Listen, we're all nerds here. Nerds are used to seeing themselves as the bullied underdogs, but we're grown ups now. Dealing with idiots like this is what adults have to do; you go ask a lawyer if you should be worried, then you tell them to go fuck themselves. It's bullshit, but it's not bullying, it's the cost of doing business in the real world.
This is the same shit that happens whenever someone draws Gabe's ire and then he paints a giant target on some random idiot that gets swarmed. Ostensibly, the thought process in his mind is, "Yeah! We're fighting back against the bullies!" when the reality of the situation is that if you sit at the top of Penny Arcade Enterprises and have a horde of readers who swarm whatever douchebag you point at, the power relationships you grew up with re: bullying may no longer apply.
Listen, we're all nerds here. Nerds are used to seeing themselves as the bullied underdogs, but we're grown ups now. Dealing with idiots like this is what adults have to do; you go ask a lawyer if you should be worried, then you tell them to go fuck themselves. It's bullshit, but it's not bullying, it's the cost of doing business in the real world.
This is the same shit that happens whenever someone draws Gabe's ire and then he paints a giant target on some random idiot that gets swarmed. Ostensibly, the thought process in his mind is, "Yeah! We're fighting back against the bullies!" when the reality of the situation is that if you sit at the top of Penny Arcade Enterprises and have a horde of readers who swarm whatever douchebag you point at, the power relationships you grew up with re: bullying may no longer apply.
This is a bunch of questionable semantic distinctions and assertions about power dynamics. The accepted definition of bullying is the use of force to induce an action via intimidation. That is what these individuals were trying to do; in this context, the force was legal. The fact that they failed, and were foolish to have even tried, doesn't generate the distinction you seem to think it does. A bully remains a bully regardless of who they are trying to bully and how they are trying to do it.
trying to draw some kind of equivalency between a lawyer sending a takedown letter and 'yes sir may I have another' is pretty silly. Even if you can reason your way into calling this kind of letter 'bullying,' there's really no similarity with the kind of thing that goes on in a schoolyard or that people imagine goes on in a greek house.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Are you implying that you shouldn't call a lawyer sending a notice attempting to get someone to do something that they aren't legally required to do by threat of legal force bullying because it's nothing like schoolyard bullying where a child attempts to get someone to something they don't want to by threat of physical force?
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited November 2012
If you don't understand how "I'll get my lawyers involved" is bullying then I don't know what to say to you.
Back when I was frontline tech support, the only people who threatened to get their lawyers involved were the bullies, the people who wanted nothing more than to spit on you because you're a CSA and they are a VIP and it's time for you to learn your place, scumbag.
And no, it doesn't matter if the person trying to do the bullying is leveraging it towards people like Gabe and Tycho who obviously have power and can't be bullied like that. The attempt at bullying is still there. The fact that it's a laughably flat footed attempt is irrelevant.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Can we all agree that given the existence of Internet caches, it is pointless to do this and utterly counterproductive because it draws attention to it.
Considering how stupid it is I think it's generous to call it bullying. It's just some poor guy who doesn't know how the internet works. Pity them.
Consider that the thread containing the offending post was two years old. That post with the "secret handshake" garbage necro-bumped it, and nearly the very next day Gabe was tweeting about getting the takedown notice.
(I will preface this by saying the following is my own perspective, and I do not endeavor to speak for anyone else.)
Look, here's how it works: This site, and these forums, see a lot of traffic. A lot. Mostly, that's fine. If you're here to post dumb shit, awesome. That scenario is well in hand. If you want to make threads to post dumb shit in, also awesome. That infrastructure is in place! Wanna PM your friends? Go to town!
But sometimes, people want things that are out of the ordinary. They want exceptions to be made, for one reason or another. Maybe they're running for office, and they want all their old posts removed. Maybe they signed up when they were drunk and they want a username that doesn't have a bunch of numbers in it. The thing is, by virtue of the volume of traffic, even the relatively rare exceptions come in way too fast for the relative few staffing the place to possibly give everyone everything they want. Doing things takes time and effort, and if you grant one person an exception, the next person is going to piss and moan all the harder if you don't grant them theirs.
So the unwritten, unofficial general policy is something like this: This is not your site. Life is unfair. Either deal with it, or leave.
Now, this is not to say that exceptions are never made! But the sheer volume of bullshit directed at the staff has understandably effected a very low tolerance for bullshit. If you come at them with your bullshit, you will be shut down. You think whoever it was who was running for office came at them all lawyered up? You think they were making demands? Or do you think maybe they asked respectfully, maybe they made it clear they understood what they were asking for, and that they weren't owed anything?
If you've got a problem, and if you're going to ask the folks who run this forum and this site to take your problem and make it their problem, you'd best come hat in hand, say pretty please, and cross your fingers. Because you don't pay for these forums. You don't maintain them. You just use them, at the pleasure of the people who do pay for and maintain them.
