Cafepress.com

[amezri]

A service rep wrote me back to clarify the ownership of images issue:

Hi,

I noticed you recently closed your CafePress.com shop. You stated that
the reason was because of "CafePress.com's ownership of your images".
There is a misunderstanding of what is stated in our Member Agreement
regarding "Intellectual Property Rights" and what is being interpreted.
OUR MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT DOES NOT STATE THAT WE
HAVE ANY OWNERSHIP IN YOUR CONTENT. I would like
to help clarify it further.

In the Member Agreement, 6.1, it states:
"CafePress.com will solely and exclusively own all intellectual property
and other rights, title and interest in and to the CafePress.com Service,
and CafePress.com will have the sole and exclusive right to obtain
trademark and copyright registrations, patents and other protection
therefore, and you will not acquire any right, title or interest therein,
under this Agreement or otherwise."

What this means is:
Cafepress.com has exclusive rights to CafePress.com's intellectual
property, NOT CafePress.com member's intellectual property. Section 6.1
simply states that CafePress.com the company owns the Web site
http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=3DB62A:1D51DDD

Section 6.2 states:
"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."

What this means is:
As a CafePress.com member, you are granting CafePress.com non-exclusive
permission to use, royalty free, all of your designs, images, logos, etc.
in your media/image basket for the purpose of promotion, production and
sale of products that the CafePress.com member decides to sell in their
shop. It does not give CafePress.com ownership of the your trademarks.
Once a CafePress.com terminates their contract, CafePress.com will
cease the use of the designs, etc.

Just to sum up sections regarding "Intellectual Property Rights",
CafePress.com DOES NOT OWN the images you upload to your media/image basket.
It is only a provision that allows us to use your images to promote your
products on CafePress.com, our newsletter, etc. as well as produce the
products once a sale has been made.

I hope this clears up the misunderstanding. If you would like to reopen
your shop without having to recreate your products and images, please send
me your Shop ID(s) and I'll get them back up for you.

If you have any questions or need more answers, feel free to email me.

Best regards,

Angela Low
Member Services Manger
CafePress.com
angela@cafepress.com


That's great, but I still don't like the other new policies. And I wrote back:

Hello,

I accept your clarification, and I will endeavor to spread the word. However, I am still not happy with the fact that Cafepress requests my Social Security or Tax ID as that is personal information I don't feel I should have to disclose to you. Other points of the new contract that I do not agree with are 5.2 - 5.6 which, as I understand it, states that in addition to the base price, Cafepress will now make 5% of what I add to that to get a selling price. What purpose does that serve? As I am not making money with your service to begin with, I cannot risk a $25 maintenance or cancellation fee.

Further, I would appreciate it if you would remove my account and all attached information from your system.

Thank you.

Bastards, I tell ya. They already are ripping people off and now they want to cut into any measly profit I could potentially make. Frell that.

I'm cranky. Can't you tell?

Comments

[chennpug.livejournal.com]

Cranky good! 'Specially if they're trying to weasel out of something and into your money.