Expressing Opinions

I have been around the Internet long before there was a www (WorldWideWeb) and I must admit I have seen some pretty good spoof sites like DHMO.org and heard some wonderful legends. So today when I came across this story, I thought it was kind of strange and possibly one of those Internet Legends.

It was a story about a Ford Mustang owners club who wanted to produce a calendar featuring their cars. The headline was from a story on BoingBoing and it stated, “Ford: Car owners are pirates if they distribute pictures of their own cars.” But as I dug around on the web I came up with a little more info from the club.

On the BMC web site they had a posting from Lisa stating:

I got some more info from the folks at cafepress and according to them, a law firm representing Ford contacted them saying that our calendar pics (and our club’s event logos - anything with one of our cars in it) infringes on Ford’s trademarks which include the use of images of THEIR vehicles. Also, Ford claims that all the images, logos and designs OUR graphics team made for the BMC events using Danni are theirs as well. Funny, I thought Danni’s title had my name on it … and I thought you guys owned your cars … and, well … I’m not even going to get into how wrong and unfair I feel this whole thing is as I’d be typing for hours, but I wholeheartedly echo everything you guys have been saying all afternoon. I’m not letting this go un-addressed and I’ll keep you guys posted as I get to work on this.

I’m sorry, but at this point we will not be producing the 2008 BMC Calendar, featuring our 2007 Members of the Month, solely due to Ford Motor Company’s claim that THEY own all rights to the photos YOU take of YOUR car. I hope to resolve this soon, and be able to provide the calendar and other BMC merchandise that you guys want and deserve! This thread will remain open for you to comment however you wish, and I’ll update it as needed.

Thanks for all your support of the BMC!!

Is this real or is the BMC pissed at Ford and decided to give them some bad publicity? If it is not real then they are doing a good job of setting themselves up for legal issues. If it is real, I can understand copyrights and infringing on someone else’s work. But is Ford and their attorneys really that anal? Oh please! And they wonder why sales are going down?