Ford: You're a pirates if you distribute pics of your car

[speedyocca]

From Boing Boing:
"The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted to put together a calendar featuring members' cars, and print it through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set, and... CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed"
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/13/ford-car-owners-are.html
another reason not to buy a Ford

[Evman]

That is absolutelly ridiculous...Next they'll be saying you cannot modify "their" cars because it infringes on Ford trademarks or some crap. You buy your car, you should have the right to take as many pictures as you want and do whatever with them!

[AFAR]

Strange..

What about all the magazines?
Do editors have to ring up ford a million times when they put a picture of a ford in their articles?

[iamhappy46]

So, if I was forced to buy a Ford and modified it, so that it did NOT look like any of the cars in their sales brochures/marketing via new paint, body mods, rims, etc and took a picture of it... Ford are going to sue me.

Well, it appears Ford has reached a new low. Wonder if the Ford Dealers have a contract clause to give them permission to put 'For Sale' pictures of cars in the newspaper.

Hell, pretty sute that Trademark law goes out the window if the intellectual property is modified by more than 10%. China has been doing it to us for the last few years ;)

[Ghia351]

If everyone took the time to read through the links all has been resloved and the calendars will go ahead. The whole issue relates to using the Ford logo and hence giving the impression of FoMoCo involvment and endorsement nothing to do with taking photo's of your own car...and by the way Ford didn't make any legal threat to Cafe Press, they acted initially on their own.

BMC Calendars: Approved by Ford & For Sale! - BMC Forums - Black Mustang Club (http://www.bmcforums.com/showthread.php?t=42820)


Ford did not send the Black Mustang Club a “cease and desist” letter telling them that they could not use images of their own cars in their calendar. The decision not to allow the calendars to be printed was made by Cafe Press, because we had gotten in touch with them in the past about trademark infringements on products they sold.

The Black Mustang Club, and any other Ford enthusiast club, are free to take pictures of their own vehicles for use in calendars or other materials as long as they don't use Ford trademarks in products that will be sold.