This is not your site. Life is unfair. Either deal with it, or leave.
I can't help but wondering, though, if their decision was informed by this being a greek organization, rather than something that they liked. If, I don't know, corporate secrets (that's more or less what these are, even if they don't really make profit with these more greek organizations are incorporated) from a company that Jerry and Mike liked, I don't think they'd have still said "Sorry, I have no control over what happens at this website I own.
Mike and Jerry have a bit of a history of being bullies. Sometimes the targets "deserve" it, and I'm sure that on some level it has to do with how they have been pushed around themselves in the past, but when they attack a radio host because their publicist booked them on the wrong show, or when they draw public attention to a sorority handshake in response to being asked to suppress it, it becomes clear that they aren't just trying to live their own lives in peace, but rather they kind of have a thing for attacking others when the mood suits them. Even if you want to claim that the sorority came on too strong here and that somehow justified their actions, past behaviors suggest a different pattern.
(I will preface this by saying the following is my own perspective, and I do not endeavor to speak for anyone else.)
Look, here's how it works: This site, and these forums, see a lot of traffic. A lot. Mostly, that's fine. If you're here to post dumb shit, awesome. That scenario is well in hand. If you want to make threads to post dumb shit in, also awesome. That infrastructure is in place! Wanna PM your friends? Go to town!
But sometimes, people want things that are out of the ordinary. They want exceptions to be made, for one reason or another. Maybe they're running for office, and they want all their old posts removed. Maybe they signed up when they were drunk and they want a username that doesn't have a bunch of numbers in it. The thing is, by virtue of the volume of traffic, even the relatively rare exceptions come in way too fast for the relative few staffing the place to possibly give everyone everything they want. Doing things takes time and effort, and if you grant one person an exception, the next person is going to piss and moan all the harder if you don't grant them theirs.
So the unwritten, unofficial general policy is something like this: This is not your site. Life is unfair. Either deal with it, or leave.
Now, this is not to say that exceptions are never made! But the sheer volume of bullshit directed at the staff has understandably effected a very low tolerance for bullshit. If you come at them with your bullshit, you will be shut down. You think whoever it was who was running for office came at them all lawyered up? You think they were making demands? Or do you think maybe they asked respectfully, maybe they made it clear they understood what they were asking for, and that they weren't owed anything?
If you've got a problem, and if you're going to ask the folks who run this forum and this site to take your problem and make it their problem, you'd best come hat in hand, say pretty please, and cross your fingers. Because you don't pay for these forums. You don't maintain them. You just use them, at the pleasure of the people who do pay for and maintain them.
This is not your site. Life is unfair. Either deal with it, or leave.
I can't help but wondering, though, if their decision was informed by this being a greek organization, rather than something that they liked. If, I don't know, corporate secrets (that's more or less what these are, even if they don't really make profit with these more greek organizations are incorporated) from a company that Jerry and Mike liked, I don't think they'd have still said "Sorry, I have no control over what happens at this website I own.
Mike and Jerry have a bit of a history of being bullies. Sometimes the targets "deserve" it, and I'm sure that on some level it has to do with how they have been pushed around themselves in the past, but when they attack a radio host because their publicist booked them on the wrong show, or when they draw public attention to a sorority handshake in response to being asked to suppress it, it becomes clear that they aren't just trying to live their own lives in peace, but rather they kind of have a thing for attacking others when the mood suits them. Even if you want to claim that the sorority came on too strong here and that somehow justified their actions, past behaviors suggest a different pattern.
Point to a single time when they have actually behaved in the way you suggest in the first paragraph and I will grant your premise. Until then you're just asserting that something different would have happened and then treating that assertion as a fact. What I see in their past behavior is a lot of pushing back against people who have pushed them, whether by being disrespectful or by attempting to coerce them to do something they don't want to do. Their suggested obligation to 'live their lives in peace' is by no means a categorical imperative, especially if they're provoked to action.
Yeah, unfortunately J&M fight back against being bullied by being bullies themselves and the internet's the perfect crowd of schoolchildren to hop in and join the fray. Sometimes that's the best available avenue for teaching the original bully a lesson (that controller dude) but a lot of the time it's not the proper solution and can make things worse (Dickwolves).
+1
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Listen, we're all nerds here. Nerds are used to seeing themselves as the bullied underdogs, but we're grown ups now. Dealing with idiots like this is what adults have to do; you go ask a lawyer if you should be worried, then you tell them to go fuck themselves. It's bullshit, but it's not bullying, it's the cost of doing business in the real world.
