Eidos' Dumb Law Firm

[arniejolt]

It's good knowing that Jack Thompson isn't the only legal douchebag out there...from GameRevolution (http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/view.php?id=394):

And so it came to pass that Ubisoft threatened to sue SomethingAwful.com over a dirty comic strip involving Assassin's Creed, and producer/actress Jade Raymond.

Let me get right to the point. Ubisoft's law firm is staffed by idiots. Hey bad lawyers: You're doing it wrong!

Let's check it out why they're so wrong:

1- Rich Kyanka aka "Lowtax", owner of SomethingAwful.com, did not make the comic, nor was it hosted on their servers. It was just an image in a forum post. His response, in which he calls the lawyer a "***" indicates that he is properly unconcerned.

2- The comic in question is not in violation of anything (It's not very nice, and no I'm not going to link it here. Find it yourself, weirdos.). The comic is clearly parody, and makes fair use of both Assassins Creed and Ms. Raymond. As a public figure, Jade has no real slander or libel case as no reasonable person would believe the comic to be true (see Flynt v. Falwell). GR can also post this panel from the comic under fair use doctrine, because this is news here people, and I'm like some kinda legitimate journalist writer type guy. So there!

3- This is the stupidest part. Nobody outside of 200 geeky gamers would have ever seen that comic... until Ubisoft's lawyers threatened to sue people. Now the story is all over the place, and even made it to my Manifesto. That's another 2,000 people right there, ya dumb lawyers.

Hopefully, Jade herself can just laugh it off, as she's a legit game developer who just happens to be pretty too. Go Jade!

I could go on showing the only tame panel of that parody comic...so I will!

http://www.gamerevolution.com/images/blogpics/jade_comic.jpg

Forget it, I ain't linking to the full comic either.

EDIT: Oops, my bad, titled it Eidos' Dumb Law Firm instead of Ubisoft's. Why doesn't the main title change when you try to fix it?

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[Bakkster]

My understanding is that this issue went beyond the SomethingAwful post, all the way to people on most AC forums calling Jade a "slut" or accusing Ubi of whoring her to get them to buy the game.

Of course, I still think it's the wrong target, but something happened, and it sucks to be Jade right now.

[seafisch]

My understanding is that this issue went beyond the SomethingAwful post, all the way to people on most AC forums calling Jade a "slut" or accusing Ubi of whoring her to get them to buy the game.

A lot of people were accusing Ubi of whoring Jade to promote the game even before the comic appeared online. And calling her a "slut" on an online forum would fall more within the realm of opinion than factual allegation, so good luck to Ubi trying to go after a bunch of forum members.

And as the OP stated, she is a public figure, so defamation is going to much harder to prove, especially since they would have to get past the inevitable "parody" defense.

I saw the comic, and I was going to chuckle - until I remembered that I wasn't in junior high anymore. Again, the OP is correct - if Ubi hadn't made a big deal out of it, a lot less people would have known about it. Or cared.

The corporate bigwigs at Ubi are as much to blame as the lawyers, however. Either for demanding that the lawyers file the lawsuit, or for being convinced that it was the best response to a non-event.