cant' blame them.. it is their logo.. if they don't guard it.. who knows what could be done with it.

we had this problem with GM on the zo6vette.com site..

we had a guy with some great shirts..
he dealt with their legal and art dept.. got the shirts licensed.

worked out for everyone.

look into that . they may deal

good luck to you

 

I think the biggest problem here is that it is for profit merchandise. With MINI ramping up their motoringgear site, I can see why the legal dept would want to stop any dilution of the brand or their market share.

That said, I'm not a lawyer, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, so best of luck MINI Bee, and I hope you get a reasonable resolution out of this!

 

Add the St. Louis MINI Club to the list of Cafepress stores closed. The only thing we had there is our club logo which only has the word MINI in it. No wings.

 

What a load of crap. So if I go outside & draw a doodle of or take a snapshot of my MINI, BMW thinks they own it. Well it's funny how the paparazzi make money off selling movie star's photos without signed releases from the movie star. I don't see how taking a picture of your MINI or a rendering of a MINI done by an artist should be any different

That said... yeah you might win a court case against BMW but who has the money to fight them? No one...

 

Wow , this is not good , Sorry Mini_Bee .

Will this also affect us making personal badges and trading them at no cost .

 

Alright, so instead of us griping...... Is there as THE MINI COMMUNITY something we can do to help Mini_Bee and others like him?

I'm new to all this stuff, so I have no idea how this all works......

Can we start a petition or something to get BMW of their high horse.... Damn, I live in Germany if people help me, I would be more than willing to drive to headquarters and be seen there.

Mini-Bee, what if you re-open the store, but ask for a suggested price. Like, say it is donations so that way there is no profit and then charge an actual shipping price? Hopefully, most people will have the intregity to pay the 'suggested price.' If it doesn't work or people try to stiff you email them, or refuse to ship the stuff.

IMHO and my

but replace the admin w/ BMW!!!!

 

Just for you Mini-Bee

 

Good thing DCMM just trademarked their logo

 

I believe the law requires Copyright and trademark owners to defend all known infringements of their c-rights and t-marks. If they don't they loose those c-rights and t-marks. McDonalds went after a small vegan restaurant in my town called McDharmas because of this same issue. They won BTW.

 

Yeah, I've heard of friends buying those Nastumg emblems...

Sorry to hear mini-bee.... it's a shame that they essentially are trying to close down free publicity for them. RIDICULOUS.

Mark

 

I don't know how it worked. I didn't follow the discussion much after the initial shock of it. Seemed totally absurd to me. I don't know if they ever came to an agreement.

 

Don't forget Bentley:


They've been around since 1919. I'm surprised they're not putting the hammer down on MINI for copying them.

At the end of the day, I understand MINI wanting to protect their intellectual property and coming down on folks who pirate for big profit. However, coming down on the enthusiasts, clubs and communities who support the brand is really lame.

 

DCMM is Non-Profit, so we are good.

 

good luck with that

 

Sorry to have been away from the discussion for a few days. I have had a family emergency that was urgent. I do have some news though. But first I have a request.

A lot of this discussion has centered around use of the MINI logo. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT NONE of the designs in my CafePress store had the MINI logo in them. At one point the word MINI was in a few designs and after BMW gave CafePress their IP guidelines I was notified. COOPERation and I changed one design and I removed the others and we were in compliance. So please, let's keep this on topic and discuss BMW's recent change in IP policy to prevent the use of the MINI likeness, including our own photographs of our MINIs.

This latest crackdown has to do with BMW securing a trademark for the MINI likeness. So they recently informed CafePress of this change in their IP guidelines and it was CafePress, not BMW, who made decisions about what to flag. It's clear to me now that BMW is really after CafePress on this issue, not people like me and the clubs, because CafePress makes a lot of money selling other people's designs.

I called the attorney representing BMW in this issue and he had someone call me back the same day. He was very polite and willing to listen to my concerns. We were on the phone for over 1/2 hour and he said they did not do this to hurt the MINI enthusiasts or the clubs. He even said they are aware that some clubs had their CafePress stores shut down and they are working on a way to resolve that.

He admitted they have not seen the designs so he asked me to send the designs to him for review. No guarantees this will change anything but I was very pleased they were willing to listen. I explained how unique and important the "owner's badge" designs are to the community and how they appeal to the very nature of the "youification" that MINI markets to us. He said their main concern is having products out there that could be mistaken as official MINI merchandise that may or may not meet their standards.

