FedEx Cracks Down on Box Furniture, Citing DMCA 778
nospmiS remoH writes "Wired is running an article about a guy with no money making furniture out of FedEx boxes. If that weren't strange enough, FedEx is going after him, legally citing the DMCA. Yes, the DMCA. Apparently they are not upset about the furniture itself but rather this site that he put up with pictures of his creations (pretty good work really). My favorite quote from the article, '...Avila clearly intended to operate a business from his website because he used the .com domain suffix, the "commercial level domain," rather than .net.' You just can't make this stuff up."
Best example of corporate stupidity...ever (Score:5, Insightful)
It does sound silly, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Allowances for artistic expression? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oooh, they wrote a *Letter*? (Score:5, Insightful)
A judgement, which generally comes after a hearing, is another matter.
There's no way they'd win any claim of damages, period. They might be able to persuade a network provider to remove a site, but that's only because the customer usually has signed a contract with the provider that waives any right to damages resulting from a site being taken down, not because lawyers get to make law merely by writing letters to people.
If he's violating copyright and trademark law, then why can't Ford sue me for driving a Ford with Ford trademarks all over it? If I put a picture of my Ford on the the web, can they take down my site?
Precisely how is this different?
It's all about shutting down the site. (Score:5, Insightful)
The lawsuit is probably not expected to succeed, but to pressure the web site owner into closing up shop. If he doesn't have the cash for proper furniture, then he won't have the cash for lawyers.
For FedEx, "winning" consists of getting the site of the Internet. The legal battle is a means to an end.
Of course the result of all this is I'll be pressuring our shipping department to use UPS instead.
Just another step on the road to hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
In many countries like Brazil, it's completely impossible to run a business and abide by the labyrinthe of complicated and conflicting laws. Is this the kind of country we want in the U.S.?
Now, it's possible that FedEx has a case that this guy is abusing their trademark with the appropriately colored "Fed Ex" text on his site, but I can't see how he is harming them and the fact that they would... and could... cite the DMCA is just frightening. Is there no sense of perspective among these huge companies? All the guy is saying is that they make good boxes, but now they will generate not a small amount of bad will.
Now if the guy was selling the furniture, I also think they'd have a case. As it is, maybe he'll have to spray paint or otherwise obscure the company's logo. I thought these guys paid big bucks to plaster their names on anything they could like billboards, TV commercials, stadiums, people's foreheads...
I guess Mattel missed out by not using the DMCA when they pounded the crap out of that harmless little Barbie site several years ago. I guess the lawyers need someone to beat up or they start getting cranky.
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Illegal use of their trademark maybe, since he's got a web-page up (allegedly, the site seems slashdotted) showing their boxes with their logo on it.
But he didn't do anything to circumvent anything resembling a copy-protection mechanism or otherwise infringe on the copyrights of FedEx.
How in heck could the DMCA even be applicable here?
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:3, Insightful)
~S
If we had the DMCA in the 60s... (Score:5, Insightful)
W
Re:It does sound silly, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) If ANY kind of lawsuit could be brought for "buying too many boxes, and then using them in an unapproved manner", it would be in small-claims court.
2) Since they couldn't find a way to sue him for ketchup violations, they decided to sue him for trademark violations?!? And the argument involves DMCA and the .com domain name? And a lawyer gets paid far far too much to draft this lawsuit up, so they could sue a man who can't afford Ikea?? That's comedy man!
Re:Oooh, they wrote a *Letter*? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It does sound silly, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, so FedEx has a reason to be peeved with this guy. They could cut off his account (if he has one) and put his name on a blacklist of folks that cannot receive free boxes.
IANAL, but scamming free boxes is not a copyright violation and I am hard pressed to see how a website showing pictures of their boxes is either.
-- Never let reality temper imagination
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:1, Insightful)
If it saves me $30 in boxes, I'm going to do it.
This is a demand curve. It wants to be your friend (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, so "normal" means giving out money to some company when you can get the same or better for free. We're on Slashdot, go figure out the similarity of this situation on the OS front.
