Creative Labs may have really missed the boat on this one. Apparently, some of their products don’t work quite so well with some operating systems (Vista anyone?). As many companies do nowadays, in order to reduce tech support costs, Creative Labs has set up a forum for users to discuss their products. Most of the time this ends up being self-help and group support sessions – all at no additional cost to Creative Labs. This sounds like a win-win situation for everyone, right?
Well, Creative Labs doesn’t think so. Apparently one of the forum posters got so fed up with the CL products not working that he wrote his own drivers… and now the products work great! Many other users downloaded the drivers and got their Creative Labs products to work. So what does Creative Labs do? Well, they issue a cease and desist!
Ouch! Wrong move.
Yes. The drivers in question are most certainly some sort of an infringement on Creative Labs’ IP. And, yes, Creative labs has every right to enforce the protection of that IP. But was it a good business decision? Probably not. Outrage on the forums is almost unanimously against Creative Labs’ tone and angle of attack. Many denounced the decision and some store owners claimed to pull the CL products from their stores.
What would I have done, if I was in Creative’s shoes? I would have offered that guy a job!
2 Comments
Wow, Rob, this is very interesting. I subscribed and look forward to the discussions.
Thanks for subscribing, Maria!
Intellectual Property is no longer solely for big corporations – it applies to all creative people and innovators… even authors.
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