So the makers of Pez are suing a guy with the world’s biggest Pez dispenser world’s biggest dispenser of Pez.

Talk about your bad P.R. move.

The guy builds this dispenser and runs a museum dedicated to Pez (which happened by accident, out of just love for the product and collecting it). This is nothing but good for the Pez company as ultimately all those profits go back to Pez. It gets people to love the product, support it, keep it alive, keep buying it… and I’m sure they buy a lot of it in the museum’s gift shop. And the Pez company is hurt how?

Yes, strictly speaking I could see trademark issues or other branding issues. Yes there are strict legal issues here. But the Pez company had a choice here: embrace what the guy does because ultimately it supports them, or treat him like a criminal and let your actions come back to bite you in the ass. In the end, Pez is only hurting themselves.

So yeah… sue your fans, treat your customers like criminals. Seems Pez is taking lessons from the RIAA and MPAA, and unfortunately a growing number of industries.