Yet another case of lawyers with over-active cease and desist-itis: Tim Ferriss explains why sending a harsh letter as your opening act is a really bad idea:

Ever heard "it's not just what you say, it's how you say it"? I would go further: how you say something is what you say. A simple call or e-mail to Random House with "we're getting too many calls for the wrong services; would you mind changing it to the following?" would have sufficed. Have a normal human conversation and don't come off sounding like Robocop

Follow the link to see the all too common "stupid lawyer trick". As I've said before, your corporate lawyers no longer operate behind the scenes - they are as public as any other part of the company. Before you hand out a cease and desist letter, you should get the PR people involved - better to have them in at the beginning than have them deal with the mess later.

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