Electric scooter company Bird has demanded that the publication Boing Boing take down a story that discusses a $30 way to hack Bird scooters, citing copyright infringement. The argument doesn’t seem to hold up at first glance, but Bird has been known to act quickly and face legal consequences later.
The article, published last month, describes a large number of Bird scooters dumped on city streets and follows that by saying “maybe now is a good time to invest in a $30 scooter ‘conversion kit.’” The kits, which ship from China, are essentially a plug-and-play way to disable the Bird recovery and payment features to turn the scooter into your own personal one. The story mentions how you could also potentially acquire one of the Bird...