Metabolife's Lawyer Assures C'box He Won't Sue
A warning to Chatterbox's critics in
the Fray: This item, like its
predecessor, will
not inform you
about whether Metabolife's herbal diet suppliment is safe and effective, or
unsafe and ineffective. If you want that kind of consumer information, try this
piece in Newsweek.
Chatterbox spent most of today continuing to quake with fear at the prospect
of getting sued for doing precisely what Metabolife says it wants everyone in
America to do: Namely, log on to its Web site. As Chatterbox explained
yesterday (see "Metabolife:
Read This! No, Wait, Don't Read This!"), Metabolife makes a diet pill that
ABC News' 20/20 is expected to
report on in a forthcoming (but as yet unscheduled) report. Believing that
20/20 is out to do a story that is
both highly critical and unfair, Metabolife put its own videotape of the
unedited 20/20 interview on a
special Web site
and (in an advertisement in the New York
Times ) urged the public to compare that with "what is actually broadcast"
when the program airs. But when Chatterbox actually went to the Web site, he
was confronted by an elaborate "user agreement" that essentially threatened to
sue anyone who used the information on the Web site for journalistic purposes.
Chatterbox then phoned Metabolife's public relations firm, and was told to
ignore the bullying legal language and proceed.
But Chatterbox wasn't going to do anything without talking to a lawyer. He
phoned Metabolife's attorney, Steve Mansfield, who works for Akin, Gump in Los
Angeles. Did Mansfield intend to sue Chatterbox if he quoted from the
Metabolife Web site? "I shouldn't be in a position of providing legal advice
to you," Mansfield said. "I don't think that's appropriate for you and for me."
Chatterbox explained that he couldn't very well take up Metabolife's invitation
to consider the information it had gone to some expense to publicize without
some assurance that Metabolife was not going to punish him for sharing said
information with his readers. Mansfield said he would have to check with the
other lawyers and get back to Chatterbox.
When Mansfield phoned back, he said, "You can certainly quote portions of
the transcript under the fair use doctrine, and you also can certainly take
still frames, make still frames, of the videotaped interview under the fair use
doctrine as well." He said Chatterbox could also link to the Web site, which
was a great relief to hear, because Chatterbox had already done that in the
earlier item. Mansfield declined, however, to tell Chatterbox what the
rationale was behind all the legal mumbo-jumbo on Metabolife's Web site, or why
Metabolife was (according to its PR firm) unwilling to let ABC News' broadcast
rivals help themselves to the unedited videotape of the 20/20 interview, or how Metabolife could own
the copyright on an interview conducted by someone else (incorporating,
Chatterbox might have added, audio fed to Metabolife from ABC's technicians).
To do so, he said, would violate attorney-client privilege.
Chatterbox couldn't resist asking: How much did Akin, Gump charge Metabolife
to write up the elaborate legal warning on its 20/20 Web site, which he was now more or less
telling Chatterbox to ignore?
"I don't know what possible basis you would have for that question," he
said.
Was it more than $5,000?
"I'm not going to respond to that," Mansfield answered.
Mansfield called back a little later to tell Chatterbox that the legal
language on the Metabolife Web site hadn't kept it from receiving more than a
million hits on the first day it was up. He also said that if
Slate
was going to criticize the legal
terminology on Metabolife's Web site, it ought to acknowledge its own "much
lengthier, more intimidating set of disclaimers that goes on page after page
after page." Chatterbox had no idea what Mansfield was talking about (which
should give you some idea about how little prominence
Slate
's table of contents page gives
these "terms
of use"; look for the teensy blue type at the very bottom). Mansfield
acknowledged
Slate
's growly
legal language was much harder to find, but said that when you read it, it was
"frankly more ominous" than Metabolife's growly legal language. Well, judge for
yourself. Chatterbox thinks that the few obsessives who wander onto this page, which
enunciates terms of use for all Microsoft Web sites, and not just
Slate
, will realize that
Slate
is out to protect its published
material from being stolen or
plagiarized , but, like every other
publication in the world, on the Web or elsewhere, is more than happy to have
its published material quoted in
accordance with fair use.
By now it was dinnertime, and Mrs. Chatterbox and the Chatterchildren were
urging Chatterbox to come home. Chatterbox will report on his visit to
Metabolife's Web site tomorrow.
