SillyPoet

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/HallOfShame/HallOfShame.shtml

Check out this site- I got this from a good friend's website. :)
Posted: May 12 09 07:25 AM

Tabber has a history - if I recall, she (he?) was threatened by Disney, I believe, for using licensed prints for retail sale (on ebay, I think.) Rather than fight an expensive legal battle against "Goliath", "David" decided to get even, and has been spewing this venom for years.

If I have the story wrong, I'm sure Tabber will be along to set me straight - I'm just going by what I remember. I have nothing personal against Tabber at all. Personally I find the restrictive use statements on many of those licensed fabrics to be mean spirited and unfair. Rather than break the law, though, I just don't buy them.

Dorothy - you don't care? You have your mind made up and you do not want to let the facts, or the law, get in the way of your opinion? If I want to use your tools, yes, they are yours and I have to ask your permission. However, if I have purchased something, then it no longer belongs to the manufacturer. Therefore, I do not need to ask their permission to make whatever I want from their fabric, etc. And what they print on the selvage is not legally binding upon the purchaser. Licensed fabric means the fabric was licensed by the rights owner to be manufactured. It does not mean it is sold with a license.

As for the lawsuits, I have been in federal court with M&M/Mars, Disney, Major League Baseball, United Media (Peanuts fabric) and Sanrio (Hello Kitty fabric), all over the use of their fabrics to make and then sell items. EVERY one of THEM wanted to settle rather than fight the case. All of these are Billion Dollar Companies and we were representing ourselves. If the other side wants to settle and concedes to all of your lawful demands, the case is over. You cannot continue. THEY ALL SETTLED.

Is our tone vindictive? Yes. And for a reason. Those companies and many others hurt lawful crafters and small sellers and they do not respond to someone being nice. But then, you have your mind made up. Please note that we offer a lot of cases, law citations and documentation to back our claims.

The Sanford School of Law found our fight so interesting they made our situation a class project and prepared for us several federal motions for us to use. Does that sound like we were wrong?

If the "we" question was directed at me it's Karen and Mike. We completely identify ourselves on our website with our name and address and phone number. We don't hide.

Another point, M&M/Mars sued us. A 396 page 4 lb lawsuit. When we stood up to them and fought back they caved.

And they allow people to use the fabric as long as the title is not misleading and a disclaimer is used

Someone who I know was shutdown by Disney for using their fabric recently, their store was shut down. They were back up within hours when they went to Disney with the arguments from our site.

And once again about our "tone". For 5+ years we had to battle major corporations in federal court over the same issue again and again.

And when we fought back they backed down. They KNEW what we were doing was not wrong but they decided to bully us. And like any playground bully who is stood up to it turns out they have a glass jaw.

Don't care? Sure I do - I care that corporations large and small spend a lot of time and a %$#! of a lot of money to create an image. It is my personal opinion that crafters who buy licensed materials (fabric, toys, whatever) to repurpose or recreate into sellable items are using that image for their own financial gain. With the permission of those companies who spent all that money creating their brand, there's nothing wrong with that. But that brand is the intellectual property of the company that paid to create it, it is NOT public domain. SillyPoet, who began this thread asked the permission of the company whose image she wanted to use, and they gave her their blessing. Ethically, that's the right thing to do, whether or not you feel it's legally necessary.

You and I have been around this issue before. I'm not going to do it again. You have your opinion, I have mine. Maybe they share some common ground, perhaps they don't. But I stand by my assertion that using something that belongs to someone else is wrong, unless they have given you permission to do so. Asking is not difficult, maybe they'll say yes, maybe they'll say no. That's their right, and I (you, anyone) has no right to force them to do otherwise.

My statements are based in law. Not emotion.

Companies attempting to control the secondary market are not ethical.

And once you buy something it's not theirs anymore. It's a little thing in federal law called First Sale Doctrine.

You are sprouting your opinion as though it was fact and based in law. You are misleading other people by telling them they have to get permission.

Maybe if you stated In "my opinion you should get permission" it would be different. I know you wouldn't go so far as to say "In my opinion you should get permission even though federal law says you don't have to."

I said I wasn't going to get into this. I stated my OPINION. You have stated yours and have also asserted repeatedly that the law is on your side. Great, knock yourself out. Personally, I choose to skip the stress and create things that I intend to resell without the use of licensed prints and commercial patterns, so the situation of any sort of infringement never comes up. However, I stand by my OPINION that there's no harm in asking permission.

Some people refuse on principle to walk away from a fight. I'm not one of those people - I choose my battles and this isn't one I have any need to fight.

Your opening post sounds like you are stating fact, not opinon

I don't know whether or not her (his?) information is factual, and frankly, I don't care. When it comes to intellectual property, copyright, trademark, soccer balls or garden tools, if it's not yours, you can't use it without the owner's permission. The end. And if the owner says no, then no it is.

And I also took exception to your comment that you don't know if my information is factual. I cite court cases and all articles I quote have their sources listed.

To your way of thinking I can't even buy fabric and resell it because then I am making money from someone else.

The reason I didn't back down from the fight with Mars was they were threatening to bankrupt me for using their fabric. And when I stood up to them they gave me a license to make their stuff. Meanwhile though everyone else was able to use their fabric with out the license restrictions I was faced with.

Disney called me up less then 30 days after I filed wanting to know what they had to do to make it go away. They admitted they didn't want to take this issue into court.

MLB fought for 6 months, 2 different law firms in 3 cities and finally settled on my terms. And they have a disclaimer on their fabric.

We asked them for any citation in federal or state law that said that disclaimer was binding upon the purchaser and they couldn't come up with one.

I can live with you thinking I'm not an ethical person. A lot of people who make their living sewing and selling their products can do so now without hassle from these companies because someone stood up to them.