there's the strategy right there! they're going to spam you into compliance! i bet they even started a mandatory letter campaign for all associates. by monday you'll have 20 million cease & desist letters on your front porch!

god i hate lawyers.

mac-phisto

Maybe K&L|Gates can explain this in their next SLAPP letter?

Trai_Dep

canuckistan

http://www.klgates.com/professionals/detail.aspx?professio...

Remember me? Ned Ryerson? Ned Ned the head...got the shingles real bad?

He looks like Stephen Tobolowsky from "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray

WALMART SUX!

rhett121

Joe Clark

CollateralDamage

sixsnowflakes

RamV10

Atsukunare

xkaluv

Ben Popken

Ben Popken

Ben Popken

hop

Fair is Fair! We didn't start this! We didn't mean for this to happen! But we're not giving up until you pay! FAIR IS FAIR! Run, Billie Jean! Run!

homerjay- Smiling politely

mikelotus

Ben, I hope you'll keep us updated on this attempted takedown if anything new happens. I do loves me some DMCA-fightin'.

MattyMatt

http://www.klgates.com/professionals/detail.aspx?professio...

PatrickIs2Smart

sorry dude but you were /are "vetren journalist and an actual military vetren" for what hookt on fonix kindergardne klass of som sorta ting?
And why is it that all closet turners, read fags, always think it is proper to insult a guy by trying to convince him to get a male date. If that is what turns your crank do it. I bet your wife is inflatable, you call her Ram-on and take "her" out only so you can use car pool lane. No? Shame on you for being so ordinary and uneducated in a county where anyone can be a president.

szamot

I was making the point that if you were looking for a *starting point* to begin a defense, that is the first step in this. And I'm not a lawyer, duh. Cease and desist on the derogatory comments! :-( And I'm sure Mr. Popken wouldn't hate on his commenters trying to assist and come up with a few ideas. We may be misinformed and misguided, but we are at least loyal!

orielbean

No military VETERAN would vouch for Halliburton, none. Here's some journalism for you-

"...if an American company incorporates a subsidiary under the laws of a foreign nation, the subsidiary is no longer considered a "U.S. resident" under the tax code. Instead, it is considered a "foreign citizen." This allows the parent corporation in America to avoid paying U.S. taxes on the foreign subsidiary's income as long as the income is retained and reinvested outside the United States. Although the foreign income is taxable if sent (repatriated) to the United States, the U.S. parent corporation may repatriate such income at anytime it wishes, meaning it can avoid U.S. income tax INDEFINITELY.

Congress reported that Halliburton owns 17 subsidiaries in tax haven countries, including 13 in the Cayman Islands, which has no corporate income tax, two in Liechtenstein and two in Panama."

If you consider yourself a patriot, then you're a blind patriot.

And I doubt a seasoned journalist would mispell veteran, not to mention an actual veteran.

xVAGUE

p.s. It's spelled "veteran"

Ian S.

No where they the ones who where selling things to our armed forces for 100%+ markups.

THATS why Haliburton is investigated and probed, because their past activity has proven them to be a VERY evil evil company bent on nothing but profit at the expense of US tax dollars and many peoples lives (including soldiers who where ordered to protect Haliburton facilities while other companies in Iraq had to hire their own personal guards.)

Falconfire

(Looking forward to the next big milestone in Consumerist's growing stages: the Homeland Security Waffen-SS raid & Ben doing the perp walk chained, langidly discussing '70s hair styles, on behalf of Haliburton. Or the great city of Boston, whichever is stupider first)

Trai_Dep

BotchedJoke

BotchedJoke

mikelotus

mikelotus

Falconfire

Its a dirty tactic but it was effective before more financially backed blogs started popping up with legal teams of their own.

Falconfire

bastarre

acambras

Yeah, um, maybe. Or you could consult Gawker counsel and not the Consumerist comment thread. I mean, clearly everyone's a lawyer these days, but if you think the fair use defense is as simple as demonstrating critique and commentary, then you're in for an unpleasant surprise. As I've commented before, the affirmative defense of fair use requires a delicate balancing of several factors.

And, not that it applies here, but "fair use" under the DMCA is a different beast entirely. An invisible beast, some might say.

This wasn't legal advice. Back to writing cease-and-desist letters!

RogueSophist

boonelsj

orielbean

"So why don't you go after Haliburton now? I mean they are smartly moving to Dubai to avoid the rath of the Marxists, errrrr deomcrats."

So, you're in favor of them taking all that money they got from NO-BID contracts and taking it to another country so they can avoid paying American taxes on it? You WANT your country not to get tax money it can sorely use for education, etc. from a scumbag company that fed our troops stale food and contaminated water?

I'll bet you think you're a "patriotic American," too, right?

crankymediaguy

puka_pai

I only see "Wal-mart" once in the presentation and it doesn't say anything about confidential on it.
But, of course, IANAL.

ColoradoShark

I would ask someone, like Jennifer of the EFF, for advice, but I would definitely take it down for now until you get better info on this. The market research in particular could easily be deemed confidential even if the actual presentation was not as a whole. Corey Doctorow would also have useful insight into the fair use section.

orielbean

MISREPRESENTATIONS- Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents to a provider that material on-line is infringing shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the provider, by the alleged infringer, or by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as a result of the provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material claimed to be infringing.

peokuk

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c105:2:./temp/~c105j...

is the section they're referencing, and IANAL.

peokuk

If he takes it down, Walmart can count on me not shopping at their business anymore.

But you still shop their despite them being the world's biggest bully otherwise?

mopar_man

I did. :D

mopar_man

lindyman77

This is unlike the situation where you were taking flickr photos, which was infringing and not a fair use. Glad you came to your senses there, although your ridiculous initial statements won't help you if someone does actually sue you for infringement.

this is not legal advice (my cya statement)

WalkenTall

kimdog

Darkest Daze

VA_White

Jon

loquaciousmusic

something_amazing

Contact the guys over at www.fatwallet.com They have plenty of experience with DMCA takedown notices from BB, Walmart, etc.

rbb

There are a lot of things I want to not happen in this world. That doesn't make them illegal.

It's always amusing (well until it starts costing money) how these folks just make stuff up out of thin air and think people will accept it as truth.

TPK

rachmanut

bluebuilder

kcs

rachmanut

BotchedJoke

Art Vandelay

bluebuilder

Ben Popken

unbelievable

Besides Franklin B. Molin of course, oh and teenage girls.

bluebuilder

Falconfire