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AnimeHot
Hall Of Shame Member
Added July 8, 2007

Last Updated - August 20, 2012

AnimeHot filed a rebuttal with us on July 17, 2007.
Links to the rebuttal and our comments are included at the bottom of this page.

AnimeHot appears to be owned and operated by some nitwit named A. Arnson, and located at Box 99800, EmeryVille, CA 94662. Their email address is animehot@animehot.net. They used to be located at 5130 S. Fort Apache Rd. #215-333, Las Vegas (702-735-2007).
On their website. www.animehot.net., they sell what appears to be hand-crafted good, including hats, necklaces, clothing, etc.

AnimeHot has been added to the Tabberone Trademark & Copyright Abusers' Hall of Shame because they seem to be run by a group of morons who haven't a clue as to what a copyright really is. They are shutting down eBay auctions for hats. Not just any hats but folded ear cat hats and folded ear bunny hats. Under copyright law, hats are clothing and useful items and therefore not copyrightable. Let us say this again: hats are not eligible for copyright protection. AnimeHot harmed other sellers without the legal right to do so. They plead ignorance but the evidence is readily available showing they did not do their homework before starting to harm innocent sellers. All they had to do was look.
From Beaudin v. Ben and Jerry's Homemade, Inc., 896 F. Supp. 356 - Dist. Court, D. Vermont 1995:

It is a tenet of copyright law that "a copyright does not protect an idea, but only the expression of an idea."
"That is, the plaintiff must show that the defendant appropriated the plaintiff's particular means of expressing an idea, not merely that he expressed the same idea." Fisher-Price, Inc. v. Well-Made Toy Mfg. Corp., 25 F.3d 119, 123 (2d Cir.1994).

And, from Russell v. Trimfit, Inc., 428 F. Supp. 91 - Dist. Court, ED Pennsylvania 1977:

[page 93]
On the other hand, a copyright does not confer an exclusive right to the idea disclosed, as does a patent. As stated in Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 217, 74 S.Ct. 460, 470, 98 L.Ed. 630 (1954), "Unlike a patent, a copyright gives no exclusive right to the art disclosed: protection is given only to the expression of the idea - not the idea itself." See Reyher v. Children's Television Workshop, 533 F.2d 87, 90 (2d Cir. 1976); Universal Athletic Sales Co. v. Salkeld, 511 F.2d 904, 906 (3d Cir. 1975); Roth Greeting Cards v. United Card Co., 429 F.2d 1106, 1109 (9th Cir. 1970).

The dimwitted morons running AnimeHot are a very good example of how a lack of even little bit of knowledge is dangerous. They terminated some auctions belonging to a seller named Raincloud. When asked why AnimeHot terminated the auctions, AnimeHot replied:
"We welcome competition, however we own the copyright to the 4 panel, flip brim, folded ear cat hat pattern (regardless of color) and the 4 panel, flip brim, folded ear bunny hat pattern (regardless of color). We registered these with eBay several years ago and your auctions were closed by eBay for copyright infringement. You are welcome to make your own design of hat, but you can't copy our design. If you re-list the same design hat again we will report you to eBay again for copyright violation."
Whoa, there Nelly! To begin with, they did not own the copyright as claimed. Their copyright application was denied, as it should have been, because it is a hat. As we stated earlier, hats, being clothing and therefore a useful item, cannot be copyrighted. So where do the bone-headed idiots running AnimeHot get the idea they have a copyright? They were terminating auctions before they received a certificate which makes them guilty of being terminally stupid and very bad liars. In another email, a day later:
"We do in fact own the copyright to a 4 panel, flip brim, folded ear cat (bunny, wolf, bear, etc.) hat pattern (regardless of color). We have been making these hats since 2003 and we registered these hat patterns with the U.S. copyright office. According to the U.S. copyright office:
"Under the present copyright law, which became effective Jan. 1, 1978, a work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created. A work is created when it is "fixed" in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection under the present law."
We have been selling these hat styles on ebay since March 6th 2004 and upon the first sale of these hat styles we registered ourselves with ebay's vero program to protect our copyright. As we were the first to sell these style hats on ebay, as well as the first to register our copyright protection with the vero program, we have the right to request the removal of any listing on ebay that infringes upon our copyright. We also have a patent pending which (if accepted) will provide us with a claim number. However due to these item's utilitarian function we may not be able to obtain a patent.
We hope that we have clearly explained why your listing was removed. If you have any other questions feel free to contact us again. If you have any questions regarding a visual arts copyright please contact the U.S. copyright office."
If, and this is a really big IF, AnimeHot did register their "patterns" in 2003, it makes no difference. (FYI-a search of the Copyright Office's records on-line did not yield any results for "cat hat pattern" or for "A Arnson".) When asked to provide "proof" of their copyright by Raincloud, AnimeHot flatly refused. We know why? They have anything registered. They were lying. They filed for registration but did not get it.
A registered pattern would not extend copyright protection to the item made from the pattern. They could not have registered the hats themselves. So, it appears they read the part about "automatic protection" and wrongly assumed their "creation" was in a "visual arts" category (soft sculpture would have been more relevant and accurate), and they were off. Running merrily along like the jerks they are. And in the process, intentionally harming others who had a perfectly legitimate right to market these hats. Hello? A visual art is not a hat, you morons!
They are also ignorant of the facts concerning VeRO. eBay did not "verify" their "copyright". eBay doesn't really care. All AnimeHot had to do was file a statement with eBay that AnimeHot was the copyright holder. eBay doesn't investigate. And, to boot, AnimeHot thinks that eBay would not have terminated the auctions unless eBay agreed that AnimeHot had a valid copyright and that Raincloud was infringing. Bullshit. Again, eBay takes the word of the VeRO member and doesn't care.

We would have hauled them into federal court so fast their collective idiot heads would have been spinning for months. And we would have won. We call them idiots because they are harming others without the legal right to do so. We call them idiots because they read what they wanted to into the copyright laws and are blissfully skipping down the dummy path proud of their stupidity.
And, we call them idiots because they still do not believe they did anything wrong. They lied to eBay. They lied to innocent sellers after taking unwarranted harmful action actions against those sellers.

Idiot #1 & Idiot #2

Cool Hand Luke

"What we have here is a failure to communicate"

On July 17, 2007, we received from AnimeHot a rebuttal concerning what we have said on this web page about AnimeHot. We have posted their rebuttal in its entirety as submitted (except for some reformatting for easier reading). We have also posted, an annotated rebuttal which includes our comments about their claims. They harp on their claims that the seller was "misleading" potential buyers while minimizing the fact they had no copyright or patent as they falsely claimed to have in 2006.

They also harp on their "good faith belief" claims while giving nothing as evidence as to what formed this "belief" other than their ignorance. Waaaaaa! They whine and whine while ignoring the real issues. They still do not believe they did anything wrong. But they did.

Rebuttals
In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site.
If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We reserve the right to alter the rebuttal to make it more readable. However, we will not alter the content (unless there is offensive material to be removed). We also reserve the right to comment on any rebuttal received. Emails protesting the content of this web site may be treated as rebuttals by us at our discretion.

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