Now might be a good time for the OTW
I don't fully understand what this is about but as a general rule, unless national security is at stake, no one can force you not to talk about having received notice of a legal action, and even in the case of national security, it's of dubious legality.
To wit...
ETA:![[info]](https://web.archive.org/web/20080919090512im_/http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
rivkat has more.
Son of ETA: Just about anyone who has personal knowledge of what happened has FLocked or deleted their posts, but the basic gist is that the site owners claimed that they had received some kind of (not specified) legal contact demanding that the site be shut down, and that somehow Jensen Ackles's attorneys and/or management had designated the legal contact/action to be confidential, thus preventing them from speaking about it publicly. They also said they had reason to believe that Jensen knew about the action or authorized it in some way, rather than it being action taken without his knowledge by his management staff. At one point,icymorning, one of the site owners, said it was a C&D; letter, but gave no further information.
Daughter of son of ETA: Follow-up post here.
To wit...
ETA:
rivkat has more.Son of ETA: Just about anyone who has personal knowledge of what happened has FLocked or deleted their posts, but the basic gist is that the site owners claimed that they had received some kind of (not specified) legal contact demanding that the site be shut down, and that somehow Jensen Ackles's attorneys and/or management had designated the legal contact/action to be confidential, thus preventing them from speaking about it publicly. They also said they had reason to believe that Jensen knew about the action or authorized it in some way, rather than it being action taken without his knowledge by his management staff. At one point,
icymorning, one of the site owners, said it was a C&D; letter, but gave no further information.Daughter of son of ETA: Follow-up post here.
http://susannaheanes.blogspot.com/2
and look at this utterly offensive video a fan made (insert ironic commentary)
http://estarmuerta.livejournal.com/6257
My bottom line: his management did the right thing in the wrong way. Way overkill - they should have saved the C&D; for the second e-mail. Given the fans a short time fuse to respond by taking it down, then hit them with the C&D;/lawsuit. If Jensens' management actions were being motivated by bad PR - they've just managed themselves into worse PR.
"He's been physically assaulted by fans and didn't press charges." A website filled with satire is (apparently) more of an actionable offense.
* at least I hope no lawsuit was filed - because that would be even more damaging to Jensens' relationship with the fanbase.
keep in mind that most fans are not lawyers so what you're seeing/hearing is being through filtered through the eyes of scared fans. Hell, I;d be freaked in their shoes.
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:dV
the other link is now down too
http://estarmuerta.livejournal.com/6257
but she has an adorable video here
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yakCnjHU
now if the rest of the SPN Petja site had been like this...
Edited at 2008-07-30 06:44 pm (UTC)
After picking through the meagre facts - lawsuit or C&D letter
Thank you all for playing. Its been a blast.
ps. here is a nice overview of C&D; letters, DMCA notices and IP infringement lawsuits.
http://www.waltonweblaw.com/online-copy
I dunno, though, my reaction to that post is probably way more cyncical than it needs to be. Unspecified legal threats to what looks like an actor based fansite? For what? Libel? Seriously? Or using copyrighted pictures? It sounds... odd.
Also, my lawyer brain can sort of imagine throwing out the kitchen sink to scare the civilians, but, hello? These documents will show up in court if things get there and they do not make the plaintiff look good. At all.
it sounds like a lawsuit
"......emotional distress that "caused him to be unable to work"?"
"The person who was served - and for the record, it was by him, [Jensen] signed the paper - has put a lengthy comment on my blog post..."
". but bottom line, he okay'd it. when a mere letter to take down the website would have sufficed, he did much more than that.... "
Yes sounds like a kitchen sink type of a lawsuit (not a letter). way overkill. Man if he'd only had better lawyers/advisors:
"After unsuccessfully trying to work out an agreeable resolution with the libelous fans behind "JensenLetsMakeFunOfHim" we were forced to file a lawsuit in California Superior Court to protect our client's livelihood."
I would have sent a shortly worded "take it down now" letter (certified of course) given them a 12 hr window to comply and then fired off the lawsuit. That way, if the fans were to go to court I've shown my reasonableness (very important because you never know if the judge you draw in rotation will be a David vs Goliath fan - you want to appear less Goliath and so very very reasonable). And since most fans cave under the threat of litigation, I would have won the bulk of the fandom PR war ('hey we tried the reasonable approach. these fans were just batshit crazy out to harm my client")
Also, in the comments of the entry that morgandawn linked to, apparently there was some joking about *sending Jensen little dictionaries*? Um. IMO, that crosses the line. Seriously, how does that not seem creepy to anyone else? I mean, how is a public figure supposed to know the difference between little "presents" meant to indicate "LOL you're illiterate but we mean it affectionately" and actual creepy hate mail from haters?
Edited at 2008-07-29 06:58 pm (UTC)
And, frankly, I don't know how a celeb is supposed to know the difference between creepy stalking and NC-17 RPS, which is why I'd really prefer they not send him anything :-(.
