Best Buy Threatens Priest's ''God Squad'' Car

[Guest]

It's not anything bad at all, and those bashing best but: shame on your letting your faith and convictions over ride your understanding of the law.

They said in the article that it had to be an all or nothing policy. They are even helping create a new logo. This person understood what he was doing. It's not a matter of best buy greed, it's a matter of a pastor breaking the law, but the companyhelping instead of during. What more do you want? Do you all believe that corporations are evil and if it has to do with god you can do what you want?

Wlcome to the crusades and the Spanish inquisition. Look at it logically, the joke was a long one, but now it's over. Non profits are not immune to ripping off logos for free advertising.

 

[Prince_Porter]

This world has gone to ****. I 50 years, there will be so many companies we're going to have to make up another 100,000 words just to allow new people a chance to have a name.

"Hello, my name is Porter, and I work for Sleboofasterwolf game design, how's it going?"

Seriously, the names are going to get ridiculous as growth continues. "_____ Squad" should not be possible to copyright, only "Geek Squad" should be.

It's just ridiculous, plain and simple. Look at the long term guys, the system doesn't work, so trash it now and avoid all the pointless hassle.

 

[ben55124]

Now where do I go to get HDMI cables with Rosary beads?

 

[hellwig]

Whatever happened to fair use? This is obviously parody, and should be covered even under the DMCA. Since the church is non-profit, by definition, they can't be exploiting Best Buy's trademark for profit. As such, this wouldn't last a day in court, even if Best Buy were suicidal enough to sue a catholic parish.

[citation][nom]MDillenbeck[/nom]I wonder which would be more costly to Best Buy - ignoring what they saw as a trademark violation (why do they need to brand their technicians with something other than their company logo anyway?) or the negative press they will get for trying to enforce it...[/citation]
I was under the impression that Best Buy was going to rename their Geek Squad some time ago because the term Geek is derogatory. Guess "Under-trained Technician Squad" was already taken.

[citation][nom]HalJordan[/nom]I don't want to live on this planet anymore.[/citation]
Yes, I'll have to remember to use this line more often myself. Classic episode.

 

[biggkev]

This is nothing new, the Catholic Church has been taking and using other people's property for centuries.

 

[blackjellognomes]

[citation][nom]MDillenbeck[/nom]I wonder which would be more costly to Best Buy - ignoring what they saw as a trademark violation (why do they need to brand their technicians with something other than their company logo anyway?) or the negative press they will get for trying to enforce it...[/citation]
BB seems to think that the negative press they'll get will be less costly. In a way, that's not too hard to understand. "But at the end of the day, it's bad precedent to let some groups violate our trademark while pursuing others." If they didn't make this "low blow", they might be giving the impression of religious bias. I'm sure many people would see it that way, and they'd get negative press for that, too. The upside of their cease-and-desist order is that they won't be called hypocrites if they run into a similar violation of their trademark in the future and don't push a cease-and-desist. BB is simply ensuring that they will be able to enforce their trademark rights in the future.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]soo-nah-mee[/nom]So how many Catholic Priests can you fit in a VW? Looks like five if you don't the fat one (second from the right) as two. Of course, that doesn't include the young boys in the trunk.All jokes aside, even as an atheist, (and a Wisconsinite), Best Buy ought to give it a rest. No one is going to confuse the God Squad with their overpriced / undereducated geek squad.[/citation]

Thats too kind. Over priced is correct. They charged a customer of mine $350 to replace laptop hinges. The same hinges that cost $20 bucks and take 20 minutes to put in.

Add to that one of my customers who had them replace a laptops power jack. All I can say is that they don't know how to solder. They are nothing but a bunch of kids who 'think' they know about electronics.

Its sad that Best Buy would think these guys could do any harm to the Crap Squad.

 

[gm0n3y]

While I personally think that all churches are a bad idea and shouldn't enjoy their charitable status, this just doesn't makes sense. Would they sue me if I do the same thing to my personal car? I understand that a church isn't an individual, but they aren't exactly trying to make money off of it (ok, maybe a little). This is just bad PR no matter how you look at it.

 

[HalJordan]

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom] Classic episode.[/citation]

Yup, until I am banned it will be my response to every post on Tom's...

 

[Tryclyde]

Shows how desperate the church is in recovering a dying religion. One small step for Best Buy, one giant leap for mankind?

 

[webbwbb]

Do I like Best Buy? Absolutely not! But as a Christian and competitor of theirs I do have to say that this kind of makes sense. Unfortunately the law requires you to make an effort to stop trademark infringement if you are aware of it. If you cannot show that you made effort to stop it then you may lose your trademark. They may have a trademark on part of that and may lose part of their logo if they do not show a reasonable effort to stop it. The fact that they are working with him to redesign it shows that they really do not like this.

 

[HalJordan]

...in fact screw being, banned...I'm done...done with Tom's...done with the internet...what the Hell do I need to know any of this crap for (some idiot taking another idiot to court, speed of light, dark matter, marsupials, best place to get tacos in Saudia Arabia, who cares)...good bye...I'm off to see if NASA needs a cubicle jockey to test cubicles on Mars...Europa, Charon...

 

[nforce4max]

Fine then Best Buy I hope that all your incorporated stores are thoroughly looted when the chips are down come the next game. I HATE corporations like Disney that trademark and copyright every thing. Those pricks trademark such things as "happy birthday" while crushing free human expression.

1984, THX1138, and Brave New World.

 

[V8VENOM]

We have laws to protect original ideas, regardless of who these people are (from Christians, to athestist, to the Muslims), it wasn't their idea, hence they violated US law.

The use the exact same car, same color, same logo with the only difference being God vs Geek -- these priests seem to lack imagination, but I'm not exactly surprised given they follow the orders provided by a fictional book with a fictional entity.

But I agree, the Geek squad leaves much to be desired in terms of technical knowledge and the cost BestBuy are charging for that knowledge.

 

[daship]

Good luck BEST BUY. your trade mark logo is "GEEK SQUAD" not "GOD SQUAD", get over it, and enjoy burning in hell.

 

[dimcorner]

Unfortunately. If you don't defend the brand then you can actually loose it outright. I don't think it's the fault of the company, but more of the way the law works. At least they are helping the pastor as opposed to Monster cable suing Monster energy drink over the word "Monster". Their logos are no where NEAR the same. The pastor, from what I see in the pic, actually tries to imitate the Geek Squad logo.

 

[jojesa]

Any way,I call them the Geek Fullofcrap since that's all they know.
Best Buy may think they own one but they might see lets customer after this one.

 

[TunaSoda]

Good for them

 

[acadia11]

Let the bad publicity blitz begin!!!!

 

[kingssman]

Doesn't anybody notice that despite the black and white photo, the logo is the exact same font, setup, location, probably color, and used on the VW just exactly like the Geek Squad Logo?

This isn't apple suing a company because they used an abstract resemblance of a fruit with a bite taken out of it, this is a company who's asking this guy to "hey, don't use 99% of our logo minus 2 letters"