1th Hour happily (and tiredly) reported that she received e-mail from Universal saying that “Universal’s law firm has been authorized to conclude the matter.”
“They have accepted the representations in my letter, and will not pursue any financial demands. The sales number I reported for the shirts relating to the design in question were de minimis, and my compliance with the cease and desist, and my agreement to permanently cease and desist (referencing the movie ‘Serenity’ in my Cafe Press shop) has satisfied this matter.”
This is incredibly good news for 11th and for all the other Browncoats out there — like, say, me — who have been anxiously waiting to see how this turned out. Dunno if it was the Browncoat reaction, or the mainstream blogging attention, or b!x’s Browncoat Invoice, or just common sense from somebody at Universal, but I’m very glad to see the matter has been resolved and her somewhat reduced shop can continue.
It has not, however, been dropped. I think it’s a safe bet to assume that C&D letters will continue against T-shirt shops that use the Serenity logo, character likenesses, or that reference the movie in their promotional wording. I urge you to read 11th’s post about it at the OB (if you’re not registered, why not?) because she goes into more detail about the exact nature of the complaints. Watch yourself, folks. It’s possible to keep playing in the ‘verse, you’ll just have to be more circumspect about it.
Universal made a very wise decision to drop the financial threats for another, maybe not immediately apparent, reason. If people had started sending their hard earned dollars to fellow Browncoats to fight legal battles, how little money do you suppose they would have had left over to buy Officially Licensed Firefly/Serenity products?
In combination with the ill-will; not very gorram much!
Much better tho’ not shiny wonderful. But what in this world is?
“Universal’s law firm has been authorized to conclude the matter.”
I suspect the actual instruction may have been a little more terse – well done to 11th Hour for fighting this.
How does this relate to ‘Firefly’ material? Can we still print shirts with those quotes and characters? Maybe that’s a stupid question, but did Universal buy the rights to the characters used in the series as well?
remember bluesunshurts got hit with a C&D from 20th century fox, so…….
Im so glad for 11th that this has been sorted out in realitively amiable manner eventually.
Its a shame that they (universal) felt they had to use such heavy handed tactics in the first place, esp to 11th who had been so helpful with the guerilla marketing campains…
But water under the bridge now, its just a shame we wont get to see so many of her beautiful designs…
Such is life, ho hum!
it was a C & d with a slap, they honestly had no intention
to take cashy money IF she obeyed.
standard lawyer shock treatment