›

Ebay Legal Question (NRR)

bsuwolfbsuwolf 83 Posts
edited February 2009 in Strut Central
Fellas, Need a little Ebay legal advice here. My wife has a store on Ebay where she creates and sells Invitations (birthday, wedding, etc,) and then personalizes them with the customers name, info, and sometimes pictures. Her invitations have many themes and one of them used the images of Alvin & The Chipmunks. Well about a week ago she received an email from Alvin's copyright legal representatives requesting she take down the Alvin invitations. She did this in about an hour and notified them that she obeyed their request. No harm, no foul. Then today, she receives another email from the legal represenation saying that she owes them $200 in legal costs and if not paid, that they will take her to court. We did some research on the person who sent the letter, and they are for real (the represent copywrite interest for Alvin, WWE, etc.). My question is this out of the ordinary (being compensated for legal costs) or normal operating procedure. It seems a little harsh for a cease and desist situation that was followed within an hour of receiving an email. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

  Comments

  • PABLOPABLO 1,921 Posts
  • ariel_calmerariel_calmer 3,762 Posts
    I vote for ignoring it and see if anything more comes of it. Nobody's going to take anybody "to court" over $200.
  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
    My gf (lawyer) says
    a) Emailing a demand for money is weird
    b) Filing fees for a $200 lawsuit isn't worth their time.

    Her "impression."
  • bsuwolfbsuwolf 83 Posts
    Thanks for the info. It will help.
  • keithvanhornkeithvanhorn 3,855 Posts
    Fellas,
    Need a little Ebay legal advice here. My wife has a store on Ebay where she creates and sells Invitations (birthday, wedding, etc,) and then personalizes them with the customers name, info, and sometimes pictures. Her invitations have many themes and one of them used the images of Alvin & The Chipmunks.
    Well about a week ago she received an email from Alvin's copyright legal representatives requesting she take down the Alvin invitations. She did this in about an hour and notified them that she obeyed their request. No harm, no foul. Then today, she receives another email from the legal represenation saying that she owes them $200 in legal costs and if not paid, that they will take her to court. We did some research on the person who sent the letter, and they are for real (the represent copywrite interest for Alvin, WWE, etc.). My question is this out of the ordinary (being compensated for legal costs) or normal operating procedure. It seems a little harsh for a cease and desist situation that was followed within an hour of receiving an email. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.



    You are only entitled to legal fees by statute or by contract. Obviously, you didn't enter into an agreement with the chipmunks company or the law firm to pay them fees, however, federal trademark law (lanham act) does provide for attorneys fees to the prevailing party. So technically, if they sued and won, you'd owe atty fees.

    In reality, they wouldn't have done anything further if you never pulled the ebay chipmunk thing. Either they have someone in-house that they pay to patrol the web for trademark violations or they are paying an outside firm. Either way, there is a big difference between googling and filing a lawsuit. If your wife never took the pics down, the absolute most that would have happened, imo, is that the firm would have sent a mock lawsuit and warned her that it would be filed if she didn't remove it.

    As for the email for attys fees...

  • JLRJLR 3,835 Posts






    K in Canada = Alvin and the chipmunks dude ?????
Sign In or Register to comment.