Dan Snyder Sends C&D Letter To Former Redskins Player For Using A Picture Of Himself

Free Speech

from the fumble dept

We’ve spent some time here at Techdirt trying to warn you about Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins NFL team and likely replicant. Between his battling to keep a racist team name, attempts to murder satire in the press, using intellectual property law to disappear his team’s name from the blogosphere, and generally acting like an entitled brat, you may have thought that he and his band of merry lawyers couldn’t sink much lower.

Will writes in to correct anyone suffering under this mistaken belief with a story about Dan Snyder’s lawyers going after one of the team’s best former players for the crime of using a picture of himself.

Dan Snyder is just the worst, and his worstness reared its head once more yesterday when he sent a cease and desist letter to former Redskins great LaVar Arrington, demanding that Arrington stop calling himself a Redskins great. Word of the cease and desist first came from Arrington himself, who went on a bit of a Twitter rant yesterday.

While the reporting of the details here is all coming from Arrington’s side, the issue appears to be slightly different than reported above. While there may have been a request to stop using the Redskin name in Arrington’s flyer for his football camp, the chief issue appears to surround a picture of Arrington that was also on the flyer, which itself seems to have been taken at an NFL game in which Arrington is wearing his former Redskins uniform.

Arguing over that nuance is a bit beside the point, however, because the point is: what the hell is the matter with these people? Have we really entered an era in which using a picture of oneself and describing yourself as having played for a team, which is a factual statement, are now actionable items? And even if they are, what the hell is the team getting out of pissing off a former player who is well-loved by their own fanbase?

That said, since Snyder’s folks haven’t really demonstrated much of an understanding of the Streisand Effect in the past, it’s no surprise to see that Arrington is using the threat as a promotional tool.

@LaVarArrington:

Hey @Redskins instead of being so petty about things you should’ve had your entire defense sign up for the camp #truth

Here we go, Redskins, here we go (again). Clap, clap.

Filed Under: dan snyder, lavar arrington, photographs, publicity rights, redskins