Sounds like you gave up too early. Most of those are blanket warnings from manufacturers. If they could stick, there'd be a whole lot less creativity in the world. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but some people can't stand being imitated. Most of these fail when the lawyers see there is no money to be had and it isn't worth them trying to sue you.
Wow, great story. It's a shame you couldn't have gotten some local TV station at the time to air a story on the news about how corporate America was "intimidating" a small group of well meaning guys over something so innocent. Oh well, water under the bridge now, but still an interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
Should have asked them for a sticker to put on your cars, so they would have gotten free advertising. I'm sure they would have went for that, then ask for sponsorship money after a few months. Could of, would of, should of, been in the big leagues by now...
funny how some things never change. my wifes cousin had a country band named Stetson[sp?] and they too got a letter in the mail, and we're in a small town as well, not like they were filling stadiums.
I used to work in a car stereo shop owned by a guy named Joe Zippo. One day,Joe got a Cease & Desist letter from Zippo Mfg lawyers. Joe just made a copy of his birth certificate and mailed it and the letter back to the lawyers. No note,no nothing. He never heard from them again.
I had a red '56 Chev sedan delivery. A previous owner had the Radio Flyer logo put on both sides. I sent a letter to the Radio Flyer folks and got permission for it. No problem as long as I didn't use it for profit or advertising. Had a website for awhile called The Car Crazy Northwest. Guess who I got a letter from there? Never fought that one even though the site had been up before the TV program by almost a year.
a little O/T, but along the same lines- back in the late 90's, Volkswagen of America went on the warpath, had an outfit called Continental Enterprises, threaten to sue every place that had the word "Volkswagen" "VW", "Bug" or even a caricature of a VW, in their advertising sign, calling card, catalog, ANYTHING. Most folks told them to F*** off, but they managed to get some $$ out of a few folks...found out later, they got % of whatever they were able to browbeat out of the people...
Back when the late,great Dale Earnhart passed I had done up some artwork with the #3 and "the intimidator" on em. After a while I put them on Egay to try and sell. Not only did I get a letter from DEI but from NASCAR and RCR. I guess they have the #3 and the words "The Intimidater" and the colors black and silver with a red stripe all copy writed, they were willing to let me sell the stuff but with a heavy licensing fee for them. I cancelled my auctions and they went away, so I sold them at a local show for more money instead.
heck, i know of an aftermarket model car guy that got a vist from a former member of the big 3. told him he couldnt reproduce models of their cars..too many bean counters, not enough creativity..
I have been useing the Snoopy characture Joecool for a bunch of years.A couple of years before I started I built a deck for a patent Attorney and spent a lot of hrs. b.s.ing with him. His opinion was that any body that would bring any kind of action to a court would have to prove that they were harmed someway. If you were not making $ from it or causing them to lose $ over it ,they would probably never win anything in court.He always said ,all good corporate attorneys know what it will cost them to try to collect and if the $ are not in their favor they will not pursue it. Just my opinion ,I could be wrong!!
Companies HAVE to actively defend their copyrighted material in order to keep it from falling into public domain. If something come into common usage, say you give thousands of kids a decal of Mickey Mouse to put on the side of their wagons and Disney does not stop it, they will loose the ability to keep some jackass from building the wagon with Mickey already on it. At that point, they have lost control of the Mickey Mouse image. Anybody could then use it for anything they damn well want. Bill
That's the first image that popped into my mind while reading the post. Gotta love old Ganns. He's been running a huge model railroad business in the same building for years.
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