This is the same shit that happens whenever someone draws Gabe's ire and then he paints a giant target on some random idiot that gets swarmed. Ostensibly, the thought process in his mind is, "Yeah! We're fighting back against the bullies!" when the reality of the situation is that if you sit at the top of Penny Arcade Enterprises and have a horde of readers who swarm whatever douchebag you point at, the power relationships you grew up with re: bullying may no longer apply.
I had a great big post about this, but yeah, this. The last bit, especially, could use being some discussion and consideration by the "nerd" community, John Scalzi has had some discussion about out on his blog for the past few months which got me thinking about this in the first place.
I don't know, I'd say that it's pretty easy to define sending spurious legal requests as the mark of a bully. I don't feel bad when bullies don't get their way.
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That's...not bullying. That's asking that it be removed, but using your legal counsel to do it. That's not something unprecedented, it's sensible when dealing with another entity. Frankly I thought this was about as polite a request as it can be from a legal standpoint. There's no threat...they ask essentially for acknowledgment of the letter. They can, and apparently did, just tell them to piss off, which fulfills the request.
Also this. This doesn't read like an actual legal threat looks like, as opposed to someone filling out a form letter and complying with best practices.
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El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
There is a right way and a wrong way to approach Mike and Jerry on this.
I'm sure they have had tons of people threatening to sue their asses if they didn't comply with whatever. Each and every threat like this is a threat to what they've built at PA, because the law in the US is apeshit bananas about giving out stupidly large settlements for apparently innocuous things. I would be VERY surprised if PA has two piles for lawyer letters- "Looks like they are going to sue us" and "no, this is actually rainbows and unicorns".
This particular situation the sorority had zero legal ground to stand on, so they probably didn't actually HAVE to point the big guns at them and publically humiliate them for this. But I actually think in many ways this is a really good idea to do. When people look up "what happens when you try to get Mike and Jerry to do what you want by leading with your lawyers", they will see this and realize that maybe they won't respond well to this kind of opening.
Maybe next time people who have an honest desire to have an exception made for them for whatever will approach Mike and Jerry respectfully and say "we'd really like you to do us this favour, and in exchange we'd be happy to host an event for Child's Play or something". If this is the case even once in the future, I'd say that responding this way is a great idea.
+3
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Maybe next time people who have an honest desire to have an exception made for them for whatever will approach Mike and Jerry respectfully and say "we'd really like you to do us this favour, and in exchange we'd be happy to host an event for Child's Play or something". If this is the case even once in the future, I'd say that responding this way is a great idea.
Mike said right in the post that approach wouldn't have worked. I just think that "bullying back" the sorority, even deservedly, is kind of beneath Mike, and amount of ink spilled over a pretty tame takedown notice is weirdly out-of-proportion. That said, he doesn't try to hold himself out as some bastion of human righteousness, so whatever gives him his kicks, I guess. It's more aggravating to me when other creators who do claim a kind of moral high ground do the same bullying back.
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
When you call something infringement, there is an implicit threat of legal action.
The "bullying" aspect comes from the sorority lawyer knowing that they have no legal grounds to demand that it be taken down, but doing so anyway and hoping that PA won't call their bluff and will be scared enough of the lawyer's letterhead to just do what they say.
There wasn't an explicit threat of legal action, but there was a third option: asking PA to take it down as a favor, without communicating through lawyers and all the baggage that goes with it.
Gabe says he probably wouldn't have complied with a more polite offer, but like the sorority, he had three options:
1. Take it down
2. Don't take it down
3. Don't take it down, tell everyone about the request
Even if he wouldn't have taken it down, I can't help but think that a less lawyery "Hi, I'm so&so, and we're trying to keep X secret, can you do us a favor and delete that post?" request would have made Gabe more likely to go with Option 2 than Option 3.
Yeah, unfortunately J&M fight back against being bullied by being bullies themselves and the internet's the perfect crowd of schoolchildren to hop in and join the fray. Sometimes that's the best available avenue for teaching the original bully a lesson (that controller dude) but a lot of the time it's not the proper solution and can make things worse (Dickwolves).
That's one way of looking at it. The other way is, they just don't like the nonsense the internet throws in their face nowadays and they react how someone in real life would if someone walked up to them & did what they do online. Which admittedly makes them look like assholes online, but the internet is, in fact, the real asshole.
We wouldn't have taken it down if they asked nicely. We don't do that. In the incredibly unlikely event that Mike or Jerry explicitly told me that I had to do it I would have kicked off very hard before doing it.
I'm still wondering the crime that the sorority committed. You mind your business, bothering no one, some asshat posts stuff that is damaging to your organization (whether the posters/owners here care is irrelevant). What, pray tell, would you do? Jesus. You guys are painting this group like they came in guns blazing and trying to destroy PA. What happened is that PA took a formal request and not only did not remove the damaging material (yes yes, they don't have to, I get it, damn), but inflicted greater harm by making a public mockery out of it. Can I try another analogy? Okay, so you're in school. Some kid is pissed and gets a picture of you changing in the locker room or something, and posts that up on the bulletin board by the school entrance. The kids parents call the school to get that removed. The school says "EFF YOU BULLY" and doesn't remove it, and then tells everyone about the parents calling about the photo and directs everyone to look at the photo.
