by the way this persons manager obviously doesn't care if they take pictures either. So do it you can come to my store!!

www.flickr.com/photos/tags/starbucks/

Honestly if a news personal came into our store and attempted to take a picture I know that our manager would flip a bit but just anyone walking in with a camera?? we have cameras in our purses most of the time when we walk in for work it's not like they demand to have our cameras. (we even have a picture of another Starbucks up on our bar for the customers to see). I guess the point I'm trying to make is news kinda scarry. (people are ragging on Starbucks enough without getting the news involved) regular people with a camera? who really cares (I know that I certinally don't)

Taking Photographs has always been disallowed at the Mediteranium here in Berkeley CA. The only time the management allowed this was for the filming of The Graduate.

I have the feeling that y'all taking this a little too serious.
How about just teasing someone a little because he or she or it is too tight?
Who cares if can take pictures in Starbucks or not?
Let's have some fun and spook those corporate f***ers a little.
I want to see a Starbucks manager demanding to hand over my camera to him or her. I don't know about you but I certainly won't. And if they want to have me arrested at least I'll have a good story to write about.

Edited by author 05-25-2003 06:40 PM
It strikes me that the type of people excited about this protest action would have a large political overlap with anti-globalisation activists...so what is the POINT of strongarming Starbucks into changing, so you can go enjoy a less-guilty mochaccino?

"Oh yes, they're Evil, and have put countless small business persons out of business, and destroy local culture, but we can take pictures here so it's all OK!"

I just can't get worked up about the evil policies of Starbucks. They can change this rule, and they will STILL BE EVIL!!!!

I may be a capitalist running dog, but those fuckers played dirty pool to put my favorite coffee cart under, so it's personal here.

Well I think Starbucks better get its lawyers on the stick before Jeff Bezos gets a patent for Burnt Coffee Sold In A Bland and Inoffensive Institutional Setting That Includes Tables, Chairs, And A Counter.

I mean, Starbuck's "intellectual property" is at least as innovative as anything Microsoft has ever done, and at least as creative as a short paragraph from any randomly chosen novel. But as long as we have true believers like Lovegravy around, aggressive and mindless mediocrity is assured of eternal triumph in America.

LoveGravy, you're making a number of assumptions that you oughtn't to assume are universally shared, and clinging to metaphors that aren't particularly useful.

For instance, the "vocal minority strongarming the majority" concept. That would be what, the vocal minority of people who want to take a snapshot of their buddies, strongarming the majority of... Starbuckses? At best this metaphor is deeply confused.

I daresay you're not a big fan of civil disobedience; that's just my guess. But that dislike is very far from being everybody's axiom. Sometimes breaking rules you don't agree with IS OK.

And it's not a Black vs. White, Øn vs. Off, Yes vs. No situation either. Gray areas, think of gray areas, continuums, situations where the rules might *vary* with the circumstances. Frankly, at a couple of places I've worked I'd've welcomed someone coming in and protesting their policies. Because, wait for it... IT DEPENDS. On a number of factors.

It's not a given that more Starbuckses will enforce the rule than before, ESPECIALLY in light of a lot of negative publicity. No company likes its less savory rules to be made public. Starbucks might, under pressure of public ridicule, change its policy.

If you want to assume that anyone who disagrees with Starbucks in a manner you disapprove of could have no motive other than to hurt the company... (shrug) I can't stop you, really, but I gotta tell you, you're missing the point. My bet is that Starbucks patrons want to sit in Starbucks, drink their lattes quietly, and occasionally take a picture of a friend without being pointlessly hassled by the management. No injury to Starbucks there.

This conversation is reminding me of a friend of mine back in college, who'd apparently been trained at home to respond reflexively to anyone using profanity under any circumstances with the cold words, "My, how unoriginal." This made it hard for her, as a student journalist, to interview and deal with many of her peers.

You've apparently trained yourself to respond reflexively to the idea of a protest with the words, "How uncivil." Maybe this reflex isn't as much of a strength as you believe.

Why use rule breaking as a FIRST resort?

Ask Rosa Parks.

"It kind of breaks my brain to think of how copyright applies inside a Starbucks."

It's quite simple: Can I build a car that looks exactly like a VW beetle and sell it? Floorplans are as copywritable as any other designs. Houses, office buildings, etc can all be protected.

Starbucks is a company. Their stores are private property. They have every right in the world to make any policy they want, as long as it doesn't violate any laws, which this one doesn't. If you don't like it, then feel free to protest, but it is my opinion that breaking the policy as a form of protest is quite simply a bad idea on all fronts. First it says "It's OK to break rules you don't agree with", which is NOT OK. Second it will cause more Starbucks to enforce the rule than ever before. Instead of taking the civil method of lobbying the people who actually make the rules, this form of protest is simply an excuse to break the rule, not a serious effort to effect change. One message board member said it best, this is an effort to hurt Starbucks, not change the policy. As the vocal minority living in a democracy, you have the right to protest but to strongarm the majority through subversive tactics is to set a bad example.