This is why FedEx filed the lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
I can understand them being upset about this, and I'm hard pressed to think of an appropriate response. Updating the terms under which they ship people free boxes so this behavior is banned, and then asking the web site owner to add a highly visible notice explaining this would have been far more reasonable, and just as effective.
Now, there will be a whole host of mirror sites. A web site that would have been a fun curiosity has now been made infamous. Many more people will now be directed to this site than would have otherwise seen it.
This is a backfiring legal strategy if I ever saw one.
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:2, Insightful)
UPS's management is the one making you pay inflated fees. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if they hand out free boxes, some people are going to take advantage of it.
If they felt like it, they could easily fix the problem by charging for the box up front and then rebating the box fee when the customer ships something in it. You can't expect to change the statistical behavior of the general public, but UPS's management could change their box policies.
BTW, if you want to see an "inflated fee", check out what they charge for boxes at U-Haul. (But I suppose they have to make up for renting out trucks for $14.99 per day somehow.)
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:4, Insightful)
It's remarkable how people seem to equate "legally allowed" with "ethical or friendly". He's allowed to talk loudly at a restaurant about his colonectomy and the resulting issues with fecal smearing. It's legal... and makes him a piss poor example of humanity.
--
Evan
Fedex copyright claims (Score:5, Insightful)
* "Fedex owns the copyright of its packaging"
ergo:
* "Fedex has the exclusive right [...] to create derivative works, to distribute copies to the public by sale [...] rental, lease, or lending and to publicly display its copyrighted works".
* "By posting photographs of works derived from Fedex packaging materials [...] Mr Avila is inducing, causing or materially contributing to the infringement conduct of others, and could be held liable as a contributory infringement".
There are other issues, but not related to copyright (trademark, unlawful access to the packaging materials).
I believe the fedex lawyer has a very weak argument: that the copyright of the design on the box extends to the box as a physical object. This is non-sense. If this was the case, any built product that uses material that has a copyrighted logo printed on it will become a "derivative work". That will mean that we will require a "license" from the material supplier to be able to use it. Non sense
Re:Trademark yes, copyright no (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps a boycott should be in order. (Score:2, Insightful)
There are dumber things to do than to tell a university lawyer that they can't print their opinions. But offhand, I can't think of any. And even better yet, she's not just some staff lawyer, she's the Executive Director for the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic.
DMCA "abuse"? (Score:3, Insightful)
But you can bet it was designed for exactly this purpose, and more. That's why it's so frequently used to beat into submission anyone who is hosting a website that a corporation might find embarassing or offensive.
Trademark? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't, and no, it doesn't. UPS and FedEx are charging as much as the market will bear. If their costs go down, they make more profit, and if their costs go up they make less. If FedEx and UPS choose to give away free boxes for their own reasons, that is between them and the people that take advantage of it. It doesn't effect other customers one bit.
I'll give you one example: if prices were strictly linked to costs, then cans of soda-pop would cost more in states where the distributors and retailers have to take a deposit and then refund it when the customer returns the can. Clearly, it costs them something to process and keep account of those cans coming back to the retailer and then back to the distributor, but the prices are not any higher.
Re:FedEx likes their TM (Score:3, Insightful)
Trademarks (Score:5, Insightful)
If they get pushy (such as threatening to sue) I'd offer to change the domain name to something like "shippingboxfurniture" and otherwise tell them to go piss up a rope.
Re:Free Boxes (Score:3, Insightful)
The Postal Inspection Service is a federal law enforcement agency, but USPS itself is no longer run by the government.
That's irrelevant. The USPS has a legal monopoly on mail and is for all intents and purposes a federal agency. Their computers still claim to be government property when you log on and congress has specific interest in their continued survival.
Re:Even better! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free Boxes from UPS & FedEx (Score:4, Insightful)
A funny anecdote is that at work they've made 20oz sodas $1.25. Partly for ease in making change but I can't help but think its because they've got a captive audience. Same thing with most airports; despite being very thirsty I couldn't stomach paying $1.75 at BWI for a 20oz. DCA however seems to be committed to competitive pricing.
