Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick




FatWallet Challenges Abusive DMCA Claims

from the good-for-them dept

Time to applaud FatWallet for standing up to the group of big retailers that tried to bully them with a DMCA claim saying that FatWallet broke copyright law by publishing their after Thanksgiving sale prices before they were published. Apparently, Wal-Mart went even further and had a subpoena issued to FatWallet to force them to reveal who posted the info. While FatWallet initially took down the info, saying the fight would be too expensive, it seems they've now changed their mind and are contesting the retailers' claims and asking for payment for all damages. It will be interesting to see how the retailers respond. If this generates enough bad publicity, they're likely to just back down, which would mean good things for other small companies bullied by bogus DMCA claims. However, if this does go to court, you never know how it might turn out.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

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  1. Dec 2nd, 2002 @ 11:13pm

    fatwallet + dmca

    What fatwallet and the other sites should do is the following:

    Offer a specific area where black friday sales or other otherwise confidential information can be published. Then the information can be edited by fatwallet. For example if the information included Sony Vaio $999, then the editors should round the price. That way fatwallet would not be violating any form of copyright they would just be rounding every price.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Nov 10th, 2004 @ 1:50am

    DMCA

    bargainshare.com Black Friday 2004 Sale Ads and Deals In case you're looking for black friday 2004 information It should be interesting to watch if the DMCA tries to pull anything this year. I'll be watching intently on that site.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Nov 10th, 2004 @ 1:53am

    DMCA in 2004


    bargainshare.com Black Friday 2004 Sale Ads and Deals

    In case you're looking for black friday 2004 information.

    It should be interesting to watch if the DMCA tries to pull anything this year. I'll be watching intently on that site.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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