You guys have a really twisted idea of what bullying is. It is twisted 180 degrees.
You may think sororities/fraternities are stupid, but plenty of business people have been in them, still support them, and may be a bit more wary dealing with Penny Arcade. Probably not, and that's clearly the risk Mike and Jerry are going with. But the point is that ultimate you and Penny Arcade are completely missing the point.
roflstomp on
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
We wouldn't have taken it down if they asked nicely. We don't do that. In the incredibly unlikely event that Mike or Jerry explicitly told me that I had to do it I would have kicked off very hard before doing it.
Right, I'm just speculating that maybe if they had asked nicely, Gabe would have left it up but just not mentioned it on his twitter/post/comic.
I'm still wondering the crime that the sorority committed. You mind your business, bothering no one, some asshat posts stuff that is damaging to your organization (whether the posters/owners here care is irrelevant). What, pray tell, would you do? Jesus. You guys are painting this group like they came in guns blazing and trying to destroy PA. What happened is that PA took a formal request and not only did not remove the damaging material (yes yes, they don't have to, I get it, damn), but inflicted greater harm by making a public mockery out of it. Can I try another analogy? Okay, so you're in school. Some kid is pissed and gets a picture of you changing in the locker room or something, and posts that up on the bulletin board by the school entrance. The kids parents call the school to get that removed. The school says "EFF YOU BULLY" and doesn't remove it, and then tells everyone about the parents calling about the photo and directs everyone to look at the photo.
You guys have a really twisted idea of what bullying is. It is twisted 180 degrees.
You may think sororities/fraternities are stupid, but plenty of business people have been in them, still support them, and may be a bit more wary dealing with Penny Arcade. Probably not, and that's clearly the risk Mike and Jerry are going with. But the point is that ultimate you and Penny Arcade are completely missing the point.
You're coming at this from such a radically different worldview that I'm not sure we're going to be able to find common ground. No one here suggested that the identity of the organization as a sorority or fraternity ought to be in play when judging how to act (except Evander, who appears to be on your side of the issue). The questions here are:
A) Should the organization have the right to request that the information be removed? Should the organization have the right to use the law to coerce removal?
C) Do Mike and Jerry have any kind of moral obligation to remove the offending data?
D) Should Mike and Jerry be compelled to remove the offending data if they decline to do so by request?
The answers, from my point of view, are clear: yes, the organization obviously has the right to request removal. No, the organization should not be able to use the law for coercive purposes in this particular instance, because the revelation of this particular information is in no way, shape, or form a major threat to the organization. It is a goddamn secret handshake. It isn't missile launch codes or (as you suggested in that pearl of an analogy) semi-nude photos. No, Mike and Jerry have no moral obligation to remove this data because this data is ridiculously trivial, no matter the degree to which sentimentality informs the organization's view of it. And no, Mike and Jerry should not be compelled to remove this data - the country in which we are operating respects a citizen's rights to speech, barring certain boundaries for property rights and trade secrets. This is nowhere close to outside those boundaries.
I want to be clear on this point, though: you have suggested that Mike and Jerry refusing to remove a post about a secret handshake is equivalent to a school aiding and abetting the exploitation of a child. That's in pretty poor taste.
Not removing it is their prerogative. It's too bad, but okay fine. The point of my post is that creating a comic and a news post mocking and calling more attention to it is the real issue. You call my analogy what you want, the point was to crack the weird shell here. We're all PA fans, and I realize that as fans we become entrenched on PA's side. But they can and do mess up, and this is one of them. The comic is of course different than the actual news post. This wouldn't have been an issue if Mike hadn't made a post specifically pointing to the subject matter.
Not removing it is their prerogative. It's too bad, but okay fine. The point of my post is that creating a comic and a news post mocking and calling more attention to it is the real issue. You call my analogy what you want, the point was to crack the weird shell here. We're all PA fans, and I realize that as fans we become entrenched on PA's side. But they can and do mess up, and this is one of them. The comic is of course different than the actual news post. This wouldn't have been an issue if Mike hadn't made a post specifically pointing to the subject matter.
phi sigma sigma had their purported counsel send a takedown notice with veiled threat of legal action when PSS had no underlying cause of actual legal action, and when maybe PSS could have asked nicely first, and you're saying Mike and Jerry mocking that is a war crime?
BassguyGhost Ride the DragonRegistered Userregular
This is a pretty good example of the Streisand effect. If they'd have just left this alone, nobody would have ever cared about that random post, and anyone who did stumble upon it would have no idea if it was accurate or not. Now we all know that the post is accurate, and there is a small kerfuffle over it so way more people will see it/be able to search for it.
