Hasbro Lawyers Threatening Parody 'Get Out Of... Free' Cards, Which They Previously Allowed...

from the too-much-free-time dept

Wed, Mar 4th 2009 12:22pm — Mike Masnick

Mike C. writes "Hasbro is at it again. I've been a reader of Randy Cassignham's This is True for several years now. Among other things, he offers a "Get Out of Hell Free" card - a parody of the Monopoly Get Out of Jail Free card. Back in 2000, he received a cease & desist (postage due!) and after some discussion, altered the card to include a "not endorsed by Hasbro" line. At that time, they decided not to pursue the matter any further. Fast forward to 2009 and they "recently became aware that you are offering for sale "Last Chance - Get Out of Hell Free" cards and stickers on your website." Wait, recently?? I guess times are tough for the Hasbro lawyers and they're looking to drum up some more business. Randy has been kind enough to post the full story to his website starting with the original action in 2000 and ending with the 2009 cease and desist."

It seems pretty clear that Hasbro's lawyers have a bit too much free time on their hands (perhaps now that they're done killing off interest in online Scrabble). You would think, at some point, management at Hasbro would recognize that sending their lawyers off on such wild goose chases not only increases the legal bill, but also does tremendous damage to the Hasbro brand.

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Filed Under: get out of jail, goodwill, streisand effect, trademark
Companies: hasbro

7 Comments

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Ima Fish, 4 Mar 2009 @ 12:27pm

If Hasbro's claim is copyright, then this is clearly satire. If Hasbro's claims is trademark, the statement that the card is "not endorsed by Hasbro" eliminates the claim. Either way, Hasbro is wasting money.
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Rob R, 4 Mar 2009 @ 1:34pm

More Ambulance Chasing
Well, the lawyers are basically in two groups nowadays. There are the personal injury ambulance chasers that are screwing up the economy by suing any business with a few dollars in the bank. then there are these guys - the copyright ambulance chasers. They're screwing up the economy by suing anyone with...... well with anything. Or nothing. They just like suing people.

Really, when is enough going to be enough. I thought we were supposed to be rational human beings. Apparently I was wrong. Honor and "common" sense are now replaced with greed and greed. Well, add the attitude that is increasingly prevalent of entitlement and team it up with the ambulance chasers listed in this blog post and you have the recipe for
the moral and ethical bankruptcy that is rampant in America. That attitude is what replaced honor. I really miss honor. It means nothing to the generation taking over. How sad.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2009 @ 1:56pm
  
  Re: More Ambulance Chasing
  Honor is an ancient concept meaning "Points"
  
  Whoever had the most points had the most other stuff too--trophies, respect...
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Michael Kohne, 4 Mar 2009 @ 2:15pm

Lawyers without oversight...
I suspect that the problem is that Hasboro's management doesn't pay much attention to what the lawyers are doing. And the Lawyers aren't paying any attention to their own history (or they'd have realized they already C&D'd the guy in 2000).

Lawyers are important to a corporation, but if you don't keep an eye on the buggers, they start to do stuff that's damaging to the organization as a whole (if nothing else, they waste money).

In this way, they are sort of like consultants - valuable if deployed properly, but expensive as well as harmful if you let them run the show.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2009 @ 2:21pm

The problem is that Hasbro has to pay the retainer fee regardless of wither the lawyers work on cases for Hasbro or not, but if the lawyers do work then their pay comes out of the retainer fee first.
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spaceman spiff, 5 Mar 2009 @ 10:10am

Too bad for Hasbro
Well, they just got placed on the same list that I put Sony after the CD rootkit fiasco - until they reverse their behavior I and everyone in my family will boycott their products, totally. So far, I figure this has cost Sony about $20K USD in lost sales. We'll find other providers for our kids' xmas and birthday presents.
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SunKing, 6 Mar 2009 @ 8:11am

Management buck-passing
"You would think, at some point, management at Hasbro would recognize that sending their lawyers off on such wild goose chases not only increases the legal bill, but also does tremendous damage to the Hasbro brand."

Management will do what management always does: hide it, spin it, lie, pass the buck etc. etc. Management NEVER admits. NEVER.
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