Yeah, the people that hire them like that reputation and the people they’re going to be hired to investigate are going to be intimidated by it.
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Do they still get hired as union busters / strike breakers?
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Yeah, Amazon have used them to try and break up some of the unions forming in their warehouses.
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Seriously. We used to do embargoes on video game releases when I was in the industry. But we never attempted longer than 24-48 hours. Basically just enough time to get the shelves stocked and the trailer videos up so that everything could be launched all at once across the country.
We never did anything longer than that because we knew you can’t trust every teenager in every GameStop across the country to do the thing you want.
Wizards is trying to embargo for months?! Yah, good luck with that.
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Unfortunately YouTube doesn’t recognize Fair Use. The system is that any corporation can report you for copyright violation, and they will be automatically be believed, with no human in the loop. The system takes down your videos and gives you a “copyright strike”. Three of those and you are banned for life from the platform.
If you appeal long enough and hard enough, you can eventually get a human to look at it and the video reinstated, but in general, the system is simply to do whatever the corporations want. It’s all automated and you are guilty until proven innocent.
As a YouTuber, I live in pretty much constant fear of some corporation deciding I’ve violated their copyright in some way and deleting my livelihood.
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The law on what happened is pretty well established. If you order product A and get B, B is your property upon receipt. You may choose to seek an exchange for A or keep B (because it’s better, because A isn’t available, because you don’t consider it worth the effort, whatever), but if the seller seeks to initiate that exchange or other return your legal right is to refuse and keep your property, any injury the seller incurs is self inflicted and without legal remedy.
If Product B is sold in a retail location but that location or their distributor placed and sold it without authorization, that’s on them and B is your property upon completion of the transaction.
Further, embargos are contracts. By receiving B without first entering a meeting of the minds on that contract, the YouTuber is not bound by an NDA and is free to share his property as the law allows.
This is why they used Pinkertons.
If they used police, the police might arrest the guy but actually getting the property back would be subject to a judge, who would see receipts for the purchase and rule the cards were not stolen and order their return.
If they used a DMCA takedown they risked a counterclaim and would then need to take the claim to a judge and again, they knew the guy had receipts. They admit as much in their statement!
If they used a more reputable security company they would have been given a copy of that company’s jurisdiction, pursuit, and use of force policies and been politely told they need to file a lawsuit because using rent-a-cops this way is illegal.
Thankfully for a company more interested in being feared than being right there are a number of disreputable security companies. And thankfully for Hasbro their recently hired head of risk management is a former executive with Pinkertons and can bypass what few limits they actually recognize.
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Can you link to relevant case law or statute?
Because that does not sound right. I’m pretty sure if you order a toy Lamborghini and a real one turns up by mistake, you’re not going to be allowed to keep the super expensive car.
I don’t think the public has come to realise that. If you don’t follow the history of, say, the Labour movement, it’s very easy not to know their role in strike breaking and all the other things they were up to. Most people will know them as the good guys (or neutral side characters) in some Western movies, and nothing else.
No need to rebrand if your brand is only tainted in one part of society, which would not hire you anyway in the first place.
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Yeah, about that:
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UCC 2-601 in the US universal commercial code. This is often called the Perfect Tender Rule. This law cuts both ways. A seller is required to provide a product perfectly conforming to the order to trigger the buyer’s obligation to accept and pay.
However if the seller does not meet their obligation under the perfect tender rule, the buyer has the right to one of three resolutions: they can reject the entire order (even if some parts do conform), they can accept part of it and reject the rest and make appropriate payment, or (relevant here) they can accept the shipment in full and make the payment. This completes the contract and transfers ownership of the shipment as if the perfect tender expectation was met.
Further, most states have laws meant to protect against predatory mail order sellers that can apply here, the product received could be argued as an unsolicited upgrade, which in many states is legally free - the seller cannot force you to pay for or relinquish such an item.
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Welcome to BoingBoing!
Maybe, but usually not. I worked in video games for 25 years, and the embargoes there were just polite requests. Nothing legal was ever signed with the retailers, we just asked them to hold stuff and they did.
In any case, it’s clear no laws were broken here anywhere. WotC are just being dicks because their marketing stunt didn’t go the way they wanted it to. They hired the Pinkertons because they’ve never heard of Barbara Streisand.
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FWIW the actual East India Company was dissolved in 1874 and that website seems to be some kind of retailer trading off their brand recognition, but still gross that anyone would want to be associated with that organization.
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But it’s fancy and colonial!!! So FANCY!!! Much Colonial!!! /s
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