At first, I provided the spoilers given to me by Mr. Anonymous because I strongly dislike the way this Marvel_b0y viral campaign has been pulled off. It is another marketing strategy that takes things to a new level of dishonesty. When you spew as much bile and venom as this viral marketing campaign has done (opt-in or not), there will be collateral damage. The fans become yelling, screaming, stressed, and insulted pawns in your game to make a few extra bucks.
Not in this spot...
Mr. Anonymous, himself, would probably never have stepped up to give me these spoilers if not for Marvel_b0y giving out the occasionally wrong info and being a douche.
Or in this one...
Marvel has since toned it down a bit and the only one getting lumped on is Marvel_b0y himself. It has led me to sit back and rethink things.
Oh...did you think it'd be here?
For instance: I really like Bendis. The guy AND his work. I'm sure he's not digging this...unless I'm just being played like a cheap violin by Marvel, which is entirely possible. But the anecdotal evidence I'm getting from reader reactions is that the spoilers are making them more excited and look forward to buying the product.
Still checking?
Which isn't to say that justifies anything. Yet I haven't been contacted by anyone at Marvel or anyone involved with the book to ask for the spoilers to be pulled down. The e-mail has always been out there to contact me. I've received nothing.
Nope...nothing here.
On top of that, there's the demonstrated history of Rich Johnston posting spoilers of Marvel product without any cease and desist or any obvious damage to the Marvel/CBR relationship. This would pretty much counter any argument they could try to make legally if they wanted to come after me. In order to have full legal protection of an intellectual property, you have to be consistent in how you defend it. So...you can't get too far coming after a blogger for something that you were so tolerant of previously that you've had your EiC grant multi-part event interviews to a site that has run spoilers for your product in the past (and continues to do so). Rich even posted a bit of script to confirm that he actually read an Astonishing X-Men story in advance. That's right...if Marvel brings the thunder, I'll be using the "Chewbacca Rich Johnston" defense.
Ha...you checked every gap? Check back later for the spoiler.
So...to sum up...I've spit out a meandering mess here. Part about reasoning (to counter an ill-conceived viral marketing program while appearing to cause no harm to the readership) and part about having established history of spoilers on my side, as far as from a purely legal standpoint.
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