I've seen it go both ways, I guess. I know my wife's primary care physician sent out a letter explaining why the cost of their service was going up. Our response was to drop 'em like a ton of bricks;their underlying costs rolled up into their service price, and the market (us) wouldn't bear it.
Re:I'm sure he wouldn't want to come. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with that from a moral standpoint -- I figure we all have our little moral justifications that we use to save us a buck here and there at the expense of The Man. It all works out in the end. But from a time standpoint, I don't get it. How much is your time worth? How much time does that trip to the corner store take you that would've otherwise been saved had you just picked up the quart of half and half when you picked up the gallon of milk at the grocery store? And if you feel just the slightest twinge of guilt upon "cheating" the corner store out of $.60 worth of half and half, what is that worth to you?
From a financial standpoint it doesn't make sense.
It's kinda like the 3 hours I spent driving around town the other day looking for a single 7mm nut. $.23 plus tax, but 3 hours of my time plus gas.
U-Haul sucks, use Budget instead (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm looking to move to Montana in a few months, from the Los Angeles area. The one way truck rental from U-Haul was over $5,000 for a 24' truck. The slightly larger truck that Budget offers was a little over half that price. For under $3,000, I could get it will all the moving supplies I need, and an auto trailer so my wife doesn't have to drive behind me.
Not to mention that the customer service at U-Haul sucks. I've never been in there, and not have to wait nearly an hour for the 2-3 people in front of me to be taken care of before they even start renting me something. When I've rented from Budget in the past, I was completely done, and out of there within half an hour.
Re:Free Boxes (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention he is using boxes that they create, with their logo and their name - as well as naming his website "fedexfurniture.com" - and then selling these things.
He is clearly in the wrong - and if they can cite the DMCA then kudos for their legal team who figured a way.
Re:while tenuous (Score:3, Insightful)
furthermore, such a strict categorization makes for some interesting questions as to where things ought to go. for example, let's say i've got a band that i don't make any money off of (and is therefore not a commercial entity), but is certainly not a "non-profit organization" in the traditional connotation.
there are thousands more examples of cases that don't quite fit into the simple categorizations that were first envisioned with the TLDs. people have adapted their usage to the technological constraints by pushing the boundaries of what TLDs are used for which purposes.
Re:Free Boxes (Score:1, Insightful)
A) he has a job
B) is poor
c) probably is reading this article on
Woot for reading the article before posting!
Re:while tenuous (Score:4, Insightful)
And while you're at it, presuming you're an american, why not use your darned country TLD..
Re:Grow up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Grow up (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Our government has 3 branches, the post office is not one of them, however it is part of one of them.
2) Destruction of and misuse of federal government property, may be the offenses you are looking for. Oh and BTW, your mailbox is not yours either, the MAN owns it.
Re:Grow up (Score:3, Insightful)
Time spent in the mail room can be instructive:
Prized for portability -- possessed illegally [sptimes.com]
Re:Free Boxes (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, they made an assumption. Sounds legally binding to me...
Not to mention he is using boxes that they create, with their logo and their name - as well as naming his website "fedexfurniture.com" - and then selling these things.
I've sold stuff that people gave me for free. That's why they call it _giving_ it away.
and if they can cite the DMCA then kudos for their legal team who figured a way.
This is a little scary. FedEx deserves kudos, for taking a law which clearly does not apply, and whacking him with it? Why not go full-bore and call him a abuses-free-boxes-terrorist?
Re:Free Boxes (Score:2, Insightful)
The next I'd send to Dick Cheney. The third, John Ashcroft, the fourth and fifth to whoever's in charge of the RIAA/MPAA, and so on down my "Long List of People who are Full Of S**t (TM)."
Whoever's in charge of this lawsuit, though, would definitely get one. -Macavity
Re: Grow Up (Score:3, Insightful)
To specifically address this, here's a quote from "American Government and Politics Today" (published by Thomas/Wadsworth), under the Bureaucracy chapter (which is where the USPS falls... directly under the executive branch which is supposed to carry out laws passed by Congress):
If mail theft, mail fruad and tampering with mailboxes can be federal offenses, then so could using USPS packaging for something other than its intended purpose.