Ya just gotta love the Jack Daniel Distillery

[W1GUH]

Check this out...


Jack Daniel's sends 'world's most polite cease and desist letter'


Article reprints the letter the cat got. It was very polite and very kind and even offered to pay for the dude's expense of redesigning the graphics for his book cover.

Sheee-hee-it. Wouldn't it be nice if all companies were like that? Yea, that's an impossible dream. But this example is exactly the impression I took away from the tour of the distillery. That's a worthwhile thing to do, even if you don't like JD or even don't drink. The way of life that's displayed there is wonderful!

[X-Rated]

Very impressive. Very gentlemanly.

[WX7P]

Whatever. At least they tried polite. It was pretty clear they were going to get medieval on the guys ass if he ignored them.

No points.

[X-Rated]

We have a Medieval Times restaurant around here. One day one of my old bosses from Austin, TX was here in town visiting his son living in Schaumburg. He told me abit the fact that they were going out to eat at Midi-evol Times. I LOLed.

But yeah. They would have gone medieval on him, but he was cool with that and so am I.

[X-Rated]

Walker.JPG

[kb2vxa]

"It was pretty clear they were going to get medieval on the guys ass if he ignored them."

A couple of months ago I read the complete cease and desist letter and it looked like the "or else" was a little more evil than medieval.
"There is no point using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."
You have to crack nuts to make cookies and Wensink is one smart cookie. Maybe a nut, maybe cracked, or maybe just too much Jack but he sure got attention.

[W3WN]

Oh, I'm sure if the author had not decided to change the book cover, the next letter wouldn't have been so nice.

That said... that's (IMHO) the proper way to handle the situation, at least at first. Simply inform them that there's a problem & why. No need to start over legal threats, give them a chance to apologize, back down, and all save face.

[n2ize]

How does the law determine how far you can go with respect to similar looking designs. He certainly wasn't using the Jack Daniels name. The primary thing was the design work along the border which was pretty much an exact dupe and the 40% alcohol which also was an exact dupe. Of course the colours are an exact dupe but then again lots of products use black & white. Otherwise the words and the fonts are different. And the products being sold are completely different. In other words how different, or how similar, must something be before the laws would say there was no infringement or definitely an infringement ?

[X-Rated]

...In other words how different, or how similar, must something be before the laws would say there was no infringement or definitely an infringement ?

Only your hairdresser, er,... uh, courts know for sure.

[W3WN]

That's a good question, and a lawyer who specializes in trademarks and copyrights (& protecting them from infringement) would be the best person to give an answer.

One certainly can't blame the distillery for wanting to protect their design, considering the amount of money & effort that's been expended over the years to create the image or "brand."

Maybe the book design would have survived a court challenge. Maybe not. All in all, though, this was probably the best outcome for all. Jack Daniels protects their brand, the author gets some free publicity, all agreed that the infringement (if any, from a legal standpoint) was unintentional, and nobody looks like a schmuck in the process.