Herein lies the difference between Toyota and GM. They both make boneheaded, out-of-touch, bureaucracy-driven decisions. Toyota then makes an effort to correct them.
I am really trying to understand who would care if some toyota pics were removed from the site. I feel sorry for the poor guy who uses a toyota press shot for a wallpaper.
I aman avid 87th scale model car builder/collector (I know, hard to imagine anything geekier) and GM prosecutes anyone who builds copies of their cars that are less than 2 inches long. I am talking about some guy who makes twenty-five resin cast 1967 Impalas in his basement getting letters from the GM legal department, hardly Interpol levels of crime.
Just about every large company in the US seems to be overstocked with lawyers with waayy too much time on their hands, most of them hell-bent on pissing off their own fanbase. F-ing idiots, all of them. Good to see that Toyota is soaking up the corporate spirit which led to the imminent collapse of Detroit.
Actually, some of the car companies think their intellectual property includes your original artwork of their cars. Wealthy owners of IP have been using the threat of litigation to expand their property rights well beyond what the founding fathers had in mind for copyrights.
As some Jalopniks know, I run a small embroidery shop and have done work for the Black Metal V8olvo team and one other whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry guys) for the 24 Hrs of Lemons.
A while back both GM (directly) and Chrysler (through their licensing agent) took issue with my embroideries of Impalas and PT Cruisers. They were claiming exclusive ownership of any images of their cars and that I was violating not their trademarks but the copyrighted designs of the cars themselves.
Chrysler's agent backed down when the Sunday business section of the Detroit News had an article that portrayed "Daimler-Chrysler AG" as picking on a little guy who made Jewish religious items.
I pitched a big guy picking on little guy story to the business editor and when the reporter showed up I said that I was certain it was a coincidence and that I'd never think of accusing them of bias but that it was interesting that a company that had used Jews as slaves and recently put $1 billion into a reparations fund was now picking on a Judaica shop. All the folks in Auburn Hills had to see was "Jewish" and "Daimler-Chrysler AG" in the same article and they told their agent to back off.
GM backed down when I told them that I'd be happy to stand before 12 Americans with one of my shirts in one hand and a copy of Car & Driver in another and let them decide which one isn't a picture of a car. I also suggested that they do a little legal research on how Formica Corp. had its trademark to the word Formica taken away by a judge who was not pleased with their selective enforcement of their IP.
I think that they assumed that there was some sort of sarcastic intent. Come on, think about it. The public posting pictures of Toyotas. On the Internet. Voluntarily.
Yea; it's obviously some mean-spirited inside cultural joke they're being made the butt of. I mean, what else could it be?
11/21/08
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/sarcasm
Does Toyota make ANY car that anyone would want as their wallpaper?
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For "pleased", read "confused".
11/21/08
fap fap fap fap
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You are keeping Toyotas on people's desktops.
Congratulations.
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11/18/08
Just about every large company in the US seems to be overstocked with lawyers with waayy too much time on their hands, most of them hell-bent on pissing off their own fanbase. F-ing idiots, all of them. Good to see that Toyota is soaking up the corporate spirit which led to the imminent collapse of Detroit.
11/17/08
As some Jalopniks know, I run a small embroidery shop and have done work for the Black Metal V8olvo team and one other whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry guys) for the 24 Hrs of Lemons.
A while back both GM (directly) and Chrysler (through their licensing agent) took issue with my embroideries of Impalas and PT Cruisers. They were claiming exclusive ownership of any images of their cars and that I was violating not their trademarks but the copyrighted designs of the cars themselves.
Chrysler's agent backed down when the Sunday business section of the Detroit News had an article that portrayed "Daimler-Chrysler AG" as picking on a little guy who made Jewish religious items.
I pitched a big guy picking on little guy story to the business editor and when the reporter showed up I said that I was certain it was a coincidence and that I'd never think of accusing them of bias but that it was interesting that a company that had used Jews as slaves and recently put $1 billion into a reparations fund was now picking on a Judaica shop. All the folks in Auburn Hills had to see was "Jewish" and "Daimler-Chrysler AG" in the same article and they told their agent to back off.
GM backed down when I told them that I'd be happy to stand before 12 Americans with one of my shirts in one hand and a copy of Car & Driver in another and let them decide which one isn't a picture of a car. I also suggested that they do a little legal research on how Formica Corp. had its trademark to the word Formica taken away by a judge who was not pleased with their selective enforcement of their IP.
11/17/08
11/18/08
11/17/08
Yea; it's obviously some mean-spirited inside cultural joke they're being made the butt of. I mean, what else could it be?
11/17/08