Tabberone is pronounced tab ber won not tay ber own

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke

Visit Tabberone's Trademark & Copyright Abusers' Hall Of Shame where we list companies we feel are, or have been, abusing the DMCA and the eBay VeRO Program with their police-state tactics. For a company to get into the Hall Of Shame, it does not have to get sued by us. All it has to do is shut down auctions, etc, in what we feel is a violation of the rights of others, or actively promote false restrictions and/or make false claims concerning trademarks and/or copyrights.

 

You may have noticed that there are a lot of pundits who will tell you what you can and cannot do with patterns, licensed fabrics, embroidery designs, pictures, and descriptions, but none can point you to specific court cases or federal law that supports their claims. We can and we do. What we find particularly galling are the people who make claims such as "designers can put restrictions on use if they want" and "I think if it is actually printed on the fabric, you should respect the copyright wishes of the designer" without considering the legal ramifications. Once the item is sold why should someone be able to control what you do with it? The First Sale Doctrine says they can't. But, there are some logical restrictions. You cannot misrepresent the item when you resell it. We started these web pages in 2001 and we have yet to have anyone provide us with court cases or federal law backing their false claims.

"The whole point of the first sale doctrine is that once the copyright owner places a copyrighted item in the stream of commerce by selling it, he has exhausted his exclusive statutory right to control its distribution." Justice Stevens, delivering an opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court in the case QUALITY KING DISTRIBUTORS, INC. v. L'ANZA RESEARCH INT'L, INC. (96-1470), 98 F.3d 1109, reversed.

There are a lot of companies out there who use questionable tactics to coerce people into doing what these companies want them to do. While there are far too many people and companies infringing upon copyrights and trademarks, far too many rights holders have adopted approaches that infringe upon the rights of the innocent. If one percent of the people put into jail were proven to be innocent, the public would be outraged and demand some sort of corrective action. One study has concluded that as much as thirty percent of eBay auction terminations are "questionable". Tabberone has been in federal court more than 15 times to defend against "improper" eBay auction terminations and won the great majority of them.

Come visit our wackiest addition to these pages: eBay - Land The Game™ a parody This is an open-source board game based upon the buying and selling experience on eBay.

VeRO Commandments

Check out Tabberone's Vero Commandments for those with a need of direction.

eBay's Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") Program was begun to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Originally, eBay actually made some attempt to "verify" that the party was the owner of the "rights". However, eBay has long abandoned that approach while retaining the word "Verified" in the name to give the appearances that eBay really gives a crap about the person having their auction terminated. trust us, eBay doesn't care. After we sued Disney Enterprises in 2002, eBay changed their policy concerning "counter notices" to make it more difficult for you to fight back. These Commandments are the result of our experiences in dealing with eBay and the abuses of the VeRO Program.

The MicroEnterprise Journal printed an article titled "Fighting Back (and Winning) in Trademark-land" about Tabberone's fight with Major League Baseball Properties. CLICK HERE to read the article.

History and Purpose of these Pages

On August 1, 2001, we had three eBay auctions terminated by Warner Brothers. After some heated exchanges with Warner Brothers' representatives, Warner Brothers backed of and agreed they had made a mistake. They unconditionally re-instated our auctions on August 3rd. Since then, we have been the recipient of threats and/or terminated auctions by M&M/Mars, Precious Moments, Disney Enterprises, Major League Baseball Properties, Yates Racing, Vittoria North America, Shabby Chic, Wiggles, Bratz (MGA Entertainment), United Media (Peanuts fabric), E! Entertainment Television, Frederick's of Hollywood, Sanrio, and more. There are a lot of companies who are using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") to interfere with legitimate small businesses. Tabberone is not condoning or promoting trademark infringement or copyright infringement but there are many non-infringing businesses being caught up in the "infringement witch hunt" being conducted by corporate lawyers who know better but use intimidation and fear to stop legitimate auctions. In their aggressive and all encompassing efforts to pretend to protect the trademarks and copyrights of their clients, these unethical corporate thugs in Armani suits are deliberately misstating trademark and copyright law to coerce small home-based businesses into submitting to their demands. And we support these statement with facts. How do we know this? Read on. But first, the required legal disclaimer. We are not lawyers. The statements made here concerning legal rights and legal options are opinions and a result of our encounters, in and out of federal court, with lawyers representing corporations who have threatened us over trademark and copyright issues. We strongly suggest you seek competent legal advice before attempting to do what we have done. We did. And we were told we didn't have a chance. So we ignored them. And we won. End of disclaimer.

