The Next Hot Marketing Ploy? Find a Way to Get Sued!

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007;
-- Andy Beal |

Forget search marketing, viral marketing or even social marketing, there’s a faster way to get your company in the spotlight - get sued by a bigger company.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at all the publicity that social network Imeem is now getting, thanks to a law suit slapped on them by Warner Music.

The suit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claims that “Imeem is no innocent infringer. It invites Imeem’s millions of users to flock to its website to copy, adapt, distribute and perform unlicensed sound recordings and music videos.” A statement from Imeem was not yet available.

It’s the ultimate linkbait! Encourage your users to upload copyrighted content - if they upload it, you’ll have a better chance of a) hiding behind safe harbor provisions and b) keeping the support of your community, while you get you get the pants sued off of you.

After a few days of publicity, simply come to a settlement with the claimant - preferably one that ends with some kind of distribution deal - and then seek some additional venture capital.

Piece of cake!

** Andy Beal is hosting the first ever online reputation management workshop. Register today and save $200!! **

18 Responses to “The Next Hot Marketing Ploy? Find a Way to Get Sued!”

  1. Jeremy Luebke Says:

    Why even get sued when you can pretend to get sued? Have a 3rd party (wink) do a press release stating a fortune 100 company is suing your website for some ungodly sum. Wait for the press to come around and keep your yap shut. Then after a few days speak out and say you don’t know anything about a suit.

    Hoax marketing at it’s finest.

  2. Forget About Marketing: Why You Want To Be Sued Says:

    [...] Worth exploring - Andy Beal comments on "The Next Hot Marketing Ploy…" Technorati Tags: DRM, Marketing 20 Web 20, Social Media [...]

  3. Jeffrey Eisenberg Says:

    Great post!

  4. Jennifer Laycock Says:

    Umm…duh!

    :-P Worked wonders for me. 1200 links in a week? Traffic that quintuppled? Shirt sales up 1000%?

    If it wasn’t so tiring, I’d be out trying to find a way to get the beef council mad at me.

  5. Nate Moller Says:

    Great new marketing technique, or is this new? O.J. tried something like this with a book he tried to get out to market a few months back - didn’t work too well for him though - wonder why?

  6. 5 top link building tips from the vault | Distilled blog Says:

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  7. damian Says:

    i’m about to get sued and i’m looking for a little support. information about it all will be going up on my site tomorrow. or maybe later tonight

  8. Hoping to get sued by Coca Cola at Drinks Blog Says:

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