Cheap Ass Gamer subpoenaed by Circuit City

by Justin McElroy on Aug 10th 2007 8:50AM

If you're a regular listener of the CAG Cast (and you know we are) you may have already heard the news on this week's show that Cheap Ass Gamer has been subpoenaed by Circuit City. The retailer is attempting to get personal information on forum member Speedy1961, as part of legal action they're taking against him for posting info from Circuit City ads. The subpoena specifically mentions a forum posting that revealed the PS3 price drop before it was formally announced.

As Cheapy D says, the only personal information the site takes from users is an email address and an IP address. He's not rolling over though, saying he will "do what is right and legal." We just hope Cheapy wasn't being a tightwad when he hired his lawyer, we doubt Lionel Hutz will be much help here.

Source

Tags: cheapassgamer, cheapyd, circuitcity

Reader Comments (57)

IANAL, but I don't think Speedy1961 has done anything illegal. If he's a CC employee, he probably violated the terms of his employment- but I don't know how CC could get a judge to issue a subpoena for that.

I agree, i don't think what he did was illegal. And I really don't see the point in taking him to court. Releasing this information early didn't hurt Circuit City sales, if someone was planning on buying a 360 at one of their stores, the customer only put off their purchase by a week or so. If anything, knowing that CC had the price drop would increase the chances I would buy my system there, not decrease it.

Unfortunately, the law may be on CC's side. Apple has prevailed in these sorts of suits before, with the judge ruling that they are entitled to subpoena the website's records as long as the poster does not have whistleblower status.

"Apple has prevailed in these sorts of suits before"

thats because Apple has STRICT privacy policies in place to prevent anyone from leaking anything. Everyone who works for apple, all the way down to guys in the apple stores, have it in their papers when they are hired. It gives apple the chance to terminate you at the time of leak and recoup damages.

I'm sure CC has nothing like this in place, and even if they do, what damages could they prove?

wow, web subpoenas are so gay, especially when they are based on things involving the words "leaked", "price drop", and "circular".

sounds like circuit city is really hurting these days, or just hs way too much time on their hands.

even worse is the fact that it's a retailer pissing over a leaked price drop, not Sony.

It would be awesome if this somehow caused CAG to be shut down for good, but that won't happen.

And what exactly do you have against CAG? I really don't see how that would be awesome at all.

I really wish anonymous internet hate would stop.

So i take it you hate saving money?

While i personally find Cheapy D a little obnoxious, the site has saved me around $75-100 in the last year or so... so i don't know why anyone should have a problem with it considering its free to join.

pay no attention to this guy, he's just an idiot. click on his name to find his only other comment, from october of last year, from this post http://www.joystiq.com/2006/10/24/critics-still-coming-to-terms-with-wiis-next-gen-ness/3#comments :

"Hope the Nintendo Defense Force has a nice Christmas, because it's all downhill after launch."

lolz

Haha- that thread is great for a retrespective laugh!

That is pretty shitty. Way to go Circuit City!

Given that CheapyD lives in Japan, I wonder whether this subpoena is enforceable. Also, I believe his wife is a lawyer, so I imagine he'll be able to get good representation.

His servers and the person who's done wrong is based in America. I'm sure C D has no worries about getting legal action taken against him, so he should fight the power, CC wont do shit anyway.

I agree with you Grant. It seems kind of odd that CC is upset over this and not Sony. The only outcome I see is that speedy will lose his job.

If you think you can get money out of a situation... SUE SUE SUE! It's the American way.

Its because we're not allowed a simple punch in the face over small stuff anymore. We'd get arrested for that. So the only LEGAL way to take out your aggression and revenge against someone is to file a lawsuit.

Well, presumably Sony has no legal leg to stand on. I imagine they put pressure on CC to go after the leaker.

I'll never shop at Circuit City again.

I already try to avoid it (the only circuit city thats not going way out of my way is always terrible)

I will too.... unless they sell another 4GB Pro Duo for $50 or less... (Thanks CAG for the info. ;) )

Why do they call him Cheapy D? He is not a rapper.

Hey, one more letter and you could be Matty B! LOL.

Touche`

An employee is leaking confidential information. Circuit City is well within their right to figure out who and quash the leak. It doesn't get any more simple.

Let me say that I have no love for Circuit City, but this is business 101. What is to prevent said employee from releasing other proprietary/confidential information to cause real damage?

It's clear that CC has a right to punish employees for violating company policy- but what's unclear to me is what law has been broken here- CC is taking legal action (hence the subpoena), and I don't know how leaking a sale flyer equates to a breach of state or federal law.

