Slashdot Mirror
FedEx Cracks Down on Box Furniture, Citing DMCA
nospmiS remoH writes "Wired is running an article about a guy with no money making furniture out of FedEx boxes. If that weren't strange enough, FedEx is going after him, legally citing the DMCA. Yes, the DMCA. Apparently they are not upset about the furniture itself but rather this site that he put up with pictures of his creations (pretty good work really). My favorite quote from the article, '...Avila clearly intended to operate a business from his website because he used the .com domain suffix, the "commercial level domain," rather than .net.' You just can't make this stuff up."
I explored both his site and the fedex site... seems to get the boxes from fedex, you need an account... the good new? the USPS will send you free shipping supplies :)
Can they justifiably go after him for trademark violations? Absolutely. But copyright? You'd have to be insane.
It's constantly amazing to see the extent to which people will abuse the DMCA to get what they want.
I love their generosity.
UPS, especicially. You can get huge "25KG" boxes intended for international shipping. I have UPS drop these on my doorstep every time I move, all for free.
It's free publicity for FexEx. And now, it's all negative!
I think fellow used fedex.com to order a whole lot of boxes with no intention of using them to actually ship stuff in. It's a bit like someone taking an enormous number of ketchup packets from a Burger King in order to have ketchup in his house, rather than using them on the fries he didn't buy there. So I can see why FedEx would take umbrage at his using the boxes they're paying for to make furniture, and then turning around and showing everyone in the world how what a bunch of suckers FedEx is for giving boxes away for free.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
They put out these stupid phone directories. No one wanted them. They were the biggest waste of money, and they ended up sitting outside on huge stacks for people to grab. One night, we took a whole bunch of them, added some duct tape, and we had a couch for our dorm room. The only problem was that the covers were glossy and we would also slide off the couch.
IANAL but after looking at the website it strikes me that on this scale the effort and pictures can almost be considered artistic. this guy did some very creative stuff with those boxes and I'm pretty impressed with the results. It seems pretty draconian even for DMCA to stifle this kind of work.
Weird... very weird
Mirror.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Aren't there laws about making absolutely unreasonable legal threats towards someone? ...
This is wayyy over the line!
Well, guess I won't be shipping any packages with FedEx any time soon. Knowing that "that could be me" is enough for me to boycott the company and encourage others to do so as well...
Just because some lawyer writes you a letter doesn't mean you have to do anything asked. If that were the case, there would be pure anarchy.
A judgement, which generally comes after a hearing, is another matter.
There's no way they'd win any claim of damages, period. They might be able to persuade a network provider to remove a site, but that's only because the customer usually has signed a contract with the provider that waives any right to damages resulting from a site being taken down, not because lawyers get to make law merely by writing letters to people.
If he's violating copyright and trademark law, then why can't Ford sue me for driving a Ford with Ford trademarks all over it? If I put a picture of my Ford on the the web, can they take down my site?
Precisely how is this different?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Here's the real deal. FedEx doesn't want to be providing thousands to millions of boxes to people who won't be paying to use them to ship items via FedEx.
The lawsuit is probably not expected to succeed, but to pressure the web site owner into closing up shop. If he doesn't have the cash for proper furniture, then he won't have the cash for lawyers.
For FedEx, "winning" consists of getting the site of the Internet. The legal battle is a means to an end.
Of course the result of all this is I'll be pressuring our shipping department to use UPS instead.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Is the server made out of fedex boxes.
My favorite part of the site, the footer:
/dev/null. By emailing us any questions or comments you give fedexfurniture.com the right to post any such message, and or replies on our site.
If any shipping corporations have problems with our site please feel free to forward requests to
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
I tell ya, we are rapidly approaching a time when anyone with money and power can attack anyone else, for any reason, under the guise of some byzantine law that no one understands, or agrees with, even the people who passed it.
In many countries like Brazil, it's completely impossible to run a business and abide by the labyrinthe of complicated and conflicting laws. Is this the kind of country we want in the U.S.?
Now, it's possible that FedEx has a case that this guy is abusing their trademark with the appropriately colored "Fed Ex" text on his site, but I can't see how he is harming them and the fact that they would... and could... cite the DMCA is just frightening. Is there no sense of perspective among these huge companies? All the guy is saying is that they make good boxes, but now they will generate not a small amount of bad will.
Now if the guy was selling the furniture, I also think they'd have a case. As it is, maybe he'll have to spray paint or otherwise obscure the company's logo. I thought these guys paid big bucks to plaster their names on anything they could like billboards, TV commercials, stadiums, people's foreheads...
I guess Mattel missed out by not using the DMCA when they pounded the crap out of that harmless little Barbie site several years ago. I guess the lawyers need someone to beat up or they start getting cranky.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Since a cardboard box isn't Digital, and he's not Copying anything, how is DMCA applicable?
Illegal use of their trademark maybe, since he's got a web-page up (allegedly, the site seems slashdotted) showing their boxes with their logo on it.
But he didn't do anything to circumvent anything resembling a copy-protection mechanism or otherwise infringe on the copyrights of FedEx.
How in heck could the DMCA even be applicable here?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Andy Warhol would be in a lot of trouble.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Shipping supplies from the USPS state very clearly that they're the property of the USPS. The first time you order a shipment of boxes from the USPS, they make you sign something saying that you acknowledge this fact and that those supplies are indeed only for the purpose of sending stuff by means of USPS.
I had thought Fedex and UPS did the same, but I just examined a couple Fedex medium boxes we had laying around here and they don't say anything of the sort.
