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Visit Tabberone's Trademark & Copyright Abusers' Hall Of Shame where we list companies we feel are, or have been,
abusing the DMCA and the eBay VeRO Program with their police-state tactics. For a company to
get into the Hall Of Shame, it does not
have to get sued by us. All it has to do is shut down auctions, etc, in what we feel is a
violation of the rights of others, or actively promote false restrictions and/or make false claims concerning trademarks and/or copyrights.
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You may have noticed that there are a lot of pundits who will tell you what you can and cannot do with
patterns,
licensed fabrics,
embroidery designs,
pictures, and descriptions,
but none can point you to specific court cases or federal law that supports their
claims. We can and we do. What we find particularly galling are the people who make claims such as "designers can put restrictions
on use if they want" and "I think if it is actually printed on the fabric, you should respect the copyright wishes of the designer"
without considering the legal ramifications. Once the item is sold why should someone be able to control what you do with it?
The First Sale Doctrine says they can't.
But, there are some logical restrictions. You cannot misrepresent the item when you resell it. We started these web pages in 2001 and we have
yet to have anyone provide us with court cases or federal law backing their false claims.
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The First Sale Doctrine
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"The whole point of the first sale doctrine is that once the copyright owner places a copyrighted item in the stream of commerce by
selling it, he has exhausted his exclusive statutory right to control its distribution."
Justice Stevens, delivering an opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court in the case QUALITY KING DISTRIBUTORS, INC. v.
L'ANZA RESEARCH INT'L, INC. (96-1470), 98 F.3d 1109, reversed.
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There are a lot of companies out there who use questionable tactics to coerce people into doing what these companies want them to do.
While there are far too many people and companies infringing upon copyrights and trademarks, far too many rights holders have adopted
approaches that infringe upon the rights of the innocent. If one percent of the people put into jail were proven to be innocent,
the public would be outraged and demand some sort of corrective action. One study
has concluded that as much as thirty percent of eBay auction terminations are "questionable". Tabberone has been in federal court more than 15 times,
witjout a lawyer, to defend against "improper" eBay auction terminations and won the great majority of them.
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Come visit our wackiest addition to these pages:
eBay
- Land
The
Game ™
a parody
This is an open-source board game based upon
the buying and selling experience on eBay.
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Now, the required legal disclaimer. We are not lawyers and we have not stayed at a Holiday Inn Express..
The statements made here concerning legal rights and legal options are opinions, lots of legal research and as a result of our encounters,
in and out of federal court, with lawyers representing corporations who have threatened us over trademark and
copyright issues. We strongly suggest you seek competent legal advice before attempting to do what we have done.
We did consult lawyers and we were told we did not have a chance. So we ignored the lawyers and represented ourselves. And we won. 80% of the time.
End of disclaimer.
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You can fight them as well!
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You too can fight back. Representing ourselves, we have backed-off numerous different million-dollar and billion-dollar companies:
Warner Brothers, M&M/Mars,
Disney Enterprises, Major League Baseball Properties,
Precious Moments, Sanrio (Hello Kitty),
United Media (Peanuts), and more.
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Just Shine the Cat Light
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History and Purpose of these Pages
On August 1, 2001, we had three eBay auctions terminated by Warner Brothers. After some heated exchanges with
Warner Brothers' representatives, Warner Brothers backed off and agreed they had made a mistake. They
unconditionally re-instated our auctions on August 3rd. Since then, we have been the recipient of threats
and/or terminated auctions by M&M/Mars, Precious Moments, Disney Enterprises, Major League Baseball
Properties, Yates Racing, Vittoria North America, Shabby Chic, Wiggles, Bratz (MGA Entertainment),
United Media (Peanuts fabric), E! Entertainment Television, Frederick's of Hollywood, Sanrio (Hello Kitty fabric), Dunkin' Donuts, Debbie Mumm and more.
There are a lot of companies who are using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and other similar tactics to interfere with
legitimate small internet businesses. Tabberone is not condoning or promoting trademark infringement or copyright
infringement but there are so many non-infringing businesses being caught up in the "infringement witch hunt"
being conducted by corporate lawyers who know better but use intimidation and fear to stop legitimate listings. In their aggressive and all encompassing efforts
to pretend to protect the trademarks and copyrights of their clients, these unethical corporate thugs in Armani
suits are deliberately misstating trademark and copyright law to coerce small home-based businesses into
submitting to their demands. We support these statements and others with facts.
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Copyrighted material
In an effort to provide comprehensive information concerning a wide array of trademark and copyright topics, we have archived a number of web pages rather
than link to them. Sometimes web pages are moved or removed and then the link is no good and the information is lost. Archived pages usually have the
URL of origin showing the source. The reason people post information on their web sites is for others to read and learn from it. Their intention is for others to have
access to it. By archiving it, and referencing the original source, we are assisting them in their original intention, which is informing the public. We are not trying to claim we
own these pages nor that we authored these pages. When possible the original copyrights are shown.
Someone has expressed concern that this copying violates the copyrights of the original owners. We disagree. The Colorado Court of Appeals has strongly
affirmed that web sites of this type are "protected speech" and therefore are afforded protection under the First Amendment. We
believe our non-commercial and informative use of properly referenced material meets the copyright guidelines for "fair use".
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Latest Additions!
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McCall's Patterns, and its Sept/Oct 2010 Issue of their magazine,
McCall's Quilting, in which tehy published an article that was factually corrupt concerning copyrights and how they affect patterns and quilting in
general.
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McLousy Info!
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Coach Leatherworks, Coach, either on its own or through
bad legal advice from its corporate attorneys, Gibney Anthony & Flaherty, is terminating internet listings for authentic Coach handbags
by claiming the handbags, purchased at a Coach store, are counterfeit. Added August 8, 2010.
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Whoa Coach!
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Stanley A. Meyer, added through the efforts of the Stanley A. Meyer Estate, for committing perjury by not
only lying to eBay about someone selling public domain information, but for then forging a court document to make it look like the Stanley A. Meyer Estate
had filed a law suit when in fact it had not. Added July 22, 2010.
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Nut Job?
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Isagenix International, who wants you to believe they have the best product in the world
but do not try to resell it if you do not like it. They lie, and lie and lie. They posted a phony lawsuit to back their claims. Added May 14, 2010.
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Liar! Liar!
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Cricut and Provo Craft were added April 10, 2010, to the
Hall Of Shame under the heading of Craft Sites who are listed because they are contributing to the distribution of misinformation
concerning copyright restrictions.
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Bad Cricut!
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Tabberone's VeRO Commandments
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For those with a need of direction. eBay's Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") Program is abused and eBay does not care. These Commandments are the
result of our experiences in dealing with eBay and the abuses of the VeRO Program.
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We are not lawyers but we have represented ourselves in federal court against multi-billion dollar companies
and won 80% of them. The content here is not presented as legal advice but as opinion and a result of what we have learned
in these battles and from extensive research.
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Check out m3 girl designs and Missy Maddie Bradshw,
who at 13 years old is the youngest member of the Tabberone Trademark and Copyright Abusers Hall of Shame, and her idiot corporate lawyer,
D. Scott Hemingway. Maddie and her lawyer think she owns all rights to interchangeable magnetic jewelry which has been around since
before she was born. They are using federal court to drain the financial resources from their competition.
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Federal Court Case quotes of interest over 270 case quotes taken
directly from the opinions.
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