Did Video Professor Spend Too Much On Lawyers And Not Enough On Its Product?

from the try-my-product... dept

Video Professor, a company well-known in these pages for its penchant for suing both its critics and message boards that hosted its critics, not to speak of trying to suppress competition by misusing trademark law, has apparently hit hard times, a TV station in Denver is reporting:

A person with knowledge of the situation told the 9Wants to Know investigators that Video Professor's approximately 50 employees were called to a meeting Monday and told they were being placed on unpaid furlough.

Phones at Video Professor's corporate office and customer service center were answered Thursday by an automated message notifying callers the offices were closed for the day and to call back at a later time.

A call to Video Professor's CEO and pitchman, John Scherer, drew a return call from a company spokesman who would not answer questions or elaborate beyond a one-sentence statement: "The company is going through a reorganization that involves some temporary furloughs."

Of course, every time it filed one of these cases it just drew more attention to consumer complaints about its sales practices, and stimulated journalists to look into the company. Video Professor rarely found such attention flattering, even in his hometown media.

Is there a lesson here? Did Video Professor spend so much on legal fees that it couldn't improve its product sufficiently to satisfy the market?

Filed Under: criticism, trademark
Companies: video professor

Video Professor Loses Lawsuit Against Amazon Over Keyword Advertising

from the contracts-and-trademarks dept

The Video Professor is the company that is notoriously litigious over critics of its marketing practices -- and just a few months ago even sent us a threatening email after we wrote a post about some of the company's actions. After a quick discussion between lawyers, the company agreed that it would not take action against us. But its lawyers have still been busy elsewhere -- though, the company also seems to lose a lot of lawsuits. This particular one involved Amazon.com, and The Video Professor's annoyance that Amazon had bid on the keywords "video professor" on various ad platforms. Of course, given that Amazon might be selling either products from The Video Professor or some of its competitors, that's a perfectly reasonable (and lawful) use of keyword advertising. The trademark does not give the trademark holder complete control over the mark.

Either way, it looks like the Video Professor has lost again on this one, even if the trademark analysis didn't even come into play. It turns out that way back whenever the company had signed an earlier deal with Amazon to be a vendor on Amazon, it had also signed a vendor agreement that included a "perpetual trademark license." Summary judgment, case closed.

Filed Under: advertising, keyword, lawsuit
Companies: amazon, video professor

Yes, We Can Write Our Opinions Without Contacting The Company We're Writing About First

from the stop-telling-us-otherwise dept

This happens all too frequently. I recently wrote a short post about something that was apparently happening with YouTube and soon after received an angry email from a PR person at the company first scolding me for not contacting Google PR first and then demanding that I insert some PR babble paragraph that said nothing that addressed the key questions raised in the post in "response." This made no sense to me. If I got something factually wrong, I have no problem having someone point out what was in error, but demanding that I first contact them and then include a meaningless statement is ridiculous. If the PR folks have something to say, they're free to take it up in our comments.

It seems that Michael Arrington, over at TechCrunch, has run into something similar (and I'm sure it happens to him all the time as well). After briefly (really, in passing) mentioning the infamous Video Professor in his post on marketing scams, the company first tried to get him to post their response, and when he told them no (in less friendly words), the company instead complained to the Washington Post, who syndicated the same TechCrunch post (as it has done for a while with TechCrunch posts). The real issue, of course, is that The Video Professor didn't like getting called out on its marketing practices. The company is notoriously sensitive over its reputation and has gone legal on people multiple times in the past. At issue is the fact that people are told they're getting a "free" product, but don't realize they're really signing up to pay a lot of money if they don't follow the fine print carefully. Arrington called this a "scam" and plenty of folks agree. The Video Professor did not agree, but if that's the case, it has every right to clarify its own marketing material, rather than going after those who call them out on their less-than-clear practices.

But the bigger issue with these types of situations is that companies need to realize that just because someone doesn't like the way you're acting and states an opinion, on that subject, it doesn't mean that they first need to contact you or get a meaningless PR quote from you. You have a right to respond, but on your own website -- or within open comments if they're available (as they are on this site). For too long, companies have hid behind bland PR statements and the willingness of the press to "balance" stories with an accusation and a denial, but no real effort to get to the bottom of things. That's changing, and it's time that companies and their PR reps caught up to what's happening.

Filed Under: blogging, conversation, journalism, opinions
Companies: google, video professor

The Death Of InfomercialScams.com

from the tragic-ending dept

Paul Alan Levy from Public Citizen has a detailed (and somewhat tragic) story of why the site InfomercialScams is no longer in existence, and the domains of the site are now owned by Video Professor, a company notorious for threatening online critics, such as those commenting on sites like InfomercialScams. The full story is rather involved, but the short version is that the original owner of InfomercialScams sold the site. The new owner instituted something it called its "Consumer Protection Program," where it tried to get those critiqued on the site to pay. What was gained by paying is somewhat in dispute, but one can see how it could be seen as extortion. The new owners of InfomercialScams apparently (alleged by Video Professor, but denied by Infomercial Scams) offered to sell companies "immunity" from criticism, and also would drive more traffic to criticism of companies that didn't pay up. If true, this is certainly distasteful and potentially illegal.

Video Professor sued, claiming that it also took away any Section 230 protections that had previously protected the site. As Levy notes, that would make for an interesting legal discussion, but could be troubling if it were found to be true. Either way, it's not an issue any more, as the owner of the site eventually settled, and appears to have handed over the site as a part of that settlement. However, what's still troubling is that Video Professor also sued InfomercialScams' original owner, Justin Leonard, despite him having absolutely nothing to do with the new policies on the site (or anything to do with the site at all since selling it). As part of the settlement with the new owners, Video Professor also presented a settlement to Leonard, which would have made him "promise not to disparage Video Professor -- or to host disparaging comments on any web site."

Considering he shouldn't have been a part of the lawsuit in the first place and the troubling implications of such a settlement on Leonard's ability to post what could be a perfectly legal site that could potentially host such comments, Leonard has refused to settle and is fighting his inclusion. This is a sad story all around. The original site, which raised some important questions about Video Professor's infomercial practices, is now gone due, in part, to what appears to be poor decisions by its new owners. But, at the same time, the attack on Leonard, the original owner, and the settlement demands just seem totally out of place. Especially given that Video Professor now has taken control over InformercialScams and all its related websites, it seems that the market is ripe for a new site that fairly discusses what infomercial vendors are pitching.

Filed Under: criticism, informercials, section 230
Companies: infomercialscams, video professor