Edited at 2008-07-29 07:09 pm (UTC)
You probably already saw my response over there, but that whole 'anything you say can and will be used against you' bit? It's quite true. Say or write the wrong thing and you're giving the lawyers more evidence against you. That's why attorneys usually advise their clients to keep quiet.
Edited at 2008-07-29 07:02 pm (UTC)
But, in that case, the fan(s) are actually choosing to keep what is happening quiet. They aren't being forced into silence. They're selecting to stay quiet because its in their best interest to do so. Icymorning's statement that the attorneys have deemed the information confidential doesn't jive with that. Which is why people are scratching their heads.
My two cents
As I said in vinylroad's post:
"This is a business. Jared and Jensen may be nice people but they (and their handlers) are in it for the money and making a living. They really don't care about fandom's good intentions or "we were just having fun" - just how much money and ratings we bring in. Normally keeping the fans happy and engaged is part of that business model. But we shouldn't be shocked when the business-people leap to file a lawsuit over something that may - in the end - bring them more bad PR."
In short: wise move, poorly executed. The manner in which Jensens' PR team did this seems to be short sighted and may cost them some fan support in the long run. But fandom support is not what pays their bills - their standing in the industry with the directors and studios first, advertisers ratings draw next.
and last - we don't know the full facts behind this and may never. if the Jensen Ackles Business Team (TM) filed a lawsuit first simply based on what we saw on the website- lame. if there are more behind the scenes facts then all our considered opinions mean nothing.
As for my views on it all, let's just say I haven't agreed with any post I've seen thus far.
Well, here I go to educate myself on the current brouhaha. *deep breath*
I've been reading so many posts and really not understanding exactly what's going on, so I thought I'd ask a few questions.
How likely is it that this was just a whole set of legal sounding threatening letters from Ackles' management that actually had no true legality behind them but with the one and only purpose of shutting down the site as quickly as possible and scaring the bejebus out of the site owners?
Isn't it entirely possible that even IF some of the papers were signed by Ackles it wouldn't necessarily mean that he knew of the site or what steps were being taken, just that whoever sent the original letters had to do it on a client's behalf?
It sounds a bit like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, but it sounds to me like a whole lot of noise with no substance - yes, someone wanted the site shut down and sending out calm, quiet letters might not have worked (who knows who runs these things and some sites ARE hard to shut down) and might have caused the site even more traffic?
Now the difficult part about disclaimers and content. We all know the line between comedy and insult is horrendously thin and I'm stating right here that I've never visited the site or even heard about it before last night. But I have to wonder after reading through tons of posts last night that if you have to make SO many disclaimers and mission statements on your site that perhaps you should redesign you site and content so that visitors would know it was a parody? Was any of the content protected from being copied and pasted to other sites and blogs where the disclaimers weren't shown and completely out of context?
That's what worries me most about disclaimers, surely just by putting them there are you as much as admitting that this content was likely to offend? Saying in effect, we know this is hurtful but if you're offended it's your fault as you haven't got our particular sense of humour, we just don't give a shit? Is it the same for things like fanfic? By putting the disclaimer aren't you actually admitting you know what you're doing is wrong? Sorry, but this stuff kind of confuses me sometimes.
The only other thing I've seen around was a post by someone saying it was Ackles' management team themselves who were behind the take down order as they deemed the site was detrimental to their representation of their client...
Still summer's nearly over, how many more wanks can we have before the show starts up again?
Oh, we're not done yet, I'm sure :-). As for the rest of your comment -
I've seen lots of discussion about the contents of the site and whether it's good or bad, but leaving that aside, I generally tend to agree that from what I've heard of it, it would certainly be legal and therefore there would be no legitimate grounds for shutting it down no matter how Jensen personally felt about it - although, I haven't seen the site itself, only seen descriptions and bits on google-cache, so I can't be certain.
As for the legal stuff received by the site owners - I, and others, tend to seriously doubt that anything was actually sent by Jensen or his management. It sounds rather like a practical joke, either perpetrated by someone who dislikes the site on the owners, or by the owners themselves on all of fandom. The reason it sounds like a joke is that nothing we've heard makes sense, including the fact that there's no reason the owners would be forced to keep quiet about legal action.
As for what the owners claim did happen, it's been confusing and contradictory, and of course, because they say they can't talk about it, there's been a lot of speculation. They claim they know for sure that Jensen Ackles himself, not just his management, is involved or signed something, but that's unrealistic both from a practical standpoint (it's not how these things are usually done) and a legal one (there is no reason he'd be signing things; usually only the lawyer would sign). Originally they said they got a cease-and-desist letter, which is just a demand from an attorney to shut the site down - but according to
And yes, I find it literally unbelievable that any lawsuit would have been filed without first sending a cease-and-desist letter, so that's yet another reason to think that all of this is someone's hoax on someone.
As for everything else I've heard, I think it's all been just guesswork, because the site owners won't say any more.
Hope that helps :-).