Use the law, don’t be afraid of it

The law is a funny thing. Sometimes the Yes Men ask lawyers before we do anything particularly dangerous. We get one of two answers: “Don’t do it! It’s illegal. You’ll get sued!” or “Awesome! It’s probably legal, and besides, you’re righteous in the court of public opinion.” The “awesomes” are almost always right for two reasons: 1) In the US at least, the law does in fact protect freedom of speech to a very high degree (which is not always a good thing: corporate lobbying is also considered free speech), and 2) corporations don’t sue you because they know how it can blow back on them and they want to avoid having yet more egg on their big, blank, mechanical faces. In the Yes Men’s many years of activism, we’ve only been sued once.

Corporations won’t sue you, but they may send you a cease-and-desist letter. Rather than a cause for worry, this can be a great boon. C&D letters are letters from lawyers that threaten you with a lawsuit, usually in highfalutin’ legal language. They carry absolutely no legal weight and can be ignored — though of course you then take the risk that the lawyers will follow through. Almost always, however, the C&D letter, while not exactly a bluff, is a formality. For example, companies have trademarks, and in order to keep them they have to demonstrate that they’re making efforts to defend them — and a C&D letter qualifies as evidence of such an effort.

Don’t be afraid of suits, law- or otherwise.

If you receive a C&D letter, it’s a tremendous opportunity to stretch out the story and get an additional wave of news coverage for your action. First thing we do when we receive a C&D letter is reach out to a lawyer we trust and see what she thinks (though we’re always prepared to ignore her advice). Then, we consider whether there’s anything funny we can do with the letter. For example, after we put up the coalcares.org site, we received a C&D letter from Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the US. Instead of taking down the site, we responded in a way that enlarged the issue. It’s not just Peabody that’s giving kids asthma, we noted, but all American coal companies. So we removed Peabody’s name from the site and added the names of all the other coal companies. We subsequently received three more C&D letters, which we also ignored.

Lawyers are not to be feared, though the same can’t always be said for the law. If you are, for example, pretending to be ExxonMobil at a petroleum conference, there is no need to break character when the conference’s private security lock you in a small room and cross-examine you (trust us on this one). But when the real police arrive, you may as well tell them honestly what you are up to. They may even turn out to be on your side, especially if you seem reasonable in contrast to the exasperated conference organizer or private security goon. In general, you should avoid lying to the police unless you have a really really good reason.

Don’t be afraid of suits, law- or otherwise.

Originally published in Beautiful Trouble.