If I had to guess, I'd say the leaker was probably someone working for the printer - not circuit city. Why would the Circuit City have the circulars for Sunday's paper in their store? Circuit City's motivation is to find out that the informant worked for their printer, and then sue the printer for breach of contract. I'm not in that business, but I'd imagine most major corporations have some non-disclosure agreements with their printers.

Actually, I work at an opposing retailer (not mentioning any names) and we keep a box of flyers in the store 2 weeks ahead of time. It's weird, but it IS done.

Doesn't Speedy also leak Target and Best Buy ads early? He probably doesn't even work for Circuit City, probably works at a printing press or newspaper distributor or has friends that work at those places that give him the info.

Are we sure speedy is a cc employee? He usually has other ads in his weekly thread. Is someone feeding him the other ads?

My guess is that he is a newspaper employee that gets access to the ads for printing. Although I can't imagine newspapers getting the ads two weeks in advance, as he sometimes does.

Good luck cheapy and speedy!

Wow nice timing! Beat me by seconds.

Attention Circuit City:

It is not 3rd parties' responsibility to enforce your or your business partners' contracts. Please do not waste US court time asking people you do not do business with to enforce your contracts.

This is very stupid on circuit city's part. I am sure they, in fact, benefitted from this "leak" so where's the harm? They will waste so much time and money in a lawsuit trying to show damage when I would think any judge in his right mind would see this as free word of mouth advertising.

"welcome to circuit city.....

where [suing] is state of thee art"

In the past I know companies have tried to say that there black friday ad is copyrighted and/or trade secret. They may be trying something like that.

The trade secret thing is what helped apple sue those blogs. That wasnt an ad from the sunday paper though.

If circuit city doesnt want their information to get out, maybe they should wait until the sale starts before they send their ads to print. Yeah that doesnt make sense, but that's retail for ya right?

Or maybe they should send them all out to people via a messenger service and everyone sign a secrecy agreement before they are allowed to view the ad.

Circuit City is shooting itself in the foot because if they do restrain that information then the CAGs (Cheap Ass Gamers) will buy from another company and Circuit City will lose lots of sales.

CAG of Life :)

"How To Sue Your Mom For Throwing Out All Your Old Comics" - by Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law

Your avatar was featured in the http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/09/today-in-joystiq-august-9-2007/
Please comment there.

Ah, thanks. Just posted.

If he broke the law he deserves to go to jail.

I don't know why you guys feel bad for the guy if what he was doing was wrong.

who says he did anything wrong?
He probably isn't a CC employee as he leaks everyone's ads ahead of time.

Can you not read?

You'll notice I said IF...as in IF.

I don't know how to make it more clearer than that...

Because sometimes the law is wrong, too.

He posts ads from lots of different places. I would bet money that he works at a newspaper, since they store all of the ads in advance in the insert locations. So not only could mr. Speedy1961 get in trouble from CC, his newspaper will most likely get fined.

Because fighting the "suits" is what being a gamer is all about.

CAD and other sites of the same sort, need to come up with a standardized policy for what information they keep, and how long they keep it. What good reason could they have to keep his IP address? Then again, even if they only had his E-mail, they'd give that up, and then CC would subpoena for the IP attached to the E-Mail address (so that puts us into the realm of "Why do E-mail providers need to keep your IP?").

Honestly, I like the service this guy has been providing, but I can see how pre-empting a companies huge announcement could be irksome to them (to the point of a lawsuit). Think how you'd feel if you planned for something for months, only to have some guy pre-emptively spill the beans? (I'm sure JK Rowling would know how it feels)

CAG rather, Bananaboat's aren't known for their proper grammar or spelling, you know.

Well I see no problem with Speedy leaking this stuff. That got them business from me. Business they wouldn't have had. I would have bought something from somewhere else if speedy hadn't posted the ad. They're going to lose almost all CAG business, if they keep this up.

Chances are "Speedy's" not an employee and when questioned in court about where he's getting the circulars, he could just clam up, end of story. You can't be forced to say anything in court, and no it's not contempt. CC is wasting the court's time and money for NOTHING.

This is not CC's fault, its MS'. CC only benefits by its adds spreading over the internet.

Microsoft, on the other hand, probably is pist at CC for messing up their announcement and is making CC pursue CAG. CC probably has a contract clause with MS which says that CC will suffer if it drops price news early.

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Cheap Ass Gamer subpoenaed by Circuit City

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