Hi all,

I'm in need of some management help. I have recently been made aware that we have a few competitors in the Microfiche CD market. Click here to see info on this product. While I knew of only one competitor (Courtesy Nissan), there seems to be some influx of people showing up on Ebay trying to do the same.

My question to all of you is, should I fight these people or just let it go? Fact of the matter is, we have been told by my contact at Nissan that we are the only organization authorized (via copyright release) to sell these products.

On these grounds, I can fight these competitors in order to keep our club online and supported by the revenue generated by the sales of this CD.

We were the first organization to come up with the microfiche CD idea. We worked hard on the product and we brought it to market. Now that it is out there in full force, what should we do?

I don't want to fight the other competitors on this because I believe we would all lose in the battle. Therefore, I need ideas. How do we take this situation and make the Z community a better place because of it? That's my entire reason for creating this club in the first place...... I hate trying to ward off my enemies

with sticks on my own. Instead, let's rally the troops and walk in with pitchforks and torches.

Bring on the ideas!

-- Moderator Mike

Well, the first thing to do is find out where these people are getting their CD's. I would e-mail a few and ask them who's CD it is. If they claim it is theirs just tell them politely that they are in violation of a trademark agreement with Nissan, and ask them to pull them from the market. If it is your CD which you have the agreement to sell by Nissan, then they must not claim it to be anyone other than yours. Tell them that Nissan has been told of the trademark infringement and that their CD's (if they claim to be the author) is in violation of a trademark agreement with Nissan and they can settle it in court. Bet they will fess up real quick that they are merely re-selling the CD they got from this site and not giving credit to the authors.

Not many people are ignorant enough (?) to battle a giant corporation to make a few bucks.

Maybe if one or two of us got together and bought one so you could see it and find out if it is the CD from this site, that would be the proof that you would need.

I must make this clear to anyone who wants to contact people

doing these kinds of things... Please act on behalf of yourself

with the interest of the club in mind -- not as a representative

of the club.

Here are some facts:

1) Our content is original and scans can be identified.

2) According to Nissan, we are the only organization holding a

copyright release to sell this product on our web site. They

do not plan to give copyright release to anyone else.

3) Other competitors have contacted me to 'piggyback' on our

copyright release and I declined. According to Nissan, they

do not hold a copyright release to sell their products.

4) I *DO NOT KNOW* if other people are using our material in

their products. There is no way to know until we get a copy

of their product for evaluation. Proof is key here.

At 11:15 AM 5/29/02 -0700, Mike Gholson wrote:

>Hi all,

>

>I'm in need of some management help. I have recently been made aware

>that we have a few competitors in the Microfiche CD market. While I

>knew of only one competitor (Courtesy Nissan), there seems to be some

>influx of people showing up on Ebay trying to do the same.

First order of business - find out if what they are doing is legal or not. That will determine the tactics you must undertake. If Courtesy doesn't have a release from Nissan to publish them, and if the fiches are really Nissan's copyrighted (copywritten?) property, then you are in fact the sole legal source for those documents.

>My question to all of you is, should I fight these people or just let

>it go? Fact of the matter is, we have been told by my contact at Nissan

>that we are the only organization authorized (via copyright release) to

>sell these products.

Call Courtesy and ask them about it. If they're violating copyright, don't be afraid to call them on it. See if Nissan wants to back us up.

Are they straight-up fiche CD's? Or are they the one you built? Because your logos, artwork, layout, etc, are all your intellectual property... anyone using YOUR stuff should be busted.

>On these grounds, I can fight these competitors in order to keep our

>club online and supported by the revenue generated by the sales of this

>CD.

But is that at risk? I doubt that you could make the case that our club's online presence (website, forums, maillist) depends on revenues collected from CD sales.... our funding comes from a few places - the CD's, which, IIRC, you wanted to get out of the business of? Amazon referrals, fund drives, and your pocket (most significantly, unless I miss my mark).

>We were the first organization to come up with the microfiche CD idea.

>We worked hard on the product and we brought it to market. Now that it

>is out there in full force, what should we do?

I would suggest you doctor up an official looking cease and desist order, complete with legal code sections and lots of complicated words. Send that off to the Ebayers, they're probably all pirated anyway. Or do as Carl suggested and bid some unreasonable price to kill the auction. As far as

Courtesy,

and assuming that they're using your artwork/etc, see if you can't work out a revenue-sharing arrangement - a licensing fee, f'rinstance - we (you) would get a 20% (or whatever) kickback. I would see this as an ideal setup - you could get a major company to reproduce, market, sell, and just collect the checks.

>I don't want to fight the other competitors on this because I believe

>we would all lose in the battle. Therefore, I need ideas. How do we

>take this situation and make the Z community a better place because of

>it? That's my entire reason for creating this club in the first

>place...... I hate trying to ward off

>my enemies with sticks on my own. Instead, let's rally the troops and

>walk in with

>pitchforks and torches.

First thing would be to contact Courtesy and see what's up; perhaps they'd give you a copy to let you check it out, if you phrased it properly. Same thing

then

to Ebay - see if you can't get a copy, and see if it's yours. All the main

index

pages have your artwork on them, so it should be easy enough to tell.

Or..... perhaps the thing to do would be to sell yours for $9.99 apiece, and undercut the competition. What do CDR's cost these days? Just burn, label, slip it in a mailer and off it goes.

Or..... convince Courtesy that you own the copyright and see if they are

interested

in buying it from you.... ka-ching, that'd pay for server space for a while.

Surely we have an attorney on the list who would help us with the legalese.

