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

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

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

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

Wicked Lasers wins.
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cc (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 4:50pm

Re: Bids
Holy crap! Someone would really pay 600 bucks for this? :D
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 5:31pm

Re:
s/he can send a C&D letter demanding that you not sell or release the C&D letter.
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LumpyDog (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 5:35pm

Re: Re:
I smell a new business model!
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LumpyDog (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 5:36pm

Re: Re: Bids
People who collect Star Wars/LA stuff are a crazy bunch.
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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.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2010 @ 6:06pm

Re: Re: Re:
Keep selling C&D letters demanding the take down of C&D letters. Brilliant!!!
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 6:06pm

Re: Re: Bids
Are you kidding? It's probably signed by George Lucas himself. Or some clerk at LucasFilm, at least.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 6:18pm

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

Six Hundred bucks to send George a Fuck You?

Cheap at twice the price.
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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.
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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.
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Hephaestus (profile), 16 Jul 2010 @ 9:06pm

Now that is cool ...
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abc gum, 16 Jul 2010 @ 9:50pm

Reminds me of Mike Rowe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rowe_%28student%29
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icepick314, 17 Jul 2010 @ 2:59am

at least add the offending laser to the letter in that auction!!!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2010 @ 12:09pm

It's up to $2,125.00.
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