Ford did not call you a pirate.

Everyone is up in arms today about Ford apparently calling people pirates, trademark violators, etc. This story is a lie.

I used to own the largest Ford Escort site on the internet. In 2000, we tried to get a calendar printed through CafePress, and were told that CafePress would not print the calendar because it contained trademarked images (the vehicles). That’s it, end of story. Ford did not stop the printing of any calendars, they did not sue anybody, and truth be told they probably didn’t even write a nastygram to get their cars not printed any longer.

Everybody is seriously over reacting. It started with the sensationalist headline of the post on Black Mustang Club, and spread from there. I doubt that 90% of the people commenting with hate for Ford even read the article and/or post it belongs to. BMC, you are not being picked on. This has been CafePress’s policy for at least 8 years.

Here’s the post I made on BMC:

Ok guys, I’ve been trying to reply to this thread all day.

The title of this thread is kind of sensationalist, and is untrue. Ford was never the one blocking your calendar from being made.

In 2000, I owned the largest ford escort site on the net. We tried to get a calendar printed up using our members photos. Cafepress refused to print it, and when I contacted them, they said I didn’t own the trademark that belonged to the cars pictured.

That’s it, end of story. Ford never said they own your images. They do, however, own the trademark to the image of the vehicle and are completely within their right to stop anyone from profiting because of it. I’m positive Ford would not have a problem with BMC making a calendar though, and as I believe I saw earlier in this thread, they were OK with it.

I used to get Ford.com IP addresses in my logs all the time and Ford never contacted me. I no longer even own a Ford, but I’m still just trying to set the record straight before however many of you swear off buying a Ford… they’re not the ones behind this. It’s been CafePress’s policy for at least 8 years.