Worst. Cease. and. Desist. Letter. Ever?
The good people at BoingBoing have received (and now shared with their readers) a cease-and-desist letter from the attorneys representing a UK-based outfit that claims exclusive rights in all electronic media transmissions of live World Cup action. But rather than a straight C&D (which requires that the potentially infringing or improper act is already taking place), this is a preemptive strike -- the World Cup finals haven't started yet, and there's no evidence that BoingBoing would be hosting live accounts of games.
FOLLOW-UP: One intrepid BoingBoing reader decided to create a video detailing the kinds of things he'd be doing instead of watching streaming World Cup video... slightly juvenile but mildly entertaining, even to those (like me) who will watch some games (though more likely in a pub than over the Internet). Bonus question: did this reader get (or need) clearances to use Gary Glitter's "Rock & Roll Part II" in his video?
I can't say that the letter (JPG) was sent in bad faith, but I would think that a little more due diligence would be in order -- perhaps establishing that BoingBoing was in fact interested in sporting events. More likely, the letter is trying to prevent links to other sites (presumably also "under surveillance") who are streaming content improperly. Without getting into the exciting debate over which nation's laws govern the interwebthing, hyperlinks in the context of legitimate reportage on a major Net-impacting event (how much live streaming occurs, what kind of load on the net, how is IP multicasting and multi-homing working, etc.) would not seem to create even "contributory liability" under most legal regimes. I'm also curious how BB got selected for the honor of a letter -- and did the gang over at Engadget (a Time Warner property through AOL) get the same treatment?
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DISCLOSURE: I wrote quite a few of these letters in my past life. Like many (or most) intellectual property attorneys, I had my own prefab template where I could drop in the client's name, the IP we wanted to protect, and evidence of something that just didn't look or sound right. It wasn't quite the mail-merge approach -- more of an assembly-line product where we always established some kind of good cause for firing off the letter in the first place. We did not, however, take a preemptive approach -- it's just too difficult and makes you (and your client) look bad when something like this BoingBoing story blows up.
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