Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Jack Daniels Shows How To Write a Cease and Desist Letter

Posted by samzenpus on from the more-complies-with-honey dept.

NormalVisual writes "When the Jack Daniels distillery recently became aware of a book whose cover they felt substantially infringed their trademark, they didn't go into instant 'Terminator mode' — instead, they wrote a very thoughtful, civil letter to the infringing party, and even offered to help defray the costs of coming into compliance. I believe plenty of other companies (and many in the tech world) could use this as an example of how *not* to alienate people and come off looking like a bunch of greedy jerks."

6 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. addedbytes.com by zerro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recall something similar occurring to ilovejackdaniels.com which was a language cheat sheet site, which is now addedbytes.com: http://www.addedbytes.com/blog/what-happened-to-ilovejackdaniels-dot-com

  2. Re:Classy by bondsbw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is indeed a chance that the book could be confused with having been produced by Jack Daniels, and that the content reflects the views of the company.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  3. Better than he deserved by namgge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Jack Daniel's company's gracious reaction to the abuse of their trade mark is more than the book's publisher deserved. Deliberately ripping-off another company's IPR for a book jacket is not the behaviour of a reputable publisher.

    My experience, however, is that book-publishers are meticulous to the point of obsession about ensuring they have all the necessary rights for the cover artwork in place before going to press. This does make me wonder whether this incident is actually a publicity stunt...

  4. Re:Classy by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, but the question was why other companies are not like this, and the answer is that for most companies, it is not clear that doing this would be competitive or profitable. Jack Daniels has been working very hard to make themselves seem classy, because they want to compete with high end bourbon and scotch brands (I don't think they have a chance if they continue to make whiskey their traditional way). Most companies are not marketing themselves as "classy," because it would not be profitable for them to do so in the first place -- who wants a "classy lawnmower" or a "classy backhoe?"

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  5. Not according to Little Debbie by bbbaldie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    They stomped all over a t-shirt manufacturer a few years back over "Little Doobie" shirts.

    And as an ex-employee who was unceremoniously downsized, may I say how good it feels to get "Little Doobie" back out there where Google can find it. The self-righteous tards would like nothing better than to have that ugly little incident forgotten. ;-)

    Please mod up and help my cause?

  6. Re:Classy by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've seen about a dozen OEM versions of XP become tagged as pirated for no apparent reason at all outside a windows update. In all cases, after about 2 or 3 hours of tracking the original supplier of the software down, I would have to wait 24 hours to get a new product number/key then another day or two to get the license sticker.

    In one situation, I lost an account and had to hire a lawyer to stop one confused and irate business lady from going around telling people that I ripped her off by billing for the operating system then installed pirated software instead. Her defense was that Microsoft told her I did that.