The Briefest of Backgrounds

For those coming in from other links, This is True is a pioneer in online publishing. Since 1994, it has been the online leader of "weird news". Subscribers get stories every week by e-mail for free with true tales of human stupidity, all tagged with humorous, opinionated or ironic commentary by Randy Cassingham. This winning combination of well-written human interest material and humor has brought us more than 150,000 weekly online readers in more than 180 countries, plus it runs in newspapers in three countries as a feature column. (For more details on any of this, surf this site via the navigation bar to the left. To subscribe online, see below.)

A Fundamentalist Objects, Condemn Randy to Hell!

In the Spring of 2000, the British Tomato Association suggested growers might try the ancient Chinese art of feng shui to increase their yields. Randy chuckled at two grower's reaction in the April 23, 2000, edition of True. Several readers objected to the story on the grounds that it was "anti-Christian". One reader, "Santa", was particularly peeved and told Randy he was "going to hell" for his "blasphemy". When True's consulting Methodist Minister told "Santa" he had liked the story too, she also condemned him to hell! So Randy got the idea to respond with a "Get Out of Hell Free" card, a parody on the "Get Out of Jail Free" cards in the MONOPOLY® board game. He also offered them to readers for the cost of printing, shipping and handling:

 

Would You Mistake This for a Real MONOPOLY® Card? We billed the card as "The ultimate in indulgences!" Readers went wild for them. Hasbro went wild about them, so whenever I show this picture, my lawyer now requires me to state: "Note: This product is not affiliated with, nor authorized, endorsed or licensed in any way, by Hasbro Corp, its affiliates or subsidiaries. It is a parody."

Readers Absolutely Love the Cards. Hasbro Doesn't.

Our more rational readers immediately got the joke and thought the cards were great. Thanks to the "at-cost" price, they have bought lots of them to give to friends. If that were the end of the story, this would only be about a "viral marketing" publicity stunt that worked nicely to bring This is True to a new audience -- the people readers gave the cards to. But Hasbro, which owns the MONOPOLY® board game, couldn't see the humor in it and sent their lawyers off to demand an end to the GOOHF card.

Hasbro's lawyers, the Manhattan law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, wrote Randy Cassingham a "cease and desist" letter, allegedly sending it by Certified Mail on July 25, 2000. We say "allegedly" on that date because they apparently didn't put proper postage on it, and it arrived several dollars postage due. We decided that to pay several dollars to receive a Certified letter from a law firm was a bit too much to ask of anyone, so we refused to pay the postage due and it was returned to them. So just how anxious was Hasbro to get their complaint heard? We heard nothing from their lawyers until they sent the text of the letter via e-mail to our Internic contact address on September 27 -- two full months later! We of course didn't know what was in the letter we had refused until then, when we put the two incidents together.

The letter alleges first that the card "creat[es] a likelihood of confusion with respect to Hasbro's authorization or sponsorship of or association with your commercial activities." We think it's unlikely that anyone viewing an obvious parody would seriously think it was "authorized" or "sponsored" by Hasbro. But, to make it clear, we have now posted a clear disclaimer in the caption of every image of the card on this site, as well as updated the design of the card itself to include a disclaimer.

In addition, the letter shows Hasbro's attorney did read our clear statement that the card was a parody under copyright laws (see links at the end): she countered with some case law of her own. We're proud to see we forced them to do some homework. The gist of their argument was that the card represents a parody not of MONOPOLY®, but of something else, so therefore it is not allowed under the law. Hello? The card is not an obvious parody of MONOPOLY®?! (OK, OK, we know: nothing is "obvious" in law! And yes, we understand their technical legal ploy.) So fine: we added a lengthy explanation as to why we picked a MONOPOLY® card to parody, rather than (say) Tiddley Winks (which, we suppose, is a registered trademark of someone.) That's the paragraph on the "GOOHF" page -- see links below -- that starts "But why a parody of the MONOPOLY® card, as opposed to something else?"

