WotC may have sent the Pinkertons to a magic leakers home. Update: WotC confirms it and has a response.

[trappedslider]

Hmm, I got product i shouldn't have and i know this product isn't in the open yet.. should i contact the company in question or make a youtube video about it?

Choices choices

 

[eyeheartawk]

Hmm, I got product i shouldn't have and i know this product isn't in the open yet.. should i contact the company in question or make a youtube video about it?

Choices choices

News outlets post leaks all the time and they don't get the pinkertons at their door making threats. Likely because a journalist is more likely to know their rights and would close the door in their face and tell the pinkertons that they're gonna call the real cops to trespass them.

Here Hasbro just thought they could get away with it.

 

[darjr]

More updates. I think it was posted earlier.

The Pinkerton agents] cited several statutes about copyright infringement and some other things threatening 1-10 years in jail and up to $200,000 in fines if I failed to cooperate,” Dan Cannon told Kotaku over an email. “They also said if I didn’t hand over the product, they would call the county sheriff and detain us until they arrived to arrest us and search my house for the product and that they would most likely force us to show receipts for every magic card in the house (which is literally over a million cards).” Kotaku reached out to Wizards of the Coast, but did not receive a comment by the time of publication.

Magic: The Gathering YouTuber Says Pinkertons Threatened Him With $200k Fines, Jail

The content creator would have been in a lot of trouble if he didn’t hand over Wizards of the Coast’s trading cards

kotaku.com

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hmm, I got product i shouldn't have and i know this product isn't in the open yet.. should i contact the company in question or make a youtube video about it?

Choices choices

I know!

Look, I got all this great info ... I'm sure if I brag about it to all the gamers I know on discord, everything is cool, right?

Because .... something something no big whoop, people in my high school do it all the time.

I dunno. It's weird. I mean, if the guy had received someone else's diary in the mail, and was reading a page of it every day on youtube, people would be cool with that? No?

I tell ya, situation ethics are a heckuva thing, aren't they?

 

[OakenHart]

I think a lot of folks have a different understanding of property rights than I do.

If you discover your missing bike locked up at someone’s house, would you hesitate to ask the police to retrieve it? You have proof of ownership and all that.

Your own wording here: the police. Actual law enforcement backed by government. The Pinkertons are not that. Very different scenario in your hypothetical.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I know!

Look, I got all this great info ... I'm sure if I brag about it to all the gamers I know on discord, everything is cool, right?

Because .... something something no big whoop, people in my high school do it all the time.

I dunno. It's weird. I mean, if the guy had received someone else's diary in the mail, and was reading a page of it every day on youtube, people would be cool with that? No?

I tell ya, situation ethics are a heckuva thing, aren't they?

That's fun and all, but let's be real - at most he did something that's not criminal (or not in an obvious way), and not immoral, and only "unethical" if you're a hardline capitalist of kind most Americans are not.

Sure, it's annoying for businesses when this kind of thing happens, but trying to make out the person here was anything beyond a typical human being is ludicrous nonsense of a particularly fatuous kind.

Whereas WotC sent a deeply notorious armed mercenary/contractor group, who regularly pose as as quasi-LEOs, really skirting the edge of the law, and are known (even outside the US!) both historically and in the present for a penchant for violence, their complete lack of ethics, and for overstepping the marks of legality and reasonableness, as well as being deeply threatening. This is an organisation which voluntarily retains a name linked to illegal violence, murders, strikebreaking, intimidation, and all-around thuggery of a truly vile kind. WotC sent these people to his doorstep - itself an incredibly creepy manuever.

WotC's contractors then proceeded to threaten and bully this individual - again whilst being armed and on his doorstep - to get back a few MtG cards. Absolutely psychotic behaviour from WotC here.

