Randomness

[neadods]

I'm going light on the Internet this week in the hopes of seeing Big Bang unspoiled, but it's impossible to miss the number of links pointing out that Thinkgeek has been hit with a real cease-and-desist letter for a product that is not only fictional, but was obviously an April Fool's joke. Some lawyer had an itcy trigger finger!

But it reminded me of a story that must be, oh, 30 years old by now. The Society for Creative Anachronism has a member's magazine called Tournaments Illuminated. Many moons ago as a joke, they came out with the Tournaments Illuminated Martial Extravaganza issue mocked up to look like an illuminated version of Time magazine... and apparently someone sent a copy of the tribute to the editors of Time.

Their lawyer's response boiled down to: "Cute. But do it again and we'll sue your ass off."

Other than that... I knew when we had a Code Orange* day in April that it was going to be a hard summer. The heat index is supposed to hit 102 tomorrow.

Finally, while I was typing this, the new Dr. Pepper commercial came on. Speaking of 30 years ago, wow, nobody (including them!) would have dreamed that KISS would end up peddling soft drinks.



*air quality, not threat level

Comments

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I would have assumed that a TIME "tribute" issue as described would fall under fair use due to being a parody, but lawyers can and will sue where they may... even if they did not win, it would be costly and annoying for the Tournaments Illuminated people, so the threat would have a chilling effect.

I never would have dreamed that KISS would end up peddling soft drinks, but then I never would have dreamed of Bill Shatner fronting for something like Priceline! The power of nostalgia!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Tournaments Illuminated thought it was a parody; Time thought it was a little too close for the casual viewer to distinguish, I think. But I found it worth noting that they didn't actually send a C&D - more of a throat-clearing hint.

Shatner doesn't surprise me so much - he flushed his pride years ago only to discover that he's even more popular & in demand doing self-parodying comedy. So it's win-win for him. As opposed to KISS so obviously having run out of money and pride. Does half of the audience even know who they *were*? Knights In Service to Softdrinks? Seriously?