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General Discussion / Re: status of permission from GM- regarding CRG shirts and hats
« on: December 04, 2012, 11:21:38 PM »
Hi Guys,
I don't participate here very much but this spilled over on to Team Camaro and got my attention. As the president of Camaros Limited Nor~Cal which has been in existence since 1981. The club has always had shirts and other swag printed up for it's members. At one time we went to an online printing store in an effort to get the swag to the membership in a more on demand fashion! Bad move, it worked great but GM lawyers had been trying to shut down the online store for a long time and when they saw our club logo demanded they shut down our site.
What transpired next was months of dealing with the GM legal team who assured us GM and Chevrolet were not going after a small group of some of GM more dedicated and loyal customer base and supporters but we were a casualty of their fight against a larger foe! After a long running process of filling out the forms, waiting for approvals, providing further information, finding out about GM's intellectual property, learning about the ins and outs of getting a corporate license to be allowed limited use of said intellectual property the club was finally allowed conditional permission.
That started the next round, we couldn't just go print stuff. Each item of art had to be reviewed and approved, a statement of use or condition of use had to be approved as well. Then we had to state what swag the art (GMs intellectual property) they would not accept a list saying: "Hats, Shirts, etc." ETC was too vague and if you wanted pens and hats and shirts and business cards and and and ... Well each item had to be spelled out. This took months and months before we were given a conditional ok to start printing!
Swag is really cool and most clubs and online forums do it without realizing what is at risk to the organization. GM has a corporate shark that swims the waters of the internet and will issue a cease an desist order and then they will start feeding on you like a wounded sea lion. They don't care if you are a small time Charlie making a shirt for your own personal use they will treat you just like a big corporation wanting to license and make money off the GM brand and it's intellectual property!!
The best thing the membership here can do is honor the administrations wishes and back off until it's the right time to proceed...
Thanks for taking the time to read my .02!
I don't participate here very much but this spilled over on to Team Camaro and got my attention. As the president of Camaros Limited Nor~Cal which has been in existence since 1981. The club has always had shirts and other swag printed up for it's members. At one time we went to an online printing store in an effort to get the swag to the membership in a more on demand fashion! Bad move, it worked great but GM lawyers had been trying to shut down the online store for a long time and when they saw our club logo demanded they shut down our site.
What transpired next was months of dealing with the GM legal team who assured us GM and Chevrolet were not going after a small group of some of GM more dedicated and loyal customer base and supporters but we were a casualty of their fight against a larger foe! After a long running process of filling out the forms, waiting for approvals, providing further information, finding out about GM's intellectual property, learning about the ins and outs of getting a corporate license to be allowed limited use of said intellectual property the club was finally allowed conditional permission.
That started the next round, we couldn't just go print stuff. Each item of art had to be reviewed and approved, a statement of use or condition of use had to be approved as well. Then we had to state what swag the art (GMs intellectual property) they would not accept a list saying: "Hats, Shirts, etc." ETC was too vague and if you wanted pens and hats and shirts and business cards and and and ... Well each item had to be spelled out. This took months and months before we were given a conditional ok to start printing!
Swag is really cool and most clubs and online forums do it without realizing what is at risk to the organization. GM has a corporate shark that swims the waters of the internet and will issue a cease an desist order and then they will start feeding on you like a wounded sea lion. They don't care if you are a small time Charlie making a shirt for your own personal use they will treat you just like a big corporation wanting to license and make money off the GM brand and it's intellectual property!!
The best thing the membership here can do is honor the administrations wishes and back off until it's the right time to proceed...
Thanks for taking the time to read my .02!