce and wasn’t getting results.
They also targeted internet radio stations, suing for 125% of revenue. I’m not completely sure why or what harm they were perceiving, but here’s hoping nobody tells them about “regular” radio.
In the aftermath, more and more bands started to realize that they didn’t need record labels this badly and started self-producing music or going with smaller labels that weren’t affiliated with RIAA. Independent music exploded and is continuing to develop in a viral fashion. RIAA itself has very recently dropped DRM and stopped suing people (although it is still pursuing pending lawsuits), and is trying to figure out just what the hell it’s supposed to do with itself.
For the record: artists never saw a dime of the money from the lawsuits. RIAA represents record labels only. One more postscript: Weird Al Yankovic’s “Don’t Download This Song” is viewable on YouTube, but oddly not embeddable, and has a “Download This Song” link to iTunes directly underneath.
Worlds.com
Worlds.com sues NCsoft
Worst. Report. Ever. Moving on…
The Worlds.com story has been breaking over the past few months. In December of 2008 the first news of any kind in years about Worlds.com was that they were hiring an IP firm over the ownership of the very concept of virtual worlds. That anyone could own such a thing is clearly ridiculous - it’s like saying you’re the only one allowed to make a blender or a car. We thought maybe this was a joke, especially considering the only thing anybody had heard out of Worlds.com in ages was some very amateur video.
Imagine our surprise when they actually filed lawsuit against NCsoft, creators of some fantastic MMORPGs. Why NCsoft, as opposed to anyone else? Well, the thought is that they’re big enough to serve as a good precedent for future lawsuits but small enough to perhaps not have the money to defend itself.
Later the Worlds.com CEO was quoted as saying We’re ‘Absolutely’ Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft. Meanwhile, even to this day, people are straining to remember who the hell Worlds.com even are.
For the record, they did make a world for Aerosmith. I had heard about it back in 2006, but the website sucked and I couldn’t figure out how to get in. As far as I can tell this is the only video of it out there.
No matter what the results of the lawsuits, I cannot imagine what would drive someone to do business with Worlds.com at this stage.
Associated Press
AP threatens station for posting AP’s YouTube videos
LOVE his look of shock!
I heard about this today from the TechCruch article which actually sparked the blog post. The Associated Press (AP) is a news clearinghouse, where reporters the world over send stories that then get picked up by other news affiliates for re-publication. They have a YouTube channel, but apparently have no idea how YouTube works.
It’s enough that we don’t really understand what the difference is between a reporter and a blogger. Now we have AP proudly ignorant of the way new media works, issuing a cease & desist against its own affiliate (ie: customer). It’s no wonder organizations like IndyMedia are thriving in the digital age.
Now, I’d like to toss an olive branch in AP’s direction here and say that no, it isn’t a lawsuit and yes, it’s awesome they even have a YouTube channel in the first place. It’s most likely just one guy working at the AP that’s acting up. The AP haven’t gone off the deep end yet!
Still, this truly underlines the importance of creating a new media policy, and bringing everyone in your organization up to speed on it. Lawsuits deny the reality of the Internet and try to make it all go away. If that’s your goal, good luck with that. The safer bet, though, is to accept the way things are and move accordingly.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
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