Protouring Calendars

[bubba57-chevy]

That's great news, I'll take 2 also, just let us know.

[Larry Callahan]

Just dandy. GM has gotten involved and has an issue with our calendars and won't let us print images of GM products.

I have made a call and I have sent off an e-mail to see what we can do. Unbelievable.

[Young Gun]

youve gotta be sh!ting me

[lower90xcab]

youve gotta be sh!ting me

x2.........

i just gave them 40k for a truck, you would think they could let a little old calendar slide by......

[tones2SS]

x2.........

i just gave them 40k for a truck, you would think they could let a little old calendar slide by......

lolll...
Don't forget all that "bail-out" money!! lol

[dropit69]

hmm weird i belong to other sites that sell calenders and they have gm products..wont say who to keep them safe ..weird..damn gm !!!

[Larry Callahan]

youve gotta be sh!ting me

Nope, I got an e-mail from a lawyer and I called her. The only option I see is to pay GM rights now that they are watching us or kill it.

Sucks because I was only marking up the calendars one penny each to keep the costs down.

[lower90xcab]

gm is paying people to surf the net all day.....looking for thier products be used in advertising w/o paying them rights to it.....


that explains why my truck cost 40k.......

[Samckitt]

x2.........

i just gave them 40k for a truck, you would think they could let a little old calendar slide by......

X3!

I can't believe that. Seems like it would be free advertisement for them. How about sending the ones that want the calendar the pictures & let us order them ourselves?

I heard the Mustang forums had this problem from Ford as well.

So does all the magazines have to pay GM, Ford, Dodge for the right to publish pictures?

[jknight16]

I may be naive since I'm just a finance guy but if they're OUR cars and the people submitting the pictures have provided consent, I fail to see how GM has any interest in the "image" of the vehicle. Seems like ownership of that image should fall under the owner of the vehicle.

What is the world coming to....

[Rick D]

Ok Larry what if you do not use any wording at all?? Call it pro-touring calendar and thats it. If you do not use there names (camaro chevelle chevrolet) which is what they are protecting the copy right for, than I do not see how they have a legal right to stop you from making them. But I am no lawyer and I would think it would still cost money to fight them on this. Don't we have a lawyer in the house that can take this on???

[Young Gun]

Nope, I got an e-mail from a lawyer and I called her. The only option I see is to pay GM rights now that they are watching us or kill it.

Sucks because I was only marking up the calendars one penny each to keep the costs down.

Well thanks for at least trying to get it to this point, hopefully it can get resolved!

[Ron S]

Wow Larry, I don't think they realize the amount of buzz this sight gives to GM's new products, and how stunts like this make me never want to buy another GM product. I just keep saying it, how did we get here? Ron

[tommycomfort]

[QUOTE=Larry Callahan;614494]Nope, I got an e-mail from a lawyer and I called her. The only option I see is to pay GM rights now that they are watching us or kill it.

That would be part of the GM that is not car enthusiasts and drove the company into the ground (among other things). Makes me sick!!!
Tom

[KEISLER]

Ok Larry what if you do not use any wording at all?? Call it pro-touring calendar and thats it. If you do not use there names (camaro chevelle chevrolet) which is what they are protecting the copy right for, than I do not see how they have a legal right to stop you from making them. But I am no lawyer and I would think it would still cost money to fight them on this. Don't we have a lawyer in the house that can take this on???

Good idea ... images of P-T members cars, along with a description of the car.
No official logos, etc.
No factory press images.
No as featured in 'magazine name here', etc.
And a disclaimer that 'car names' are a registered trademark of 'car manufacturer'

In my opinion, these large corps don't want to hurt the enthusiast and they like us liking them. But they can't let one group break the rules and not enforce it, as that action can led to ramifications of enforcing their trademark in general, loosing the trademark rights, etc.

[Droolguy]

Don't worry about it, they are just legal scare tactics.

As long as you took the pictures and the people who own the cars already gave you consent (I assume they gave you consent anyway).

The only way GM would have any legal claim what-so-ever is if the calendar was solely about their stock show-room cars. Or you infringed on their copywright laws by calling it "The Camaro Calendar" or something like that, just list cars BY OWNER and then model (i.e. "Bob Young's 1969 Chevrolet Camaro") because it removes any claim GM can have since it is not "their" camaro anymore.

Once a car is purchased, GM no longer has ownership, and by extension no legal claim to a vehicle. Especially ones so extensively modified as most of ours.

[Droolguy]

If they really wan't to push the issue, because I am in the military I have *free* legal assistance.

Print them in my name, I would love for them to waste their money fighting it in court against our military lawyers.

[Van B]

Something seems wrong with this. These cars are 40 years old. How can GM think that they own any image that is ever taken of a car that they built and sold, especially over 40 years ago? This is BS and would never hold up.

[hotrdblder]

gm never built a camaro or chevelle as nice as what would have been in the calender.
makes me feel better about buying my first ford 1.5 yrs ago

[Jim Nilsen]

Send them an IOU and tell them you will pay them when they pay us !!!

One day someone will be asking why their aren't any GM cars in calenders anymore ? We could send them a calender with nothing but Fords,Mopars,AMC's and everything else but a GM and note to them that this may be what future calenders will look like when there is no GM anymore because they are choosing their future now.

I am looking at a calender I have on the wall and it has GM cars in it and it doesn't have one bit of any rights paid to GM.It was put out by Leapyear Publishing in Massechusetts. It was however printed in China which may be what you have to do to not pay, but now that the Chinese will own GM ?

Tell them to go threaten someone else other than law abiding people. There are still plenty of people who don't pay that are bigger fish. I can't think of a grand jury that would let that go anywhere.

On another note, if you never send one to anyone else but a member here and GM never gets one in their hands to show someone that you made them, how would they have a case ?

Make them and let them make the first move if they ever know when and with what?