Zazzle Sued Because Twilight Fans Like Making Their Own Merchandise
from the safe-harbors-anyone? dept
It looks like "print-on-demand/create your own t-shirt/mug/mouse pad store" company Zazzle has been sued for infringement by Summit Entertainment, who owns the licensing rights to the oh-so-popular Twilight movies. Apparently, all those excited tweens have been making their own Twilight merchandise. Now, basic common sense would tell you that Zazzle is the tool provider, and not the actual infringer here. But, Summit is claiming trademark violations, and (tragically and inexplicably) the official safe harbors cover things like copyright and defamation, but not trademark (hurray for legal loopholes). The only ones doing the actual infringement are the users, not Zazzle itself, but Zazzle has to hope that a court actually realizes this, and sometimes the courts get very, very confused on these sorts of things.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: liability, third party, twilight
Companies: zazzle
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But...
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It appears rather clear to me that there is no legitimate trademark claim here...
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Yeah, and if I owned a shop I'd sell you a t-shirt with "Rose M. Welch" printed on it. If "Rose M. Welch" turns out to be copyrighted by some company or other, it should be on your ass. Not mine.
Welcome to the ownership society. Have you staked your claim yet?
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Where is the money in that?
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Cafepress part of this?
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In Other News
My daughter buys art supplies from the retailer Michael's, and makes her own Wonder Woman Halloween costume. Michael's sued by Silver Pictures.
A guy stores shared Metallica music on an HP hard drive, plays it on his HP computer, burns a new CD copy in his HP burner, prints a CD page on his HP printer. HP sued by Metallica.
A policeman arrives at the scene of a reported bank robbery. A masked man takes a bag of money from the teller. Turns out it's not a robber, just a guy making a withdrawal. So the policeman shoots the bank manager.
All equally logical. As in, not very.
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Re: In Other News
>and makes her own Wonder Woman Halloween costume. Michael's
>sued by Silver Pictures.
I think Warner Brothers/DC Comics would be the ones with standing. They don't go after costumers at cons so I think she is safe.
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Or do you suppose it's machine-produced with maybe 20 seconds of a minumum-wage associate feeding the blank shirt into the machine?
Zazzle doesn't design the t-shirt, and aren't responsible for the design. Zazzle itself is just a tool, as is an HP printer
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Suing over free advertising?
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re: Suing over free advertising?
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Licensing...
Interestingly, I believe some people actually make a lot of money doing this - to the tune of 100k if my source is right.
I think this is probably where the grey line is. You can create it for your own use is fine ??? but you start making money off it and it involves trademark type material, then the line isn't so clear.
Freedom
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Re: Licensing...
It seems to me that there still shouldn't be any trademark infringement because buyers should recognize if they're on the site that these are not official Twilight merchandise, which eliminates the need for trademark protection. However, perhaps some feature such as the "official" seal on twitter to indicate legitimate items would end any doubt--I suppose I could accept a law that required something of the sort in exceptions like this.
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So much money to be made here
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Disturbing
Can we all agree to be outraged about the movie at least. Vampires should only come out at night, be bad-ass-motherfuckers, and most certainly NEVER, EVER, EVER-EVER-EVER, freaking glitter.
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Fuck your "free advertising and marketing". I thought artists were supposed to become expert merchandisers? Now you think they should allow the merchandise to be pirated too?
Oh Techdirt...
lol
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Not if anyone can replicate the "official" merchandise without fear of the law.
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This is especially true in the fashion industry. You'll find plenty of people who prefer the more expensive originals than the off brand knock-offs.(even when the materials are of the same quality)
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I don't think it's that simple
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I think almost everyone is missing the point here
For fans to make their own home-made products as a sign of appreciation is one thing (no money changes hands, then no-harm-no-foul). The problem here is that by SELLING the merchandise without being licensed, the owner of said copyright doesn't receive their due royalties. Now, if Stephanie Meyers didn't care about that, there's such a thing as Creative Commons Licensing, which can give permission for non-commercial usage of copyrighted/trademarked stuff for the fans, or even full commercial rights, if the legal owner so chooses. Since Twilight is in fact NOT licensed under Creative Commons, Ms. Meyer demonstrates that she DOES care, and would rather get paid royalties if anyone is making money off her creations (title, characters and concepts alike).
Here is where Zazzle's culpability comes in: they are not selling these items on behalf of their users out of the goodness of their own heart for no profit-- they do in fact make money off this. Furthermore, because they're not just selling the items but actually MAKING them, they are 100% complicit in the bootlegging process.
Take skatersollie's analogy:
Scenario 1) you hire "Company A" to print counterfeit currency for you on their equipment, you're both in the hot seat.
Scenario 2) You BUY a printing press from "Company A", then use it to make counterfeit currency, that's all on you-- they just sold you the equipment, they were not directly involved in the crime.
Zazzle is CLEARLY in scenario 2 here. They can try and claim no fault for their users' violation of copyright, but since they're the ones actually MANUFACTURING this stuff, they should really know better. They're clearly turning a blind eye to the infringement for profit.
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Good article.
Here's my gallery. promoting, remember? (:
http://www.zazzle.com/chromobotia*
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gonna disagree this time
-upload a picture of the movie poster
-buy a shirt with this on it (bad, but not terrible)
-list it for sale for others to buy (now we're pretty much infringing).
At step 3, zazzle is selling merchandise to the public with unlicensed works on them. This is where they have to be careful what they allow to be sold.
On the other hand, zazzle also has an easy mechanism to report these items as trademark infringement, and they'll take them off the site quickly. I know, I've had stuff removed for this, even for a frivilous reason.
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