Re: Beware Cafe Press!

["Steve Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

"Mark Sottilaro" <sine@zerocrossing.net> put forth:

> I just found out that Cafe Press has recently changed its user
> agreement from good to evil.  If you have anything for sale there, I
> urge you to get it off now, because they now feel that because they
> sell your designs there *they own them*.  Not good.
>
> Details here:
>
> http://www.giveneyestosee.com/say-no-to-cafepress/

While it is not immediately evident that they've gone "evil" I admit some
concern, having had my own logo online there for several years.  This
segment of the agreement is interesting, and worth dissecting, with my
comments:

"6.1 CafePress.com will solely and exclusively own all intellectual 
property
and other rights, title and interest in and to the CafePress.com Service"

Such should be expected, as it's THEIR service, and they own the contents 
of
it.  That is, the stuff that's THEIR stuff...  But wait...

"...and CafePress.com will have the sole and exclusive right to obtain
trademark and copyright registrations, patents and other protection
therefor, and you will not acquire any right, title or interest therein,
under this Agreement or otherwise."

Anyone has the right to obtain TM and Copyright registrations, of course.
But somehow this smells quite a bit like the so-called "Music Online
Competition Act of 2001" (remember that attempt to steal our music folks?).
In MOCA, it was muddily stated that if you don't register with the 
copyright
office, ANYONE has the right to register YOUR work as THEIRS without 
telling
the content creator/owner.  It is of course not necessary for people to
register with the copyright office in order to have the copyright on their
works (but it works a lot more than a registered, unopened letter with your
work in it sent to yourself, should one go to court).  As anyone with half 
a
brain can tell, this is prohibitive to folks who can't afford legal fees 
and
registration costs, at least - and, most likely, BY DESIGN.

So under the above, CafePress.com reserves the right to register copyright
as well as trademarks for YOUR WORK.  After which, you have no rights
whatsoever.  As if this wasn't enough of a gag for artists...

"6.2 You hereby grant to CafePress.com a royalty-free, worldwide,
nonexclusive, right and license to use the trademarks, trade names, 
designs,
logos and other images that you upload to your image basket in connection
with your use of the CafePress.com Service ("Party Marks"). If you or
CafePress.com terminate your account, CafePress.com will cease its use of
the Party Marks within 90 days of the termination."

Sounds just like mp3.com, doesn't it?  And just as unacceptable as their 
own
"Standard Big Five" approach to music, as far as I'm concerned.  Shame,
really.  Though it seems to me that someone else will pick up the slack, 
and
establish an online presence for this same purpose without trying to steal
our work.  Hopefully.  I'm just glad that I didn't launch my cartoons up
there, as I was about to next month.

NOW!  As if this weren't enough impetus for anyone to yank their content 
off
their system immediately, I tried to track down the owner of the
CafePress.com domain - which is listed at Network Solutions as
fred@freddurham.com.  I sent off the following, in hopes of some kind of
lead, if not an answer:

<begin quote>
Dear Fred,

I tracked down your email address from a whois for cafepress.com.  Having
read up on the new user agreements for cafepress.com I have to verify what 
I
believe to be true, before going any further.

Is CafePress assuming the right to register copyrights or trademarks on
images or music posted on its service, without notification to the creators
of that content, or not?  It seems that paragraphs 6.1 and 6.2 indeed say
this.  I would appreciate your response, as I and others need to see this 
in
clear English from the owner of the CafePress domain.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you immediately.
<end quote>

Guess what?  It came back undeliverable, as there IS NO 'FRED' address at
that domain.  So I go look at the whois report for freddurham.com - and the
owning domain is (you guessed, didn't you?) cafepress.com - listing, of
course, the invalid email address shown above.

This kind of cross-purpose obfuscation has in the past been the device of
spammers and spammers' ISPs.  It is then my hope that nobody at CafePress
has taken steps to steal my frigging logo, which has been on their system
for nearly three years.  But is off as of this morning.

I therefore urge you to pull any material you may have with them, and
terminate your agreement as soon as humanly possible.

As Mick Jagger said after Axel "Drunks and Posers" Rose left the stage of
the "Terrifying" tour (following his evisceration of "Let's Drink to the
Hard-working People"), "So much for that."

Thanks Mark.

Steve Goodman
EarthLight Productions
*
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