I want my possessions to come to my apartment intact, not broken in 1000 pieces and the edges of the box smashed in.
Seriously, UPS has the worst track record in package handling. One time I was looking for a job during college.. I went to UPS and they took us on a tour of their package handling facilities. You will never want to be a customer of UPS after you tour their facilities. They don't care about your package. The people who work there have to work their "packages per hour" number.. if they get too low, they get fired, so quality/careful handling doesn't simply exist at UPS.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
Hmm..
:)
1) Someone puts up a website that irritates your corporation
2) File a frivolous lawsuit against the website
3) Wait until Slashdot picks up the resulting story
4) Watch the site go down in flames due to the subsequent slashdotting.
5) Objective achived, site is offline!
Slashdot - greater threat to free speech than the DMCA?
And the reason he couldn't actually test his bed with two people on it obvious.... right?
Having just quit UPS last week, I can second Kiaser's observations. When you have three trucks to load with about 200-300 packages each, your primary concern is getting those boxes off the belt and in their right place on the truck as quickly as possible. If you spent your time trying to be delicate about it, you'd be up to your ass in packages. Because for everyone one you take off, there's three or four to take its place.
And at 9.50/hour in 95 degree heat inside the warehouse, the condition of your package is the least of my concerns.
For those considering a career at UPS: please first consider dealing smack or pimping out underaged runaways. It's a good deal more fulfilling.
The free boxes they send out are intended for customers. Instead of making money, they're subsidizing someone else's furniture needs.
I can understand them being upset about this, and I'm hard pressed to think of an appropriate response. Updating the terms under which they ship people free boxes so this behavior is banned, and then asking the web site owner to add a highly visible notice explaining this would have been far more reasonable, and just as effective.
Now, there will be a whole host of mirror sites. A web site that would have been a fun curiosity has now been made infamous. Many more people will now be directed to this site than would have otherwise seen it.
This is a backfiring legal strategy if I ever saw one.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
According to a letter sent by Fedex layers to Ms Granick, from the Cyberlaw clinic Fedex claims copyright infringement because, I quote:
* "Fedex owns the copyright of its packaging"
ergo:
* "Fedex has the exclusive right [...] to create derivative works, to distribute copies to the public by sale [...] rental, lease, or lending and to publicly display its copyrighted works".
* "By posting photographs of works derived from Fedex packaging materials [...] Mr Avila is inducing, causing or materially contributing to the infringement conduct of others, and could be held liable as a contributory infringement".
There are other issues, but not related to copyright (trademark, unlawful access to the packaging materials).
I believe the fedex lawyer has a very weak argument: that the copyright of the design on the box extends to the box as a physical object. This is non-sense. If this was the case, any built product that uses material that has a copyrighted logo printed on it will become a "derivative work". That will mean that we will require a "license" from the material supplier to be able to use it. Non sense
I think if your furniture is made out of Fedex boxes you aren't going to have many women staying the night. Even if you're willing to pay them.
"abuse" implies the DMCA wasn't created for this purpose.
But you can bet it was designed for exactly this purpose, and more. That's why it's so frequently used to beat into submission anyone who is hosting a website that a corporation might find embarassing or offensive.
"I want my possessions to come to my apartment intact, not broken in 1000 pieces and the edges of the box smashed in. Seriously, UPS has the worst track record in package handling."
Something like this eh ?
http://www.spikedhumor.com/Article.aspx?id=767
I guess that makes slashdot.org a "non-profit" organization...
Hmmm ... I'm guessing that FedEx mostly has a problem with his domain "fedexfurniture.com".
If they get pushy (such as threatening to sue) I'd offer to change the domain name to something like "shippingboxfurniture" and otherwise tell them to go piss up a rope.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
But I don't care what agreement the shipper & shipping company may have, if its a box that's shipped to me, I consider it my property.
Because if they do think they still own the box after the delivery has been made, they'd better get over here and pick them up or I'm sending them the bill for expenses and labor used to properly dispose of their boxes.
Note I am talking about boxes that have been used for shipping something, not empty boxes the shipping company may have provided with the understanding that they be used in doing business with them. Its not entirely clear to me how he got his boxes.
Actualy, he says he ordered 300 boxes, because he ships frequently. And that his furniture was built from those boxes, and that if he needed a box for shipping he would take one out of his furniture to do it.
-Jason
Heck, I just started buying a large coffee cup full of half and half at the corner gas station the other day because I figured out it was cheaper than buying a container of half and half.
I don't have a problem with that from a moral standpoint -- I figure we all have our little moral justifications that we use to save us a buck here and there at the expense of The Man. It all works out in the end. But from a time standpoint, I don't get it. How much is your time worth? How much time does that trip to the corner store take you that would've otherwise been saved had you just picked up the quart of half and half when you picked up the gallon of milk at the grocery store? And if you feel just the slightest twinge of guilt upon "cheating" the corner store out of $.60 worth of half and half, what is that worth to you?
From a financial standpoint it doesn't make sense.
It's kinda like the 3 hours I spent driving around town the other day looking for a single 7mm nut. $.23 plus tax, but 3 hours of my time plus gas.
Synergy is your friend
FedEx is clearly a not for profit organization because they have fedex.org!
/cry about it.
Hey, FedEx,
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
"If you aren't commercial, you should be denied .com. If you aren't a non-profit, you should be denied .org. If you aren't an ISP or other infrastructure provider, you should be denied a .net."
.com is a global namespace, no? .. sanity indeed
And while you're at it, presuming you're an american, why not use your darned country TLD..
hooked up funny