Adland: Who's afraid of the weblogs woof?

Vanquishing infringers

Adland's Åsk Wappling nicely summarized reactionary PR flailings going on as the corporate communications industry attempts to digest the fact that they now have to treat bloggers and online discussions with some respect, lest they and their clients fall afoul of the net's word of mouth power. In one instance, a PR firm is soliciting business "to take action against bloggers," suggesting that clever firms are "taking steps to protect their corporate reputations from bloggers/digital influencers." In another, big brands are trying to intimidate net writers with the threat of legal action, at times with questionable legal interpretations. A discussion board lit up when one member allegedly received a legal nastygram from Nintendo's law firm claiming intellectual property infringement for merely posting a list of favorite games.

The site itself contained nudity, and it was seemingly determined to be a brand liability to have the name Zelda occupy contiguous bits.

MarketingVOX yesterday, working on the same story, called up the Seattle law firm representing Nintendo for its private policing of the internet and spoke to the poor senior associate - a seemingly nice person - stuck acting as the role of legal heavy for Nintendo, sending two-page memos to guys named "RuneLateralus" and "Spooky." She declined to comment.

[Update: A Nintendo representative largely put out the fire on the discussion board by sending an apologetic email to the site and even offering the original recipient a free game system and game.]