BestBuy: our prices are copyrighted

Cory Doctorow 10:09 am Wed Nov 15, 2006

BestBuy sent a DMCA takedown notice to BlackFriday.info over a posting that contained leaked information about its Thanksgiving sale-prices. Takedown notices are intended to provide an expeditious means of censoring material that infringes your copyright, but there's no copyright in a price-list — copyright only attracts to original creative works, not lists of prices.

BestBuy has been sued for abusing the DMCA this way in the past. If BlackFriday wants a mirror for its BestBuy prices, I'd be glad to host it here on Boing Boing. If we got a bogus takedown from BestBuy over this, we'd just post it here and make fun of it. Sue and be damned.

Best Buy and other retailers that churn out takedown notices are misusing the DMCA, but the larger problem is the law itself. The powers granted by the DMCA are broad enough that it is tempting for companies to wield the law as a bludgeon against whomever is displeasing them. Until the law is changed, companies will continue giving into the temptation to misapply it.

Update: Here's a mirror
of the pricing, via Google cache — thanks, Mathew!

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