HardOCP hangs tough

Today, Infinium Labs hoped the big news would be its announcement that a functional Phantom console will be on display at this year's E3.

However, the hardware manufacturer has been getting attention of a decidedly less positive sort, thanks to its legal moves against hardware site HardOCP.

After sharing a notice it had received from Infinium 10 days ago, today HardOCP posted a new letter, which threatened legal action unless it takes down and publicly retracts its 2003 profile of Infinium cofounder Tim Roberts. In particular, the letter singled out 18 items it called "false and defamatory." "I look forward to a removal (sic) of the September 17, 2003 article and the retraction of the article," wrote Infinum attorney James E. Aker. "Otherwise, you can expect a lawsuit."

Though the clock is ticking--the letter gives a March 8, 2004, deadline for the retraction--HardOCP editor Kyle Bennett stated he had no intention of acquiescing to Infinium's demands. "After hours of consideration," Bennett said, "out of the 18 items noted [by Infinium lawyers as being inaccurate] we have found 5 that were in need of addressing."

However, Bennett was adamant about the original article's veracity. "To put it succinctly," he wrote on his site, "none of the changes...do anything to change my thoughts about Infinium Labs or change the overall content of our article in our opinion as it was published at the time." He also leveled his own counteraccusations against Infinium. "The odd thing to me about the above letter is that it continually refers to statements we never made and innuendos that are nonexistent in our article," wrote Bennett. "In fact, after reading the letter I had to wonder if we were actually referencing the same document."