We Have Lawyers Too

Although Hasbro's lawyers have only managed to deliver an e-mail letter, we turned it over to our Intellectual Property attorney for response within the 10 days requested by Hasbro's letter. But even before that letter had a chance to go in the mail, we immediately responded in good faith to Hasbro's stated (and truly not-all-that unreasonable, really) concerns: we have made the reasons for the parody more obvious, and have added a clear disclaimer that Hasbro has nothing to do with our cards. In addition, in order to "get the word out" about those two items in a clear way to our readers, we published both of those items in the e-mail editions of This is True.

The End?

Since we haven't heard from Hasbro for quite some time, we believe we have satisfied Hasbro's objections. Our attorney, who is very experienced in matters relating to Intellectual Property (especially copyright and trademark law), says that if this went through the legal system, we would likely win. So we are still making the cards available to our readers. Should we hear more from Hasbro, we will alert you to updates in This is True (subscription info below). Previous updates are at the end of the page.

Related Links on This Site

• The whole story on Randy being condemned to hell. Includes the original feng shui story and the reactions readers had to it.
• The full story of the GOOHF cards -- including info on ordering some for your friends, plus some truly entertaining reader letters about the cards.
• Details on what is allowed regarding parody, per U.S. statutory and case law, and why we felt comfortable going up against a huge corporation with our parody. (This page went up long before we heard from Hasbro; it is not new.)
• The GOOHF cards were featured in the October 2000 issue of Playboy magazine.
• Not already a True subscriber? Get superb entertainment delivered to you weekly and show your support for our struggle! Enter your complete e-mail address in the form on this page:

Updates

A lot of readers have expressed support. Thank you for that! Many have asked if they should start a boycott, or write letters to Hasbro. Our opinion: No -- Hasbro has done what it felt it had to do to protect its rights, and we do not fault them for this. That is, in part, why we immediately (without waiting the 10 days they gave us) responded to their main concerns by adding a disclaimer and by more clearly explaining why the GOOHF card is in fact a direct parody of MONOPOLY®. We believe that should be the end of it. Because we feel that Hasbro was within its rights to receive such a disclaimer and explanation, we do not support a boycott against their products, and we are not asking that you write to them with your displeasure. Of course what you do is up to you, but we do not feel such actions are necessary at this time. We will, of course, reevaluate this stance should Hasbro not be satisfied with our quick and good-faith response. Please stay tuned to True for updates.

Other readers have asked where they can contribute to a legal defense fund to help us with our legal costs. We do not have a legal defense fund and are not soliciting donations to help with our legal costs, which are (so far) quite minimal. We thank you for your generous offers and support.

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Hasbro has backed off -- they apparently got smart, realizing that a call for a boycott would have been heeded by our huge audience -- and that we would have received incredible publicity over it, further damaging their bottom line over an obvious joke. Indeed, the joke would have been on them. Here's what our new copyright attorney says about that aspect:

• The thing is, Hasbro's counsel should have sniffed that they had a potential public relations fiasco on their hands with you much earlier. Assume I don't know anything about you. Pulling your web site up, the first thing that greets you is a quote from the New York Times. Right on the side: a link about press coverage. Copyright and trademark notices, including proper symbol usage and a claim to a registered mark (which a minute and a half's effort could verify unless the registration is very recent). Thirty seconds of effort tells me you have media access and probably a following. Plus, you either have an attorney, or are much more cluefull about Intellectual Property than the vast majority. Click on "Contacting Us" produces what looks like real information (i.e. not hiding), including a phone number. I'd've recommended to Hasbro that their opening salvo be a phone call from some vice president type at the company -- not a lawyer -- and then see how you respond. A response showing concern and willingness to discuss should produce a response in kind. No ruined holiday sales [from Boycotts]. Two fifteen minute phone calls at an attorney's rate, no time drafting cease and desist letters, planning further strategy, or discussing spin control. When I advise clients in such situations, I tell them that they have to assume that any letter I write will be posted on line -- with all the public relations consequences.

It's that kind of common sense approach, of course, that led us to hire him in the first place. Our kind of lawyer....