Originally published at: Wizards of the Coast sends Pinkerton agents after YouTuber who unboxed a leaked Magic: The Gathering card set | Boing Boing
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I’ve heard of corporations reacting badly to a release embargo before, but this is new.
Look, if you really want to maintain an embargo (especially for months), you don’t let the product leave your factory. This isn’t rocket surgery.
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That’s so weird. If they actually thought the cards had been stolen, they would have called the police. So they clearly knew they weren’t stolen. They were just trying to intimidate this guy into giving the cards back. And when that didn’t work, then the story just became, “Oh it was all just a misunderstanding.” So weird. How did they think this was going to play out? I wonder if this was the result of a single overly-reactionary middle manager.
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For that you need Steady Hand +1 and at least 5 untapped Mana.
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I doubt the police would have done anything over this. Better for corporations turn to private policing, who will do what the money tells them to do…
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Not over what actually happened, of course not. I mean, if the cards had actually been stolen like the story the Pinkertons were initially saying. Like…if someone had broken into a WotC warehouse and stolen a bunch of cards. In that situation, they would have called the police. I’m just saying it’s pretty obvious they knew damn well they weren’t stolen.
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Presumably, they have no evidence to back up them saying it was stolen, so…
They don’t care… corporations don’t care about the law, except where it benefits them. WOTC included…
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I’m stealing your gif
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The videos were “copyright infringement”?
That doesn’t scan. Otherwise any unboxing video of a released set would also be copyright infringement.
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Lmao Hasbro is still sending out goons to harass people who get their hands on info they don’t want out. A long ass time ago when I used to like Nerf guns I sent a bunch of info to a nerf blogger from a Chinese forum that consistently leaked info. Hasbro’s goons didn’t believe him so I paid Hasbro back several times over by doing an ever deeper dive
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Yeah. I think they used big bad Pinkerton to shock and awe him into handing the stuff over before he had a chance to think about it.
If it was a legit purchase, and their mistake, then WotC owes him at least the amount he paid for it. I hope they filled out a receipt for it.
And damnit, Pinkertons are not “lawmen” of any kind!
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Like Matewan sans old-timey music.
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I’m always mildly surprised to be reminded the Pinkertons are still a thing. It’s like reading about the East India Company establishing a new foothold in Bengal.
Possibly even more surprising is that the Pinkerton agency hasn’t rebranded themselves in the many decades since the public came to realize what utter bastards they are.
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Perhaps proud of their history and hence the name? Ex: Ku Klux Klan still goes by that, although sometimes truncated so they can get to their clubs and guns that much faster.
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I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they are copyright infringement under today’s unhinged copyright law. This is a world in which companies can sue if their logo is visible in a movie background. However in the case of unboxing videos rights holders may choose not to object because they’re getting free advertising for their product. They may also calculate that there are too many such videos for it to be worth the time and expense to go after them, at least as long as the videos present their product in a positive light.
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Yup, and oldschoolmtg may have weighed a YouTube copyright strike, justified or not, against his channel and decided that it wasn’t worth the bother.
Still, there are disturbing hints that he let the Pinkertons walk in. i.e. “The Pinkertons took everything”.
F that! Never let cop-wannabees outnumber you in your own home. Control their access from the start.
After hearing that they had a lawyer number to call, “Great, I shall definitely call that lawyer. In the meanwhile, I need all of you to get off the property. If you do not, I will report it as criminal trespass. After talking to that lawyer, I will let you know if there’s any change. HAND.”
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… if you talk about me in public, you’re violating my trademark on myself 
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Or, you know, a copyright takedown to YouTube. YouTube takes stuff down faster than a rock dropped on Jupiter. That would have squashed the early preview but good. No need to send thugs to rough up someone giving free advertising to potential customers.
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It’s not my gif, it’s the people’s gif!
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