I don’t know how many of you remember last year, me posting about a hardware site I frequent, getting sued by a hardware vendor for an article they did. Basically, www.hardOCP.com put together a story about Infinium Labs, and they’re highly hyped, yet never seen, gaming console the Phantom. (appropiate name) Infinium Labs, and it’s owner Timothy Roberts, did not like the story as it portrayed him and his company unfavorably, and he(they) ended up sueing [H](hardocp). The problem was that [H] didn’t do anything wrong. They only reported facts from Tomithy Roberts website, and things they witnessed with their own eyes. Like the fact that Infinium Labs address was just an empty office, in a strip mall. What IL was trying to do, was get [H] to remove the story, as they know that [H] also houses a portion of their target market. Because this was all on the internet, there wasn’t a previous precedent set for this kind of lawsuit.

Kyle Bennet, the owner of hardocp.com, took it upon himself to be the one to stand up to this kind of legal pressure, instead of just bending to the attorneys, as a smaller site without the means to fight, might have done. A couple of [H]ard members started a site about the entire ordeal here: WhereisPhantom.com

As posted here: HardOCP Wins!
, this ordeal is finally coming to an end. IL doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and the only thing left is attorney fees. KB inc’s (Kyle Bennets parent company) legal fees are upwards of $200,000. Wow. That’s a lot. He will win judgement to get his legal fees paid for, collecting the money will be another issue alltogether.

Another site I frequent,Penny Arcade
, put it this way:
You might remember when the legal battle started between hardware enthusiast site HardOCP (”us”) and the malevolent Infinium Labs (”them”), creators of the spectral Phantom home console.

The “us” and “them” comment is what I’m focusing on. What HardOCP did was fight for every website that has ever been bullied into removing their opinion when threatened with legal action by some corperation. They set the precedent that no one else could afford to do, and it cost them 200 grand in the process.

Not that my little website factors into any of this, but it could. I’d hate for Ashlee Simpsons attorneys to bully me into removing my opinion of her.

Thanks Kyle.

PS.
There is also a leaked internal email on WhereisPhantom.com
from Timothy Roberts to IL employees. It’s pretty funny reading. Especially the part that says “we decided NOT to continue, even though the judge told us we would win”, lol. What a tool.

Here is a link to the original arcticle, for those that haven’t seen it yet: What started it all