FWIW

Kyle

A few ideas off the top of my head:

1) I like Carl's suggestion to bid them up rediculously high and then don't buy. The downside is that we will accumulate negative feedback and have to change our eBay ID. The upside is that you can leave negative feedback for the seller and state that they are selling copyrighted material. Create a big enough sh*t-storm and maybe the seller will get tired of it.

2) Is there a way to contact eBay and get them to close down auctions of copyrighted material? Surely this isn't the first time this issue has come up.

3) Maybe contact the seller and work a deal so that 240z.org gets a cut?

Open to other suggestions,

Damian

Following is an excerpt from email with the [Ebay] seller (Sam Namen):

Me:

So tell me, is this a direct copy of the COPYRIGHTED microfiche cd available only legally from www.240z.org ? If so, please be prepared for legal action.>

[Ebay] Seller:

Not at all. In fact I have seen Gholsons CD, and was not impressed in the least....and that puts me in the majority. So when can I expect your payment?

Mike, I like the idea someone had on the list, essentially, fight fire with fire. I'd just put a weekly auction up for your CD, or better yet a daily one for "1" at a time. Basically flood ebay with this. I've seen this done for USB cables for Sony Clie's etc....And don't forget to add very high up in the description that yours is the original and only CD authorized by Nissan.

I'd also let ebay know about the situation, i.e., copyrights. Either they've made their own which violates Nissan's copyright, or they stole yours and violated your copyright. Either way, I'd think Ebay would be very interested to know about this.

I think Pete has the right idea. First and foremost you should contact Ebay and explain the situation to them. They may decide to pull the ads and not accept anymore.

If that doesn't work we will have to form a group to contact Courtesy and go from there.

Maybe five monthes prior to joining the Internet Z club I bought this Cd of the ebay and when I say this cd I really mean a cd I am definitely sure it is not the same quality as your or courtesy Nissan's cd I am going to look up who I bought it from am find out where he got it and more than likely give him a piece of my mind and I am definitely staying away from ebay for my Z needs !!!!! Nine of ten times its junk or it's over priced and give me a few days and I will research the cd and the information so more than likely I will order the real cd !!!!!!

Had to spill my guts feel a little bit better but still ripped off !!!!!

Kyle is correct about the need to find out exactly what is being sold. But there is something you can do to right away with e-bay, when you do not have proof that a copyright has been violated, but have good reason to believe that is copyrighted material being improperly sold. They call it the "Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program".

Also, e-bay's policy states that " sellers are ultimately responsible for making sure their items are permissible to sell on eBay. "

This talks about policy violations & copyright infringement:

policy violations

Here is a link to the VeRO Program:

VeRO Program

I believe you should contact ebay through this program and see what they have to say. Depending upon how they respond, it is possible that you could obtain the relief you seek at little cost, and likely stop further tresspassing on ebay.

Now to think about the Courtesy Nissan response...

gary

I'm a veteran seller on ebay and a while back i had a lot of 20 or so golf videos by Greg Norman to sell. I decided to sell one a week when i noticed someone else selling some using the same picture i took of the item. He simply copied my picture (too lazy to produce his own) and then he basically "cut and pasted" my description onto his auctions. After several unanswered e-mails from that seller, i started e-mailing the all of the bidders on his auctions and telling them the story. Needless to say he had a lot of Pis*ed off people. He finally stopped using my pic and description and i sold a lot of those videos to his bidders after they retracted their bids.

I suggest either bidding their items sky-high or notifying ebay and all of the bidders on those auctions and making them a nice deal on one of the OFFICIAL, LEGAL, EXCELLENT CD'S from 240.org!!

I also suggest that some of the supporting members be allowed to sell the cd's at Z rallys, shows etc... on some sort of consignment and then forward all proceeds to Mike. It may help sell alot of cd's and we may catch some pirates out there in the process.

Just a couple of my thoughts.

The facts:

1. I'm new around here.

2. I've never seen the CD (yes, Mike they are still sitting here in the box from LA. Have not popped one in yet)

The questions: (rhetorical)

1. Where did the content on the 'Gholsen' CD come from?

2. Does Mike Gholsen and/or IZC and/or 240z.org and/or a corporate shell covering any of these entities hold ANYTHING in writing from Nissan Corp. stating they have rights to produce and/or duplicate whatever material is contained on the CD?

The suggestions:

1. Before any accusations start flying around, a couple simple, friendly phone calls should be made, if possible, or e-mails to ask a couple of obvious questions. That could quite possibly solve everything.

2. This is a serious matter that needs to be addressed by management and/or representatives of 240z.org and/or the 'owner' of the rights to the 'Gholsen' CD ONLY. This is not a situation where well-meaning parties need to be interfacing with the alleged infringers.

3. Two wrongs do not make a right. Do not do anything against E-bay's house rules or agreed-to-upon conditions placed on bidders or sellers. Fire with fire is not the way things are accomplished in civilized economies OR the 21st century.

steve77

Originally posted by Zvoiture

The questions: (rhetorical)

1. Where did the content on the 'Gholsen' CD come from?

2. Does Mike Gholsen and/or IZC and/or 240z.org and/or a corporate shell covering any of these entities hold ANYTHING in writing from Nissan Corp. stating they have rights to produce and/or duplicate whatever material is contained on the CD?

1 = I paid to have them scanned and 'touched up' each and every microfiche image. I also created the internal web navigation structure. A few of our members also created things like graphics, contributed videos, and other various pieces to the CD.

2 = I hold, in my hand, a letter from Nissan Motor Corporation stating that we have the right to sell this product. I also confirmed with my contact at Nissan that we are the only organization they have allowed to sell such material.

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