Don't Step into the Middle of a Fight

As some of you may know I've been abducted into the massively multi-player game called World of Warcraft. As this is a very detailed and immense universe I started to look for resources outside the game. There are some great ones: WowHead, WowWiki, WowArmory, WOW Insider, etc... I also ran across a few podcasts. One I just started listening to was the WOW Insider Show. On episode 62 there was some strange comments about bringing the show in house and not having Turpster and Duncor (previous guests/hosts) on, but that they would be on the show another time. I thought it was odd, but didn't think much about it. It was also odd that this show was on UStream and not from the standard feed.

Then today I saw a new post on the WOW Insider Show feed. It wasn't a show it was "An important statement". That's odd, but it's important so I listened to it. It was basically an advertisement to promote a new show in the slot of the WOW Insider Show. But I thought it was distasteful to vocalize all the activities that had occurred between WOW Radio and WOW Insider. It left a bad taste in my mouth for WOW Radio. It seems like they had a right to be angry, but they didn't need to retaliate like that. So I voiced my opinion to WOW Radio in this email:

I was disappointed to here your information statement on the WOW insider show feed. I've listened to both sides and I don't have all the information. But from the information provided in your statements on the feed I think that you are reacting to the situation instead of trying to remain professional. I understand that more notice would have been nice from WOW Insider, but hijacking WOW Insider's feed for your own show and propaganda it far from professional. Also immediately creating and bragging about a competing show has truly crossed the line. Then to add insult to injury and place it in the same time slot is ridiculous. Unless you correct this situation immediately I don't plan on supporting any of your content and I will spread the word to my fellow WOW players to do the same.

Previous WOW Radio listener

Here is the response I received:

The rights to the back catalogue of the WoW Insider show belong to WoW Radio, as does the feed. It does not belong to WoW Insider, it never did. WoW Radio provided the hosting, the feeds, the archiving and the production for the WoW Insider show. WoW Insider agreed to our terms and conditions when they first affiliated with us, including our right to do as we wished with what belonged to us, if and when our affiliation should end. Perhaps you are mistaking us for some amateur outfit. A company uses it's assets to further it's ends. That feed belongs to us, as do those shows. If we wish to launch a show off of the back of it, just as WoW Insider launched one off of us, we have every right to do so, and would be foolish to do otherwise at the behest of a handful of upset listeners.

I find the use of the word 'propaganda' to be quite ridiculous. Only on the internet could a statement made by a company on it's own feed, correcting the outright lies of another organization, be considered propaganda. WoW Insider gave us no choice, by banning our spokespeople from posting comments on the website. As always, remember who initiated this debacle in the first place.

The timeslot was ours to begin with, and we would be doing our listeners a disservice not to fill it. We owe nothing to WoW Insider, and indeed, they owed a huge amount to our organization, and to Turpster and Duncor who did most of the work on the WoW Insider show.

Long story short? We were here first. We don't play nicey-nice with companies that slander us. They are lucky we aren't suing Mike Schramm for defammation, as we are well within our rights to do so.

If you too wish to spread lies, then that really is your own business. As always, we will stick to our guns, and maintain our credibility, regardless of whether or not it harms our traffic.

oh Boy did I get in the middle of something! I didn't think that a company would be alienating and attacking it's customers, but hey the RIAA did it so why not? Anyway I just wanted to share this with you and let you decide. Like I said in my email I don't think WOW Insider handled it's disagreement with WOW Radio very well, but WOW Radio didn't have to take the low road and create all this public slander.