'Eleanor' Mustang Tribute Build Seized by Gone in 60 Seconds Trademark Holder

[Genxer]

I imagine this started with a cease and desist letter, and took a number of steps to get to the stage of confiscating property. It is extremely likely these guys had the choice to avoid things going this far by simply making changes so they were not stealing intellectual property. Was it douchy to go after them? That's a subjective call. At what point do you stop someone from making a profit using your trademarked name? Also, if someone puts out an inferior product that could be mistaken for your work, wouldn't that make you a bit upset? The Chinese have made billions stealing intellectual property. Had those guys building the car been doing it in their garage and not making YouTube videos about it, I doubt it would have gotten a second look by anyone. Guaranteed there are plenty of Eleanor tributes rolling around.

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[traxiii]

That Ugly 1967 Mustang isn't even the "real" Eleanor, which was a 72/73 School Bus Yellow, plain Jane.

He should have just called it "Ellie" a tribute car. Most of the parts are GT350/GT500 parts, and they don't go after the part manufacturers.

 

[Hillsndale]

I imagine this started with a cease and desist letter, and took a number of steps to get to the stage of confiscating property. It is extremely likely these guys had the choice to avoid things going this far by simply making changes so they were not stealing intellectual property. Was it douchy to go after them? That's a subjective call. At what point do you stop someone from making a profit using your trademarked name? Also, if someone puts out an inferior product that could be mistaken for your work, wouldn't that make you a bit upset? The Chinese have made billions stealing intellectual property. Had those guys building the car been doing it in their garage and not making YouTube videos about it, I doubt it would have gotten a second look by anyone. Guaranteed there are plenty of Eleanor tributes rolling around.

Bingo!
The ONLY way to "confiscate" his car would be through a court order. So yeah, they didn't just show up out of the blue and take his car. That said, I truly feel for the guy. It sucks but ignorance of the law is never an accepted defense. As a business owner, (his channel), he is responsible for exercising due diligence. He does profit and therefore legally is on the wrong side of the law. Also the trademark holder is obligated to assert their rights or they will lose them. This is not new. Again, I feel sorry for him and it's too bad the trademark holder didn't work something out with him that was less harsh. It would be interesting to have been a fly on the wall to hear how they defined the car's likeness to be such that it would be subject to confiscation vs just an injunction to remove the content from his channel.

Edit: I wonder if the car and build parts were actually a business asset and not personal property? Might have factored in to the judge's decision.

 

[mnm4ever]

This is just crazy to me, to the point I have to wonder if its part of a publicity stunt or something. It just doesn't make sense. There are guys building fake Ferraris, and Ferrari finds out about it and goes after them aggressively too, yet you still don't hear about them confiscating individual cars. They go after manufacturers, but you can still go on eBay and buy a non-licensed Ferrari Daytona pretty much anytime you want. She can't hold a copyright on resto-mod '67 Mustangs undergoing chassis swaps. He owns the original chassis, he owns the re-body, wheels, etc. Those individual things do not make this an Eleanor. Hell until its complete it isn't an Eleanor. Not to mention, he had it done up with an Eleanor body kit... where did he get that? You can buy them at nearly every Mustang mod vendor out there. How can it be illegal to buy a legally licensed Eleanor body kit but illegal for him to use it? There are currently like a hundred videos on YouTube on installing an Eleanor body kit on a Mustang, they are clearly getting hits for those videos too... is she going to be able to seize all those cars too? All these videos do is encourage ppl to go out and buy the products SHE licenses and makes money on. The fact that he won't discuss the settlement, but he will make a nasty statement about the company involved, is strange in itself. Something about this isn't sitting right. As someone else said, this had to start with a cease and desist letter, that is normal, and that alone would provide her with evidence of continually fighting for her copyright in the courts. She didn't have to go through what had to be a ton of trouble to convince a judge to allow her to confiscate someones unfinished project car to keep her copyright enforced. The cease and desist should have taken care of this. Copyrights on things like names don't work like songs or IP, the thing the name is applied to isn't the value, its the NAME, even in an extreme case the courts would simply force him to stop using the name. And even that would be tough to get to happen when a simple Google search shows that there are hundreds of companies, entities and ppl using that name all over the place.

Not to mention, who the heck cares about an Eleanor Mustang anymore? The movie is over 20 yrs old now... the movie is a classic on its own. The car is out of style, much like those Corvette-based Daytonas. its overdone, which was fine for the early 2000's when The Fast and The Furious was all the rage, but now everyone with 6 figures to drop on a customized 67-68 Mustang is doing a Bullitt tribute. And once again, no one is running around confiscating all of those either. I call shenanigans.

 

[Digital_Synapse]

How are they able to take his property? This makes no sense to me.

 

[Dharri21]

I was googling around and these people are vicious. They sue first and ask questions later. Some people received the initial lawyer the same day they were served with a suit. After reading this I will not purchase or watch anything that I know would benefit these people.

 

[sd45t2]

There is a You Tuber, FixItNick, that is refurbishing one of these cars. He, too, had to change names and delete original postings, but he reposted everything with the offending terminology removed. True, he was not creating but was refurbishing a car already built. Very interesting series and some revealing construction techniques that earlier creators of the Mustang used meaning they were not good. It is a nice virus-time You Tube to watch. BTW, he works on other types of car projects, too.



Thank you to all for some interesting discussion on this thread.

 

[hws52]

The issue here is not so much the greed of the license owners but the actions of the individual. Personal use of a trademarked or licensed item can be cloudy at times but the UTuber was marketing himself and the build which means he was getting income from it and that is unlawfull without permission. We can't blame the holders of the tradmark for defending it.

 

[ORRadtech]

The issue here is not so much the greed of the license owners but the actions of the individual. Personal use of a trademarked or licensed item can be cloudy at times but the UTuber was marketing himself and the build which means he was getting income from it and that is unlawfull without permission. We can't blame the holders of the tradmark for defending it.

I don't disagree with this.
I do wonder what the circumstances were that resulted in confiscation of the car when so many other YouTube videos/builds/restorations have been allowed to either remain or alter the content without vehicle confiscation.
What made this infraction so agregious?

 

[okfoz]

I wonder if he would have had it seized if he called it "Elizabeth" Eleanor's twin Sister?

 

[Bikeman315]

Posted on FB. Hope they don’t find him an confiscate His car too.

 

[NoVaGT]

I was googling around and these people are vicious. They sue first and ask questions later. Some people received the initial lawyer the same day they were served with a suit. After reading this I will not purchase or watch anything that I know would benefit these people.

Who are these people? I'd like to avoid/mock/insult them too. As much as I can, in fact.

 

[dn1984]

This is what happens when a company puts all their eggs in one fad basket and now has to rely on making money through lawsuits when their actual business falls off

 

[pike1346]

https://www.thedrive.com/news/33801...seized-by-gone-in-60-seconds-trademark-holder

Talk about ass-hattery. Maybe there are two sides but seems like the greed button strikes again.

Could not have said it better. I really appreciate people that remember there is always two sides to every story, but at first glance, this is f'd up.

 

[Balr14]

I wonder if people in this thread are open to lawsuit for saying something bad about the "E" car?

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