A LOT of articles about Trademark and Copyrights. More than you ever wanted to know. What is a "Cease and Desist Letter" and Cease and Desist Letters & Emails received by Tabberone. We don't accept contributions of any kind. However, what you can do if you want to contribute is support this organization, Public Citizen Litigation. The Copyright Act, Title 17 Chapter 5 Copyright Definitions in detail so you can understand them Cyber Cops, companies who do the dirty work looking for infringing material and often getting it wrong The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a.k.a., the "DMCA", Title 17 Chapter 12 Disney Lawsuit, filed by Tabberone on December 24, 2002 Disney Lawsuit Settlement Agreement with Tabberone eBay - Land The Game™ a parody Federal Court Cases of Interest about Trademarks and Copyrights arranged by Circuit

The Lanham Act, the primary federal trademark statute. Forced labor, a.k.a. slavery, is an issue that confronts many American manufacturers. Did you know it violates federal law and could invalidate many existing trademarks and copyrights? Fleurville Lawsuit Settlement with Tabberone Tabberone's Trademark & Copyright Abusers' Hall Of Shame Major League Baseball Lawsuit Settlement with Tabberone Merle Norman Cosmetics Violate FDA Drug Laws According To Their Lawyer Public Citizen Litigation Group The Putrid Plecostomus Award to those corporate law firms and companies that go above and beyond the call of duty. Trademark Definitions in detail so you can understand them VeRO Commandments by Tabberone

We are not lawyers but we have represented ourselves in federal court against multi-billion dollar companies and won. The content here is not presented as legal advice but as opinion and a result of what we have learned in these battles.

You can fight them as well!

You too can fight back. Representing ourselves, we have backed-off numerous different million-dollar and billion-dollar companies: Warner Brothers, M&M/Mars, Disney Enterprises, Major League Baseball Properties and Precious Moments. Many times we have prevailed in federal court cases. Right now we are involved in federal court in a case with Sevenarts, Ltd and Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts.

Just Shine the Cat Light

Copyrighted material. In an effort to provide comprehensive information concerning a wide array of trademark and copyright topics, we have reproduced a number of web pages rather than link to them. Sometimes web pages are moved or removed and then the link is no good and the information is lost. Every reproduced page has the URL at the bottom showing the source. The reason people post information on their web sites is for others to read and learn from it. Their intention is for others to have access to it. By copying it, and referencing the original source, we are assisting them in their original intention, which is informing the public. We are not trying to claim we own these pages nor that we authored these pages. Someone has expressed concern that this copying violates the copyrights of the original owners. We disagree. The Colorado Court of Appeals has strongly affirmed that web sites of this type are "protected speech" and therefore are afforded protection under the First Amendment. We believe our non-commercial and informative use of properly referenced material meets the copyright guidelines for "fair use".

Lawsuit Against Shabby Chic Settled! On October 28, 2003, we filed a lawsuit against Shabby Chic for terminating an auction of ours on eBay. Click Here to read about it. On June 23, 2004, Shabby Chic has agreed to a settlement. "THE PARTIES HAVE SETTLED THE CASE AND THE TERMS OF SETTLEMENT ARE AND MUST BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL." We are prohibited by the settlement to say any more. E! Entertainment Television terminated an auction of Tabberone's on November 17, 2003. We filed a lawsuit on November 21, 2004. E! refused service and demanded they be served personally. They have been. Very petty and childish on their part. Waaaa! Their lawyers wanted us to accept a waiver! We refused. They ultimately conceded. They also have filed a motion to dismiss contending that E! never gave up "ownership" of the DVD despite US Postal Regulations that explicitly state that unsolicited material belongs to the person receiving it. The Magistrate Judge, Patricia Coan, made a ruling in favor of that motion to dismiss on what we think would be over-turned on appeal but we decided to let it drop. Coan has what we feel is an "anti pro se bias" that is evident in the federal court system. MGA Entertainment (Bratz) and Dunkin' Donuts were sued by Tabberone for terminating eBay auctions. Dunkin' Donuts reinstated the offending auction and filed a motion to dismiss claiming we sued the wrong company. The court granted that motion to dismiss. However, Dunkin' Donuts withdrew the takedown and isn't interfering with auctions of legitimate items. So we consider it a victory. MGA's lawyers continued to hang in there, fighting tooth and nail, running up MGA's legal expenses, over an appliqué. MGA must be indifferent to the cost of losing this case. MGA decided to fight this case on technicalities, not on the issues. Why would they do that? because they couldn't win on the real issues. The court ruled in MGA's favor on the technicalities. MGA must have spent $150,000 to get a draw. And, they're no longer shutting down auctions, even those of blatant counterfeiters. Way to go, MGA. Did your law firm, Keats, McFarland & Wilson, ever sucker you into a real rain maker for them. You can't be very bright to spend that kind of money over a "technicality". And. to boot, you are not closing flagrant fakes on eBay. Gun shy? Or stupid?

Rebuttals. In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site. If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We made this offer a very long time ago and as of July 2007, only AnimieHot.com, in our Hall Of Shame, has chosen to submit a formal rebuttal.