You all know that Rockstar Energy Drink is owned and operated by Michael Savage's son, Russ Weiner, right? Well, Michael Jones of change.org wrote that up and distributed a blog post about it. The result: Rockstar was pissed off and threatened to sue the bloggers who dare discuss the connection.
My friend and gay rights activist/blogger Bil Browning has more details, but the story's as old as the internet.
The post appeared on The Bilerico Project (I also write there) back in April. Rockstar's attorneys heard about it and threatened to sue the author, Michael Jones. Change.org, where he crossposted it, removed the article. Facebook, where boycott groups had formed, removed the groups. Everyone capitulated except for Bil.
Because, um, why should he capitulate if what was written was true? The lawyers found two sentences that were slightly untrue, and Bil offered to run a correction. The lawyers refused and said they wanted the post removed. Bil's stood his ground and instead he posted again about Rockstar and how they've been intimidating bloggers instead of just apologizing or trying to distance themselves from Michael Savage.
The company and Michael Savage are deeply connected. Michael Savage helped develop the recipe for the drink. His son founded the company and is the CEO (in their spare time, they founded the Paul Revere Society together, an extreme rightwing organization that advocates making America English-only). His son also refers to his father as "our leader." His wife, Janet, is the treasurer of Rockstar. While Michael Savage isn't bringing home a paycheck from Rockstar, it's pretty obvious he's seeing the money as the company's money is all around him. Who knows if he's getting royalties off the recipe either.
Is it so wrong to talk about all that? Apparently the lawyers thought they could just tell the folks in internet land to hush up and we would. They're a powerful company with lots of money and bloggers probably can't even hire a lawyer to defend themselves. While that's probably true, you can't shut people up any more with intimidation now that everyone can publish what they do.
Go and read Bil's article since it has more details and links and screenshots than I wrote here. Nothing's really new - it's been covered repeatedly in traditional media sources that Michael Savage helped make Rockstar Energy Drink what it is.
Originally, when Bil was talking to the lawyers and telling me what was up, I wondered why they were going about the intimidation route. This isn't a legal issue, really, unless they can prove malice in the two nitpicky incorrect details they found in the original article that have since been corrected. It's a PR issue. And their strategy doesn't say much for this company's ability to maintain good PR. Or as Bil put it:
When Rockstar's lawyer gave me a jingle, I was polite but firm. I told him under no circumstances would we be willing to remove the post. The Editorial Team had a meeting and, like the New York Times does for corrections, we're willing to put up a correction/update on the post to clarify the two sentences they dispute.
The attorney wasn't happy with that result and accused me of not being apologetic enough. He also said I was holding up a successful resolution of their threat to sue Michael Jones. As I explained to him, we own the copyright to the article now and not Michael Jones. It's our decision and he can't force us to remove the post either. Holding him hostage for our decision is not only cowardly, but won't fly legally.
Instead they've ticked me off enough that I'm willing to detail what they've done to Bilerico Project and other bloggers and Facebook users. I'm not the only one telling the tale either.
The Wikipedia entries for both Michael Savage and Rockstar Energy Drink have now been updated to include the story of Rockstar vs Internet. One goes so far as to suggest that the unintended consequences of Rockstar's intimidation tactic will be the Streisand Effect - the more you try to suppress something online, the bigger the chance it will go viral as more and more people want to see the forbidden fruit.
To bastardize an old saying about attacking a newspaper reporter, you don't pick a fight with a guy who buys digital ink by the gigabyte.
Seriously, go read the whole thing. It's fun to see bloggers stand up to the likes of the Savage clan.