Cease and Desist, or I Shall Embarrass Myself Some More!
It used to be that to mock lawyers sending cease and desist letters, you had to be elite Swedish file traders. (Or Phrack. Phrack used to mock their correspondants, too, before they got all corporate.) But now, even gadget blogs can play, and play Gizmodo does, when some bunch of lawyers sends them a letter about the world’s ugliest phone (pictured.)
Really, I can understand where Sony-Ericsson is coming from. Sony has spent years building brand around stylish products, and then their design department comes out with that? It’s too wide for any human hand, and what’s with the space bar buttons? You’d expect something that ugly from the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea’s Ministry of aesthetics. The thing is an embarrassment, and I’d be ashamed if I was responsible. But I’d suck it up, and say, “guys, it was an April Fool’s joke.” Or blame interns. I certainly wouldn’t be calling in the lawyers. Because this picture is out of the bag, and the firm of “Göhmann Wrede Haas Kappus & Hartmann” is taking Sony-Ericsson to the cleaners sending letters drawing attention to it. Nice work while you can get it, boys.
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And I’ll probably mock their contents, too.