People like Mike and Jerry retaliating against bogus legal threats (Either explicit or implicit) is something I whole-heartedly endorse.
That has been covered well in this thread. At least in the United States, having your lawyer send a demand letter is unambiguously threatening. It carries the implied threat of legal action.
It hasn't been, because there is no damned threat. There's lots of over-interpretation going on. I'm reminded of the Dickwolves thing, where people took the ball and ran with it, and missed the point of the comic entirely. That worked out pretty well. :-(
People do not have lawyers send letters about stuff they don't plan to take legal action on or want to make people think they will take legal action on.
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A letter sent by a lawyer saying "Do this" is an implied threat.
To be fair, people do have lawyer send letters about stuff they don't actually plan to take action on all the time. It's unethical and in some places actually illegal, but it happens all the damn time.
However, it's still a threat. And this isn't even some esoteric argument about the general definition of bullying vs. its most common specific modern use ("intimidation by threat" vs. "intimidation between children on the playground"), it's the actual legal term. Whether it's a cease and desist, a takedown notice, a demands letter, or even just notification that a lawyer is involved with an address to refer future communication, it is called a "legal threat." Legal threats serve several purposes, and an explicit warning of impending lawsuit doesn't even have to be one of them, let alone the most important.
I don't see the letter as a threat. If I had access to a lawyer, and some very large organization had information that I personally felt was both important and sensitive to me, I'd probably ask the lawyer to help me draft up a letter. Just to help it be more professional, cover any holes that could screw me, be taken somewhat seriously, etc. Simply having a lawyer write something that would otherwise clearly not be a threat in any way doesn't make it threatening to me.
But I think that's kind of irrelevant. Lets assume that it was a direct threat. It's still worthless, there's obviously no legal grounds to stand on here. Analogy time!
So imagine you find out some secret of Bob. It's nothing important, maybe Bob just likes to draw pictures of ponies or something, and you accidentally ended up with a copy of one of his pictures. You don't care. But to Bob, it's actually rather important to him that this not be shared. Maybe he's secretly a member of the Anti-Pony club or something. So Bob comes to you and threatens to punch you if you ever tell anyone and if you don't destroy the picture. Not cool, right?
But some more information. See, Bob happens to also be in a wheelchair, and has no arms. Also, you are built like the Hulk.
At this point, should you really care what Bob says? His threat is, of course, stupid. He will never succeed, and in all honesty if Bob tries to attack you he's just going to make himself look pitiful.
But then you decide to teach Bob a lesson, so you make copies of his signed picture and post them up all around town. No one else still really cares, but now it's kind of in their faces so they all at least see. And even though you and most other people think its not important, at the very least it was important to Bob.
It was completely uncalled for to respond to a threat that was completely powerless by doing the one thing that would hurt someone else. Be an adult and get over it.
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A letter sent by a lawyer saying "Do this" is an implied threat.
Thank you for providing this recap of them making a legal threat, me pointing out it is a legal threat, and you inexplicably not comprehending it as a legal threat. I think most of us were up to speed on it, though.
Now if you think the fact they phrased it pseudo-nicely by saying "we ask" changes anything or makes it any less a demand accompanied by an implied threat, you are more naive than I thought.
Thank you for providing this recap of them making a legal threat, me pointing out it is a legal threat, and you inexplicably not comprehending it as a legal threat. I think most of us were up to speed on it, though.
Now if you think the fact they phrased it pseudo-nicely by saying "we ask" changes anything or makes it any less a demand accompanied by an implied threat, you are more naive than I thought.
They didn't make a legal threat, Jesus. You're trying to hard and twisting yourself into a knot to defend what Mike did in making this situation an issue. I think Mike would have done this no matter what based on his reply, and therein lies the entirety of the problem. It's not some sorority, or them choosing to have their attorney write the letter instead of their President or whatever. Hell, chances are it would have been worse if one of their leadership had done it. And, again, this is a sorority that hasn't done a damned thing to PA other than exist.
Thank you for providing this recap of them making a legal threat, me pointing out it is a legal threat, and you inexplicably not comprehending it as a legal threat. I think most of us were up to speed on it, though.
Now if you think the fact they phrased it pseudo-nicely by saying "we ask" changes anything or makes it any less a demand accompanied by an implied threat, you are more naive than I thought.
They didn't make a legal threat, Jesus. You're trying to hard and twisting yourself into a knot to defend what Mike did in making this situation an issue. I think Mike would have done this no matter what based on his reply, and therein lies the entirety of the problem. It's not some sorority, or them choosing to have their attorney write the letter instead of their President or whatever. Hell, chances are it would have been worse if one of their leadership had done it. And, again, this is a sorority that hasn't done a damned thing to PA other than exist.
