Photo shoot with Consuelo and Oraia in July(?) of 2004. Launched retropod.com a couple of days afterwards, then got a cease-and-desist from Sony six weeks later. Sony was worried that the Retropod would confuse consumers: “Moreover, they will be misled into thinking that Sony is backward in its design of products and is going away from miniaturization, as the size of the tape player housing is quite large by today’s standards.” Link.










That’s crazy. So Sony is claiming they have a legal right to control how how you use or resell an obsolete tape player made back in 1987?
Perhaps it’s time for a call to the ACLU…
Sony’s attack lawyers were right to issue a C&D nastygram. This was not just a one-off thing, it was a product offered for sale by someone other than Sony, yet it bore Sony’s trademarks. That’d probably be enough under most legal jurisdictions.
BUT… as for the possibility of people being misled into thinking that Sony is backward in its design of products and is going away from miniaturization, and the fact that they were apparently more concerned by that prospect than by misuse of their trademark, all I can say is:
I think someone needs to recheck the contents of their Mild7′s.
Ah well, since they were trying to sell it I can understand Sony’s actions. I guess that’s what I get for not following a link. -Þ
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