MSI (nearly) pulls the plug on enthusiasts

MSI, the Taiwan based motherboard maker, threatened to take down its DNS entry for the MSI HQ User Community Forum, a free site supported by MSI and run by enthusiasts. The threat came after a user who visited the site downloaded a beta BIOS and then sued MSI most likely after flashing his motherboard with it and getting a somewhat negative result.

The site's policy includes disclaimers for the use of beta BIOS files, but initially this didn't deter MSI from telling the forum administrator, Bas, their decision to drop support by removing the DNS entry to msi.com.tw. He called on members to email their thoughts to MSI and the result was a positive outcome for the forum, which shows how much weight the free enthusiasts community have up against the commercial companies they support.

Its always a risk for companies to show direct support for communities they have no direct support over, in this case they are able to remove the msi.com.tw entry from their own name servers, but in all fairness this issue isn't the community forum's fault, its the fault of the guy who played with fire by using unsupported BETA software and then needed someone else to take the fall.

View: MSI threatens 'Take down'