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Tabberone is pronounced tab ber won
not tay ber own

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Edmund Burke


On 10/19/07, Henslee, Judy (Judy.Henslee@harley-davidson.com) wrote:

Dear Sarah:

I'm guessing that you are not an attorney, as I am not. Whoever fed you this case law should also have cautioned you against the illegality of practicing law without a license, because your message is a classic example of it. In any event, the case law cited is, in our opinion, irrelevant and completely off point.

If you want this discussion to continue along the lines laid out in your message, I'm afraid it will be necessary for you to actually engage the attorney and have him or her contact me, because I will not respond in detail through a third person.

In the short version, it is Harley-Davidson's position that you cannot legally do what you are trying to do. For your information, this is not a copyright matter. Trademarks and copyrights are two very different forms of intellectual property governed by two completely different bodies of law. The First Sale principle is relevant only to the distribution of goods, not to the material transformation of goods, which is a completely different issue. Since the shirt you bought no longer exists in the form in which Harley-Davidson approved, this principle does not apply. Similarly, this is not a fair use issue. Although it is our view that your listing title was, in fact, misdescriptive, deceptive, and infringing, the matter at hand is not how the article is described, but the article itself, and fair use has nothing to do with actual goods.

I will not be informing eBay that an error was made, and Harley-Davidson will continue to have any similar listings you may attempt to post removed summarily.

Judy Henslee