I am not "twisting myself into a knot" to defend what Mike did. I am not defending what Mike did at all. I don't particularly care about what Mike did one way or the other. I think doing what he did is a legitimate way to handle it, I think completely ignoring it would have been an equally defensible way to handle it. I take no position on Mike's motivations, or whether he would have done it if the circumstances had been different according to this or that hypothetical, or any such pointless speculative pseudo-psychoanalytical bullshit.
The fact is that a legal threat (whether a foolish, empty one or not) was made. When somebody has their lawyer send you a letter telling you to do something, it is because they intend to make you think they will pursue legal action if you do not comply. It is an implied threat of legal force. If you can't see how that works, that is your problem. That is the only point I am making.
Pretty much the only way to think that a lawyer "asking" you for something and then giving you 10 days to report compliance or not is the same as not making a threat is to think like a lawyer and read "ask" super-literally as "we're just asking you!" rather than in the way it's implied when, for example, a lawyer for an organization emails you and tells you to take 'secret' information off of your website.
Considering that the letter specifically mentions DMCA, it would be a 'legal threat'. By ignoring the instructions in the letter, PA makes itself legally liable. Legally it's binding documentation and not to be taken lightly.
Frankly I'd have a lawyer send a letter too, threat or no, because you'd better sure as shit believe they'll actually read a lawyer's letter as opposed to some frat dude asking nicely.
Thank you for providing this recap of them making a legal threat, me pointing out it is a legal threat, and you inexplicably not comprehending it as a legal threat. I think most of us were up to speed on it, though.
Now if you think the fact they phrased it pseudo-nicely by saying "we ask" changes anything or makes it any less a demand accompanied by an implied threat, you are more naive than I thought.
They didn't make a legal threat, Jesus. You're trying to hard and twisting yourself into a knot to defend what Mike did in making this situation an issue. I think Mike would have done this no matter what based on his reply, and therein lies the entirety of the problem. It's not some sorority, or them choosing to have their attorney write the letter instead of their President or whatever. Hell, chances are it would have been worse if one of their leadership had done it. And, again, this is a sorority that hasn't done a damned thing to PA other than exist.
roflstomp, the sorority could just have easily consulted an attorney on the content of the message but then sent the message directly, without having "counsel" send it for them.
make no mistake, a cease-and-desist letter sent through counsel is a clear signal that legal action is impending. it almost always means that the party behind the letter intends to either 1) actually pursue legal action if the other party does not comply, or 2) try to scare the other party into complying out of fear that legal action might happen.
that is absolutely a legal "threat".
as for whether or not Mike's response is defensible, i would respond that that largely hinges on how you characterize a letter that was presumably sent by an attorney (we don't know for sure if an actual attorney sent the letter) claiming to have authority on a cause of action that has no legal basis but demanding that PA do something anyways. mature? not really. funny, definitely. morally wrong? since everyone's lawfully allowed to do what has already been done so far, and since no one is seriously hurt or injured, there's not really a problem.
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This is the same shit that happens whenever someone draws Gabe's ire and then he paints a giant target on some random idiot that gets swarmed. Ostensibly, the thought process in his mind is, "Yeah! We're fighting back against the bullies!" when the reality of the situation is that if you sit at the top of Penny Arcade Enterprises and have a horde of readers who swarm whatever douchebag you point at, the power relationships you grew up with re: bullying may no longer apply.
This is a bunch of questionable semantic distinctions and assertions about power dynamics. The accepted definition of bullying is the use of force to induce an action via intimidation. That is what these individuals were trying to do; in this context, the force was legal. The fact that they failed, and were foolish to have even tried, doesn't generate the distinction you seem to think it does. A bully remains a bully regardless of who they are trying to bully and how they are trying to do it.
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Back when I was frontline tech support, the only people who threatened to get their lawyers involved were the bullies, the people who wanted nothing more than to spit on you because you're a CSA and they are a VIP and it's time for you to learn your place, scumbag.
And no, it doesn't matter if the person trying to do the bullying is leveraging it towards people like Gabe and Tycho who obviously have power and can't be bullied like that. The attempt at bullying is still there. The fact that it's a laughably flat footed attempt is irrelevant.
Considering how stupid it is I think it's generous to call it bullying. It's just some poor guy who doesn't know how the internet works. Pity them.
That's fishy.
I can't help but wondering, though, if their decision was informed by this being a greek organization, rather than something that they liked. If, I don't know, corporate secrets (that's more or less what these are, even if they don't really make profit with these more greek organizations are incorporated) from a company that Jerry and Mike liked, I don't think they'd have still said "Sorry, I have no control over what happens at this website I own.
