ESA Swallows Pride, Apologizes To Everyone
Earlier in November, a number of sites reported on a shirt that was both hysterical and offensive… as soon as the stories were posted, the ESA overreacted and started behaving like Jack Thompson does whenever someone criticizes him in the news.
Unlike Miami Jack, though, the ESA has actually apologized to both Kotaku and Bits, Bytes, Pixels & Sprites for trying to censor the news blogs regarding their content.
A letter was sent to both sites, reading as follows:
The ESRB Rating Icons are valuable trademarks of ESA, and we must be vigilant in protecting them against unauthorized commercial uses, lest our trademark rights become diluted. At the same time, we also understand and respect the First Amendment rights of those who, like [Kotaku & Bits, Bytes, Pixels, and Sprites], disseminate news and information.
That said, we have taken a second look at this incident in light of the concerns you raised. We have concluded that Kotaku was reporting on a product in the marketplace, and is not involved in distributing or marketing this product, and thus did not engage in any conduct sufficient to trigger the issuance of the cease and desist letter we sent. Please accept our apologies, and please feel free to post this so your readers are aware of it. I am happy to discuss this with you further if you so desire.
Sincerely,
Gail Markels
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
It’s about time. Here’s to people knuckling up, admitting their mistakes, and generally behaving like rational adults.
ESA Backs Off Legal Threat to Game Blog [GamePolitics]
ESA Apologizes to Kotaku [Kotaku]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to on 22 November 2006
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: acting like grown ups, admitting mistakes, bitsbytespixelsandsprites, esa, kotaku
heh.. ESA swallows – great headline!