From: ctinfo@ctpub.com
Subject: Mail from web site - professional
Date: November 15, 2006 2:13:12 PM EST
To: [my address]
The following message was entered on tomfarrell.org via a web form.
-----MESSAGE FOLLOWS-----
Mr. Farrell -
My name is Adrianne Shroyer and I am the Copyright & Permissions Administrator
for C&T Publishing, Inc.
C&T publishes a series of quilting and craft books under the trademark,
"Fast Fun & Easy®," and maintains a web site under this name.
Your use of the term "Fast Fun & Easy" on your quilting page was
brought to our attention by a customer who was searching for information on
our book series and came across your web site. We're concerned that your use
of this trademarked term may cause confusion and we'd greatly appreciate it
if you would remove it from your site.
Thank you for your cooperation in this matter and please don't hesitate to contact
me with any questions or comments. I enjoyed browsing your web site and wish
you the best of success in your endeavors.
Regards,
Adrianne Shroyer
Copyright & Permissions Administrator
C&T Publishing
1651 Challenge Drive
Concord, CA 94520-5206
(800) 284-1114 ext. 205
ctinfo@ctpub.com
Dear Ms. Shroyer,
Thank you for contacting me regarding my web page. I have published this page
on the web under the name "Quilting: Fast, Fun & Easy" since March
1998, during which time it has been listed with most if not all of the major
search engines, so you could have easily looked it up any time in the last 8.75
years. I looked up your trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office, and
it lists that this trademark's first use in commerce was July 1, 2003. However,
you may rest assured that I have no desire or intent (or time or energy or money)
to file a cancelation proceeding with the Patent and Trademark Office regarding
your trademark registration on the basis of my prior use.
The trademark listing also specifies that you have this trademark for a "series
of books featuring information on hobby and crafts". My web page is unquestionably
not a book. So, it's my opinion that my web page doesn't infringe on the books
trademark anyway.
To date no readers have contacted me regarding your series of books. I hear
from readers fairly regularly, and they're not hesitant to express or demonstrate
their confusion to me, so I believe if there was any substantial confusion on
the part of readers I'd have heard about it at least once before in all the
years my page has been up.
Look, let's be blunt: you're a publishing company, and I'm just a guy with a
web page. I'm sure you can afford a lot more lawyers than I can, so if you tell
me your intent is to sue me if I don't change my page, I'll back down and change
my page... but I'll feel very upset about it because I think I'm in the right
here and I'm just trying to encourage people to take up quilting (which if anything
should be good for your business). Alternatively, you could realize that perhaps
you were a bit overzealous and that my web page doesn't really conflict with
your book series trademark (you don't even have one about introductory quilting
in that series, according to your web site) and that your trademark doesn't
apparently cover web pages anyway, so maybe you might want to just let me know
you've decided I'm not actually infringing after all, in which case I might
even buy some of your books. Meanwhile, I swear I won't author or publish any
books using a title containing the phrase "fast fun & easy".
Let me know if you really want to insist on this removal or not.
Thomas M. Farrell
From: ctinfo@ctpub.com
Subject: Re: Mail from web site - professional
Date: November 16, 2006 12:22:26 PM EST
To: [my address]
Mr. Farrell -
Yes, let's be blunt.
I couldn't care less about the use of "Fast Fun & Easy" on your
web site,
and I've got much better things to do than worry about one web page out of
millions on the Internet. But the fact of the matter is, the Publisher and
the CEO of C&T Publishing do take issue with the use. I was instructed to
send you a formal cease and desist letter, but because I realize that you're
"just a guy with a web site," I instead made what I thought was a
polite
request, hoping to avoid having the matter taken any further.
Like I said, I realize you're just a guy with a web site and I've got better
things to do. I don't want to see lawyers get involved in this issue, but
that is not my decision. So why not make it easy on both of us and just
modify the heading. Change the ampersand to the word "and," and add
the
word "made" or "is" in front of "fast fun and easy,"
so the heading of the
page reads, "Quilting made fast fun and easy" or "Quilting is
fast fun and
easy," or something similar. Then we can both get on with our lives and
worry about more important things, like whether my dad will burn the turkey
this year or grandma will insist you try her yam casserole.
Regards,
Adrianne Shroyer
- Copyright & Permissions Administrator
_____________________________________________
C&T Publishing and Create & Treasure
Books and Products that Inspire Creativity!
1651 Challenge Drive, Concord, CA 94520
(800) 284-1114 / (925) 677-0377
www.ctpub.com / ctinfo@ctpub.com
I provide free information on my web site to help the public get started with crafts. I don't like being stomped on by a publisher who has the resources to sue me into the ground, even though I'm actually the person who was using the term first, and they went and got a trademark registration on it even though they could very easily have found out I had prior use, which means I could try to take their trademark registration away from them if I wanted to invest the time and money to do so, and even though their trademark registration is for use of the term in books, and my web page isn't a book.
I want you to know that C&T publishing is treating people like me in this manner, so that, I hope, you will choose not to buy their books. Taking down the quilting page is to help get your attention. Also, I don't have time to revamp it now, while posting this takes me only a couple minutes. I will publish something else about quilting in the future.