Watch here for updates.

 

Thanks for the update, Jack. It's good to know that (maybe) there is some hope for a solution to this.

 

yes, I'm sure the MAIN concern is that and not the lost profit

 

The emblems came with the car when I bought it, the Plasti Dip I bought at home Depot

 

Oh man that blows. I was just getting ready to start up a Cafepress site for Mondo MINIs :(

 

The big issue here is BMW having to defend the trademark. As was previously mentioned, they have to defend the use of their trademark. If they don't, regardless of how big or small the vendor is, that opens a legal loophole. If they do not shut down EVERY vendor using their trademarks that has not licensed the trademark from them, then any vendor can argue in court that they are being discriminated against, because the company is allowing other vendors to use the trademark without licensing. Its actually very simple when you look at it. I'm not saying its right or wrong, but that's the way it works in the USA and has been this way since the 1950's.

If you've ever gone through the process of registering a trademark, you are aware of how daunting a task it is.

If you are a non-profit generally they will allow you to use logos, trademarks, but here again, you have to make sure you get their permission. Posting a photograph online is not a problem providing you are not making a profit and is for personal use. If you are hosting a car show and use a picture of the car on a poster and charging admission and you keep some of the money, you are making a profit.

Alot of forums have gotten shutdown by Ford, GM, Yamaha, Honda because they ask for donations to keep the forum running. Again, this is an issue of proving that they are not making a profit.

The reason that companies are now trademarking likenesses is because so many people have been using pictures of cars and photoshopping out the logo's to get around the trademark thing. Everyone knows what a Viper looks like, but by removing the logo they get around it. Its not always the big companies that are at fault here, we also have people who don't want to play by the rules too.

 

How long have you worked for BMW?

 

Great news everyone!

Cafepress contacted me yesterday with information about a resolution on the BMW licensing issue.

Guidlelines Here

I just spoke to the BMW attorney to go over the guidelines. It's official...nearly all the designs in my store will be available again after some work by me and COOPERation. That includes all the owner's club designs. Hooray!

I have to remove the bmw word marks from all titles and descriptions (mini, mini cooper, bmw). I'm replacing mini cooper with "motoring" in all titles and descriptions. So the title of an item will say something like "Motoring R52 Liquid Yellow Cabrio T-shirt" or something like that. Not being able to use MINI Cooper in the titles and descriptions will make it more difficult to search for the items but if the word gets out people will still be able to find them.

On the owner's club designs the faux MINI wings at the top of the current design will have to be removed. COOPERation already has made a prototype that we submitted for their approval so as he is able to send me the updated designs I'll update the store.

I'm still a little shocked at the pleasant resolution of this issue. I was optimistic but this result has exceeded my expectations. I was told other people from the MINI community had contacted the BMW attorneys as well so apparently they listened to our concerns and acted on them, an amazing occurrence in this day and age. Bravo to BMW for listening to their customers and enthusiasts.

 

Thats great news...
And with a little assistance from those that have websites you can have links directing them to the store.
Let me know when you're up and running and I'll throw up some links on Facebook and wherever else I can.

 

I worked at an aftermarket Harley Davidson only parts store. We sold a lot of T-shirts using Harley Davidsons name. The local dealer got upset so we started giving them a percentage of the money we made. All was fine for a while. THEN we got a letter from the Motor Company saying if we were going to use their logo on our shirts with our name we needed to get them from a Harley licenced T-Shirt printer. It was fine with us because it really was their trademark we were making money off of. They were mostly afraid of people selling China Etc crap and making it look like genuine Harley stuff. I think most of these big companys are forced to have to protect their name. I believe most will work with a business letting them use their trademark if the quality of the merchandise is good and they get a royalty from each sale. GM, Nascar, Speedway corporation, Ford most of the race car owners/drivers also allow licensed products to be sold using their trademarks. It is just the way it has to be. I don't blame BMW at all for what they need to do. They are making provisions for legitimate businesses to stay in business. I would think this is something that always was but is just catching up to a lot of sellers that are pretty new to the BMW/MINI use of the trademark.
Ronnie

 

Never have, I work for a grocery company. I also have some experience with getting a trademark then someone using it on junk they were selling where my stuff was much higher quality.

You think its ok until it happens to you, then you understand the bigger picture.