Included in an Ars Technica story about a new VR rig, StreamVR, was a comparison of the system to IMAX. Here it is:
Unger believes that 2017 will be the tipping point for major VR sales, based on what he's seen and played already, while Schwartz says the issue of making room for SteamVR in your home is easier to swallow with the right comparison point. "The jump up in tech between playing a normal video game and playing with Kinect was X. The jump between a regular game and playing a room scale VR experience is X times 100. It’s like saying, 'I have an IMAX theater in my house.' It’s so much better that we can get away with a cumbersome setup."
This strikes me as an altogether unremarkable statement: It's a comparison of one thing to another thing in order to show how cool that thing is.
Apparently, IMAX's lawyers disagreed. They sent Ars Technica a letter demanding the comparison be stripped from the piece:
On June 16, Ars Technica was contacted by IMAX Corporation. The company said our story required a retraction, because it included a brief reference to IMAX—included without IMAX's permission. "Any unauthorized use of our trademark is expressly forbidden," IMAX's Associate General Counsel G. Mary Ruby wrote in a letter (PDF). ...
Apparently IMAX didn't appreciate the compliment, though. In her letter, Ruby apparently sees Unger's statement as something of an insult to IMAX. She writes:
We believe that your incorrect reference to IMAX when describing this product is misleading to readers as we do not believe that it is possible for a virtual reality system to replicate the experience of an IMAX theater, which is provided by cutting edge projection and sound technology on screens up to 35.72 metres. We request that all future articles regarding this "room-scale" virtual reality system make no reference to our registered trademark.
Let's see, how to respond to this ... ah, yes. This'll do:
No offense, IMAX's lawyers, but you cannot possibly be serious.
I'm going to ignore the patent absurdity of a company trying to intimidate a news outlet into altering a news story about a product because they don't like a comparison in the story. (Seriously: This is akin to Steven Spielberg suing the Free Beacon if we published something like "Uwe Boll claims that Postal is the most heartwarming film since E.T.").
Instead, I'd like to take a moment to focus on the fact that IMAX has done a bang up job of devaluing its own brand by wantonly spreading into multiplexes across the land and slapping the IMAX logo on screens that are only a little bigger than the norm and have slightly better sound.* Seriously, IMAX dudes: whenever I see "IMAX" now, all I think is "ugh, this is going to cost more money and deliver no extra value" when I'm not thinking "crap, this screening is probably going to be in 3D." Speaking for no one other than myself, IMAX is totally damaged goods at this point. The only director I get excited to see in IMAX is Christopher Nolan, because Christopher Nolan is the only person who actually bothers to use IMAX properly.
So, IMAX's lawyers, I'd like to thank you for providing me an excuse to rant about how awful IMAX has become over the last few years. Please feel free to send any cease and desist letters my way. I'd be more than happy to ignore them.
IMAX sucks.
*"Oh, but it's LASER ALIGNED!" Who gives a shit.