Mike and Jerry have a bit of a history of being bullies. Sometimes the targets "deserve" it, and I'm sure that on some level it has to do with how they have been pushed around themselves in the past, but when they attack a radio host because their publicist booked them on the wrong show, or when they draw public attention to a sorority handshake in response to being asked to suppress it, it becomes clear that they aren't just trying to live their own lives in peace, but rather they kind of have a thing for attacking others when the mood suits them. Even if you want to claim that the sorority came on too strong here and that somehow justified their actions, past behaviors suggest a different pattern.
Point to a single time when they have actually behaved in the way you suggest in the first paragraph and I will grant your premise. Until then you're just asserting that something different would have happened and then treating that assertion as a fact. What I see in their past behavior is a lot of pushing back against people who have pushed them, whether by being disrespectful or by attempting to coerce them to do something they don't want to do. Their suggested obligation to 'live their lives in peace' is by no means a categorical imperative, especially if they're provoked to action.
I had a great big post about this, but yeah, this. The last bit, especially, could use being some discussion and consideration by the "nerd" community, John Scalzi has had some discussion about out on his blog for the past few months which got me thinking about this in the first place.
Also this. This doesn't read like an actual legal threat looks like, as opposed to someone filling out a form letter and complying with best practices.
I'm sure they have had tons of people threatening to sue their asses if they didn't comply with whatever. Each and every threat like this is a threat to what they've built at PA, because the law in the US is apeshit bananas about giving out stupidly large settlements for apparently innocuous things. I would be VERY surprised if PA has two piles for lawyer letters- "Looks like they are going to sue us" and "no, this is actually rainbows and unicorns".
This particular situation the sorority had zero legal ground to stand on, so they probably didn't actually HAVE to point the big guns at them and publically humiliate them for this. But I actually think in many ways this is a really good idea to do. When people look up "what happens when you try to get Mike and Jerry to do what you want by leading with your lawyers", they will see this and realize that maybe they won't respond well to this kind of opening.
Maybe next time people who have an honest desire to have an exception made for them for whatever will approach Mike and Jerry respectfully and say "we'd really like you to do us this favour, and in exchange we'd be happy to host an event for Child's Play or something". If this is the case even once in the future, I'd say that responding this way is a great idea.
Mike said right in the post that approach wouldn't have worked. I just think that "bullying back" the sorority, even deservedly, is kind of beneath Mike, and amount of ink spilled over a pretty tame takedown notice is weirdly out-of-proportion. That said, he doesn't try to hold himself out as some bastion of human righteousness, so whatever gives him his kicks, I guess. It's more aggravating to me when other creators who do claim a kind of moral high ground do the same bullying back.
The "bullying" aspect comes from the sorority lawyer knowing that they have no legal grounds to demand that it be taken down, but doing so anyway and hoping that PA won't call their bluff and will be scared enough of the lawyer's letterhead to just do what they say.
There wasn't an explicit threat of legal action, but there was a third option: asking PA to take it down as a favor, without communicating through lawyers and all the baggage that goes with it.
Gabe says he probably wouldn't have complied with a more polite offer, but like the sorority, he had three options:
1. Take it down
2. Don't take it down
3. Don't take it down, tell everyone about the request
Even if he wouldn't have taken it down, I can't help but think that a less lawyery "Hi, I'm so&so, and we're trying to keep X secret, can you do us a favor and delete that post?" request would have made Gabe more likely to go with Option 2 than Option 3.
You guys have a really twisted idea of what bullying is. It is twisted 180 degrees.
You may think sororities/fraternities are stupid, but plenty of business people have been in them, still support them, and may be a bit more wary dealing with Penny Arcade. Probably not, and that's clearly the risk Mike and Jerry are going with. But the point is that ultimate you and Penny Arcade are completely missing the point.
Right, I'm just speculating that maybe if they had asked nicely, Gabe would have left it up but just not mentioned it on his twitter/post/comic.
You're coming at this from such a radically different worldview that I'm not sure we're going to be able to find common ground. No one here suggested that the identity of the organization as a sorority or fraternity ought to be in play when judging how to act (except Evander, who appears to be on your side of the issue). The questions here are:
A) Should the organization have the right to request that the information be removed?
C) Do Mike and Jerry have any kind of moral obligation to remove the offending data?
D) Should Mike and Jerry be compelled to remove the offending data if they decline to do so by request?
The answers, from my point of view, are clear: yes, the organization obviously has the right to request removal. No, the organization should not be able to use the law for coercive purposes in this particular instance, because the revelation of this particular information is in no way, shape, or form a major threat to the organization. It is a goddamn secret handshake. It isn't missile launch codes or (as you suggested in that pearl of an analogy) semi-nude photos. No, Mike and Jerry have no moral obligation to remove this data because this data is ridiculously trivial, no matter the degree to which sentimentality informs the organization's view of it. And no, Mike and Jerry should not be compelled to remove this data - the country in which we are operating respects a citizen's rights to speech, barring certain boundaries for property rights and trade secrets. This is nowhere close to outside those boundaries.