Obviously they should never have hired the goddamn Pinkertons of all people. Obviously they should have made a more serious effort to contact this guy with any means other than "armed thugs turn up at your door". We cannot pretend their behaviour was ethical or reasonable here. They should have sent a lawyer in person, or a process server, or even just a normal PI. Jumping straight to "Who are the thuggiest thugs we can legally hire?" is demented stuff.

If this dimwit's behaviour was a 3/10 on the naughtiness scale, then WotC's was a 10/10, that's how disproportionate and insane this response was. This is a pure embarrassment for WotC. They're taking a bath on PR yet again because they're clearly run by actual idiots with absolutely no eye to the future.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

News outlets post leaks all the time and they don't get the pinkertons at their door making threats. Likely because a journalist is more likely to know their rights and would close the door in their face and tell the pinkertons that they're gonna call the real cops to trespass them.

Here Hasbro just thought they could get away with it.

Yup. This is down to some idiot middle or upper management wankers at WotC thinking it was a "jolly wheeze" to hire the Pinkertons (I'm sure whoever did that got off on the fact that they were hiring notorious thugs) to go intimidate a Youtuber, and not even for one second considering that "Oh, actually that might backfire". They must have an astonishing echo-chamber corporate culture that no-one said "Maybe this isn't smart".

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That's fun and all, but let's be real - at most he did something that's not criminal, and not immoral, and only "unethical" if you're a hardline capitalist of kind most Americans are not.

Well .... facts matter. We don't actually know all the facts yet, do we? We don't even know where he got the cards, since he's changed his story. Was it his distributor? A local store? By accident? On purpose?

So I will withhold judgment on whether he did anything criminal until I know what he did. I will say that even in the best light possible, he likely did something civilly actionable.

As for immoral and unethical, I am too tired of people today that are like, "Pirating it no big whoop" to desire to engage in this debate. You have your morals and ethics, I have mine.

I prefer mine. Thanks!

 

[eyeheartawk]

Yup. This is down to some idiot middle or upper management wankers at WotC thinking it was a "jolly wheeze" to hire the Pinkertons (I'm sure whoever did that got off on the fact that they were hiring notorious thugs) to go intimidate a Youtuber, and not even for one second considering that "Oh, actually that might backfire". They must have an astonishing echo-chamber corporate culture that no-one said "Maybe this isn't smart".

Putting aside the legal arguments about all this. Like, how, given their negative publicity in the last year as it relates to MtG and D&D did they think this was a good idea? That's the most astounding part. They thought this would be received...well?

On a somewhat related note it is also crazy that the pinkertons never rebranded into like, Xfinity Thugs or whatever. Generally when your reputation is terrible you change your name, in cases like Blackwater they did that like five times.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well .... facts matter. We don't actually know all the facts yet, do we? We don't even know where he got the cards, since he's changed his story. Was it his distributor? A local store? By accident? On purpose?

If they were stolen, the police would have been at his door, and this would be a non-story. If the distributor was suspected, WotC would be menacing them primarily.

I will say that even in the best light possible, he likely did something civilly actionable.

Even then you, as a lawyer, know it's only "likely", and the armed thugs threatened him with criminal punishments, rather than saying "Yo don't make us take you to court it'll cost you". What do you think, EXACTLY that they could have sued on?

As for immoral and unethical, I am too tired of people today that are like, "Pirating it no big whoop" to desire to engage in this debate. You have your morals and ethics, I have mine.

What?

What's this got to do with "piracy"? Huh? genuinely confused at this non-sequitur.

This is about a dimwit obtaining some cards, probably entirely legally (given the police haven't been involved), and a company deciding that, instead of sending someone normal to talk to him (assuming their communications really failed, which is generous to them), they send notorious armed thugs.

At best that was extremely stupid of them. It's a huge PR mistake for a company that keeps making PR mistakes. It doesn't look respectable, honest, or straightforward to hire notorious armed thugs who trade on their notoriety. It doesn't look like a company you want your kids buying stuff from, if they send armed thugs to threaten people on their doorstep. This is just absolutely arrant stupidity on their party.