Again, I challenge you protesters to tell me where you work. If you think this form of protest is "valid" and "a good idea", then let me do it to YOUR company and see if your opinions change. But hey, I'm sure your company isn't "Greedy" and "Evil" like Starbucks. For a list of companies that aren't greedy and don't defend their intellectual properties, just search the Chapter 11 filings, there are a lot of them listed there.

Our locally owned coffeehouses have no anti-photo rules, and make better coffee than Starbucks anyway.

Don't try to make the corporate machine kiss your ass, patronise local businesses.

Edited by author 05-24-2003 06:09 PM
If Starbucks isn't committing any crimes, what do they have to hide? I'm writing to Ashcroft to ask for an investigation.

I have never been to a Starbucks, however, I am wondering that if they are so veremently opposed to customers taking pictures, is there any notification by the entrances of these places (or EULA to agree to when making a purchase)

Just a point of clarification: I don't think Starbuck's policy isn't *intended* to address corporate espionage, I think that it's not *effective* at doing so, and to address it as such is a waste of patron/protestor's time. AS far as the issue of public space vs. trespassing law is concerned, there are conflicting precedents: I would say that the Utah case that found that free speech rules held precedence in shared spaces in the Mall speaks to this issue (but I'm not a lawyer, and cheerfully admit I could be wrong). THe point is that there's no natural reason why property takes precedent over protest, and there's no reason why people shouldn't take back some of that precedence. If Starbucks policy is the point they want to make that stand, so be it.

It kind of breaks my brain to think of how copyright applies inside a Starbucks. They can't copyright things like store layout--which is somewhat different in every store, anyway-- or their colors. Of course, the Starbucks logo is a trademark (out of which all the useful lessons have already been drawn by New World) and individual artworks inside are likely copyrighted, but what else I can't even think of. Which may make their desire to precent puicture taking a little more understandable, actually, because a person can put together a pretty good simulacra of a Starbucks using only uncopyrightable elements (as some chains have). In any case, the fact that most of the coffee chains are fairly indistinguishable supports my assertion that preventing interior photography isn't really doing anything but antagonizing customers. And if a large enough number of people make that point, and back it up with money spent at New Order, Peet's, or (please) their locally-owned independent, I think Starbucks will prove pretty malleable on this point. And if not, I hope we can find creative ways to use their newly vacated spaces in our urban centers and suburban strips.

Lovegravy:

I see the point you're making about protecting things like the Store Layout etc. etc.

BUT: There are so many Starbucks, so many people going there every day, if someone wants to "rip off" the Starbucks idea they already have.

You don't need photos to get the layouts, just sit at a table, sip the beverage of your choice and draw the layout on a legal pad.

As such the idea that it's about their IP protection is sort of bogus, there are TONS of knockoff places there, and what differenciates Starbucks from others is not the store layout but their name and the quality (or lack thereof depending on your taste) of their products.

They have way more to loose if someone buys their new fancy drink and then get's it analyzed in a food lab and sells that to a competing company than from someone taking taking pictures inside a Starbucks.

Just my 2 cents (and Canadian at that).

What Oneman said, pretty much.

LoveGravy, you are clearly in some serious dudgeon way out in space. Did I say I was organizing any Starbucks protest? I don't go there myself -- I like my local cafe much better. I'm talking with *you*, about your idea that private property rights trump every single other matter. Read more closely, for crying out loud.

I'm talking about what people in the US have the right to do -- and maybe they do in Hong Kong too, for all I know -- which is peaceably assemble and complain. Even about something stupid. I'm not organizing the protest, man, get a hold of yourself. I'm saying that customers and companies are on a more equal footing than you care to believe, if the customers choose that path.

Yes, no matter how stupid you think it is, people have the right to start complaining to the management IN ANY WAY UP TO AND INCLUDING STARTING A PROTEST. Yes, they take the consquences, but they still have the right. You act as though saying "and then you'll get arrested for trespassing" stops the conversation. Maybe some people would, for whatever quixotic reason, choose to get arrested over this. So what? What's your point? Is doing so stupid? Probably, in this case. Is it their right to do so? Unquestionably!

In your anger you seem to have stopped drawing any distinction between rule-breaking as protest -- up to and including civil disobedience, though I have trouble imagining a die-in at a Starbucks over this -- and rule-breaking because someone's a thoughtless or evil moron. But that distinction still exists.

I decline your attempt to muddy the waters by positing yourself as a rude fellow doing bad things to me personally and saying, "How 'bout *those* rules, huh, buddy, how about *those* rules?" You're setting up a straw man, and I'm not going to light that straw man on fire.

As far as how you tell when someone's practicing industrial espionage, you use your head, just as was described in your original quoted material. (I pointed this out when you asked me the first time.) And, as Oneman also said, if anyone wants to take pictures of a Starbucks innards, all they have to do is stand up against the plate-glass windows. If they want to be surreptitious about it, all they have to do is cut a hole in a briefcase and push the camera hole up against the window.

Crikey.

Edited by author 05-24-2003 12:49 AM
Ok, this might be obvious to everyone, but Starbucks has become one of the symbols of American cultural imperialism and thus a potential target. It wouldn't surprise me if security paranoia was involved in the no-video rule. (Rise up, revolutionaries of Shadyside!!)