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One Way To Deal With A Cease & Desist: Wicked Lasers Auctioning Off LucasFilm C&D

Too Much Free Time

from the will-they-get-a-C&D-for-that-too? dept

Fri, Jul 16th 2010 4:31pm — Mike Masnick
We recently wrote about the cease & desist letter that LucasFilm sent Wicked Lasers for making a laser that various blogs (not Wicked Lasers itself) compared to a light saber. Wicked Lasers has apparently responded by doing the only reasonable thing: it's auctioning the cease & desist off on eBay. You can bid on it here. How nice would it be if it became a trend to auction off bogus cease and desist letters?
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Filed Under: auctioning, cease and desist
Companies: lucasfilm, wicked lasers

24 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 4:40pm

    If nobody seen the C&D letter yet it could have value. People might want to see what it says. Or those who want to suppress it from being distributed on the net may buy it out and that money can be used to help fight the lawsuit. It could be a smart move I suppose but it seems more silly than anything.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Esahc (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 4:43pm

    Bids

    As of this moment:
    49 bids
    Current bid: US $616.66

    Wicked Lasers wins.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      cc (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 4:50pm

      Re: Bids

      Holy crap! Someone would really pay 600 bucks for this? :D

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 4:52pm

      Re: Bids

      It's actually a smart market incentive to make money off of these letters and discourage companies from sending such bogus letters. Now where is my C&D letter dang it. I want a C&D letter now.

      I can imagine all sorts of scams though. One company secretly works with another company in the background and sends a C&D letter, the recipient sells it, and they split the profits.

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 4:55pm

        Re: Re: Bids

        and it's good because people won't be as discouraged about participating in non infringing activities under the threat of receiving bogus C&D letters. If they receive a bogus C&D letter it's a chance to make money and have the lawsuit dropped. At least it's incentive to participate in non infringing material, incentive that counters the incentive not to under the threat of receiving a bogus DMCA takedown. but I don't really think it'll work.

        [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      KevinJ (profile), 19 Jul 2010 @ 6:12am

      Re: Bids

      And after a few days:
      57 bids
      Current bid: US $840.00

      Maybe this will become a trend?

      [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 5:31pm

    Now I wonder if the author of the C&D letter can claim copyright over the C&D letter.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 5:39pm

    "Now I wonder if the author of the C&D letter can claim copyright over the C&D letter."

    they can claim copyright so no one can make an exact copy but it doesnt stop wicked lasers getting over $600 for something which they got for free and which probably cost LucasFilm more than $600 in lawyers fee's and a little bit of bad press.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Ted E. Bear, 16 Jul 2010 @ 8:52pm

    Thumbs up to Wicked Laser corp. Fighting Fascism one laser at a time LOL Definition of Irony: A company built on fighting the federation actually being the federation.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    MissingFrame, 16 Jul 2010 @ 8:59pm

    Incoming: spam of C&D requests!

    Once word gets out that C&D letters are worth a few bucks, I wonder how many people are going to try to get their own! I'm guessing it's not that hard with Lucas.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 9:06pm

    Now that is cool ...

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    abc gum, 16 Jul 2010 @ 9:50pm

    Reminds me of Mike Rowe.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rowe_%28student%29

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    icepick314, 17 Jul 2010 @ 2:59am

    at least add the offending laser to the letter in that auction!!!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Donald Haase, 17 Jul 2010 @ 6:47am

    Lightsaber

    I would say 99% of the interest in this is not the fact that it's a C&D but it's a document coming from LucasArts, and it's a somewhat roundabout acknowledgement that there is now a consumer device that is similar in some ways to a lightsaber.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jul 2010 @ 12:08pm

    I never heard of the laser before, but I have now. I think I might buy some.

    I wonder if I could fund the purchase by getting myself sued by Lucas somehow.

    At least he's not claiming Star Wars didn't make money to keep royalty checks from an 89 year old actor this time.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Michael, 19 Jul 2010 @ 5:39am

    I could see

    I could see a book of bogus C&D letters with some commentary selling pretty well.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Christopher Meatto (profile), 19 Jul 2010 @ 3:16pm

    defense fund

    Use the auction proceeds for a defense fund. I would work for $49.99 an hour to pull out my light saber and brandish it in the Southern District of New York.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2010 @ 12:09pm

    It's up to $2,125.00.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]


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