reply: Walt, I tend to agree with your assessment, but being right or wrong about the issue of the exact form of the logo claimed by DMC Houston is not the point. Copyrights are federal rights and for the most part self enforced, so whilethey are federal laws, the copy right owners are required to do all the legal work of enforcement. So when James (DMC Houston) made his threats about non existent use agreements and re evaluation of My use of their logo, he was using the power of Title 17 of the US Copyright statutes. Under these laws the defendant (that?s me in this case) is required to do several things when "notice" is received, some of which are to stop the infringement work, destroying all infringing materials, molds, etc,. No cease & desist order is required unless I refuse to follow the Title 17 statutes. The problem for us casual producers of various DeLorean things is that whenMr. Wynne tells any one over the phone something along the lines as "?if it is not offensive or degrades DeLorean's name or the car ?." It's OK, The caller has no actualpermission to use the DMC Houston registered logo. Such licensing has to be in writing tobe enforceable and defended. In my case I spent money to have an attorney write a proper contract, Mr. Wynne received that contract and liked it's content or so he said on the phone, but he never signed the contract or ever got back to me once James took over. While the contract did include the use of the "DMC" logo it also covered other items I wanted to produce. The bottom line is that it's entirely DMC Houston's game, they can enforce or not as they choose, with any out come being either an out of court settlement or court finding after a trial. More to the point, The issue with me was being threatened with the loss of tacit approval by DMC Houston unless I delivered a FREE limited edition 1/24th scale modelto DMC Houston. The current excuse "I was only joking?about the copyrights?"when taken with a new accusation on the phone that.... "If you want to use the copyright problem to get out of finishing the models?.That's OK with me " (James of DMC Houston), belies the suggestion that DMC Houston (James) made no such statements/demands. As a practical matter there is little I can do now with out a voluntary license from DMC Houston's. Not because I am wrong or that DMC Houston have rights to my exact usage. But because DMC Houston has given me what is know as "Legal notice", now I can only wait to see if the other shoe falls. This is true of all others as well whoare selling anything that DMC Houston might decide to claim is theirs, not saying they will, just that it's their option. They must enforce their copyrights and it is what they think falls with in their registration that counts. Any one me included who produces anything that DMC Houston decides fall under their registration is at risk with out a writtenagreement. Lee Walter wrote: > > The DMC logo was officially registered THIS YEAR 9/25/2001 by Houston. > > This also ran out in 1985, so was unregistered from 1985 until this > > year. > > I bet that DMC Houston will have a very hard time defending any > infringements on this copyright since it has technically been in the public > domain from 1985-2001. There was a similar problem with a copyright > concerning the Diver's Down Flag (the red flag with the diagonal white > stripe.) Someone had a copyright to this many many years ago but never > enforced it. Eventually it became part of the logo for just about every > dive shop in the world. When they went to enforce their copyright, they > couldn't. I bet a similar thing might happen with DMC Houston. People have > been producing the DMC logo in various forms now for several years. If > Houston tries to get a cease & decist order at this point, I bet it will be > a moot point. (and probably bad for their business anyway.) > > Walt Tampa, FL > > To address comments privately to the moderating team, please address: > moderator@xxxx > > To search the archives or view files, log in at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]