I want to be clear on this point, though: you have suggested that Mike and Jerry refusing to remove a post about a secret handshake is equivalent to a school aiding and abetting the exploitation of a child. That's in pretty poor taste.
phi sigma sigma had their purported counsel send a takedown notice with veiled threat of legal action when PSS had no underlying cause of actual legal action, and when maybe PSS could have asked nicely first, and you're saying Mike and Jerry mocking that is a war crime?
just trying to be clear here.
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People like Mike and Jerry retaliating against bogus legal threats (Either explicit or implicit) is something I whole-heartedly endorse.
This is not hard to understand.
A letter sent by a lawyer saying "Do this" is an implied threat. I don't know what's difficult for you about this.
However, it's still a threat. And this isn't even some esoteric argument about the general definition of bullying vs. its most common specific modern use ("intimidation by threat" vs. "intimidation between children on the playground"), it's the actual legal term. Whether it's a cease and desist, a takedown notice, a demands letter, or even just notification that a lawyer is involved with an address to refer future communication, it is called a "legal threat." Legal threats serve several purposes, and an explicit warning of impending lawsuit doesn't even have to be one of them, let alone the most important.
But I think that's kind of irrelevant. Lets assume that it was a direct threat. It's still worthless, there's obviously no legal grounds to stand on here. Analogy time!
So imagine you find out some secret of Bob. It's nothing important, maybe Bob just likes to draw pictures of ponies or something, and you accidentally ended up with a copy of one of his pictures. You don't care. But to Bob, it's actually rather important to him that this not be shared. Maybe he's secretly a member of the Anti-Pony club or something. So Bob comes to you and threatens to punch you if you ever tell anyone and if you don't destroy the picture. Not cool, right?
But some more information. See, Bob happens to also be in a wheelchair, and has no arms. Also, you are built like the Hulk.
At this point, should you really care what Bob says? His threat is, of course, stupid. He will never succeed, and in all honesty if Bob tries to attack you he's just going to make himself look pitiful.
But then you decide to teach Bob a lesson, so you make copies of his signed picture and post them up all around town. No one else still really cares, but now it's kind of in their faces so they all at least see. And even though you and most other people think its not important, at the very least it was important to Bob.
It was completely uncalled for to respond to a threat that was completely powerless by doing the one thing that would hurt someone else. Be an adult and get over it.
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Thank you for providing this recap of them making a legal threat, me pointing out it is a legal threat, and you inexplicably not comprehending it as a legal threat. I think most of us were up to speed on it, though.
Now if you think the fact they phrased it pseudo-nicely by saying "we ask" changes anything or makes it any less a demand accompanied by an implied threat, you are more naive than I thought.
They didn't make a legal threat, Jesus. You're trying to hard and twisting yourself into a knot to defend what Mike did in making this situation an issue. I think Mike would have done this no matter what based on his reply, and therein lies the entirety of the problem. It's not some sorority, or them choosing to have their attorney write the letter instead of their President or whatever. Hell, chances are it would have been worse if one of their leadership had done it. And, again, this is a sorority that hasn't done a damned thing to PA other than exist.
I am not "twisting myself into a knot" to defend what Mike did. I am not defending what Mike did at all. I don't particularly care about what Mike did one way or the other. I think doing what he did is a legitimate way to handle it, I think completely ignoring it would have been an equally defensible way to handle it. I take no position on Mike's motivations, or whether he would have done it if the circumstances had been different according to this or that hypothetical, or any such pointless speculative pseudo-psychoanalytical bullshit.
The fact is that a legal threat (whether a foolish, empty one or not) was made. When somebody has their lawyer send you a letter telling you to do something, it is because they intend to make you think they will pursue legal action if you do not comply. It is an implied threat of legal force. If you can't see how that works, that is your problem. That is the only point I am making.
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roflstomp, the sorority could just have easily consulted an attorney on the content of the message but then sent the message directly, without having "counsel" send it for them.
make no mistake, a cease-and-desist letter sent through counsel is a clear signal that legal action is impending. it almost always means that the party behind the letter intends to either 1) actually pursue legal action if the other party does not comply, or 2) try to scare the other party into complying out of fear that legal action might happen.
that is absolutely a legal "threat".
as for whether or not Mike's response is defensible, i would respond that that largely hinges on how you characterize a letter that was presumably sent by an attorney (we don't know for sure if an actual attorney sent the letter) claiming to have authority on a cause of action that has no legal basis but demanding that PA do something anyways. mature? not really. funny, definitely. morally wrong? since everyone's lawfully allowed to do what has already been done so far, and since no one is seriously hurt or injured, there's not really a problem.
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