superhappy:

The case of Dr Pepper/Snapple vs Dublin Dr Pepper basically ended with DrP/Snapple getting everything they wanted and everyone else getting screwed, which was actually a bit worse that what I expected. I was hoping they’d at least let them continue bottling the product, either under a new name or with stricter distribution controls, but nope, it’s all shut down.

I’ll miss Dublin Dr P, and Dr Pepper in general, since I’m certainly not giving this company my money anymore after what they did.

I know some may be thinking right now “huuh First World problems, he doesn’t get to drink his favorite soft drink anymore, poor guy”… but it really is a big deal because it’s yet another demonstration of how much in favor of huge corporations our legal system has become. Personally, I thought DrP/Snapple’s lawsuit was baseless, but whether or not it was doesn’t even matter. DrP/Snapple could afford to pay for an endless legal battle and Dublin could not, so the winner of the battle was pretty much foregone.

I’m sure you all have seen this happen more than once. It’s one of the reasons the legal system and capitalism in general has gotten pretty broken. And it’ll probably never be fixed. Corporations love how broken it is. Why wouldn’t they?

A comic artist fell victim of this too. In 2000, cartoonist Kieron Dwyer was sued rather abruptly (there was no C&D) by Starbucks for producing an image that was entirely protected by Fair Use.

In this case Starbucks was clearly in the wrong but Dwyer was an indie cartoonist and Starbucks was… well… Starbucks, so suffice to say the settlement did not favor him.

And this is what makes all these internet bills rather alarming… it’s all the provisions they seem to contain allowing websites to be blocked without warning. Everyone knows this is something the big corporations could take advantage of, much like the situations above. Just as a small business can’t afford to pay endless legal fees, they could not afford to have their websites down for more than a week.

Well, this went off on a longer tangent than I expected, and I wish I could end this with some kind of upbeat solution, but I can’t?

Hey, its only “fair use” till it pisses someone off.

And unless you can afford one hell of a lawyer you are utterly screwed. Unless you get a community behind you.

Mojang went up against Bethesda’s lawyers and won on the Scroll naming rights a few months back. SOPA got stuffed by comminity.

I not heard a single bit about this Dr.Pepper lark till now, I bet if the word got out more they could have fought it, getting the world out after the fact is worthless.