RE: EMS Pins on E-Bay

["Paul M. Wright, Jr." <pmwright@home.com>]

I would be both surprised and disappointed if eBay acquiesced to your demand
unless you can show that your program distributed these pins with a
reservation of ownership or with a fair-use licensing agreement that
prohibits resale.  However, if your statement that you "do not allow resale"
has been stated in legal form through one of the mechanisms noted, then they
probably should observe the wishes of your program although I don't see
where the damage is if they don't.

The fact that you "give them out for free" is not particularly relevant and
probably not precisely accurate - you may not get any cash for them but
unless you use them in a different way than any other flight program I know
of, they are promotional items that are used to publicize the program and
build relationships that will hopefully lead to increased utilization of
your services.  And certainly if they are given out with restrictions (such
as a prohibition against resale) they are not "free".  It's not clear to me
why flight program pins should be treated differently than any other
promotional item from this industry or any other in view of the fact that
they are given with an expectation of some sort of return value to the
program and that return value is publicity and public image.

I would be very interested in knowing why this is such an issue with you.
There is a very active market in trading EMS pins and there always has been.
Some pins are more coveted than others and, personally, I think it would be
interesting to know how the perceived value of one program's pins ranks with
those of other programs (and why).

So I see a lot more potential risk than potential benefit in trying to
squash these sales, but I could be missing something (and that certainly
would not be a first).


paul


Paul M. Wright, Jr.
Mesa, AZ





> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: flightmed-admin@flightweb.com
> >[mailto:flightmed-admin@flightweb.com]On Behalf Of Ronald Bolen
> >Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 3:52 AM
> >To: flightmed@flightweb.com
> >Subject: EMS Pins on E-Bay
> >
> >
> >I was distressed when I saw several helicopter pins being sold
> >on E-bay. I
> >did a search for helicopters and several program pins came up for sale. I
> >sent a notice to the site administrators about removing our programs pins
> >for sale. We give these out for free and do not allow resale.
> >
> >Ron Bolen
> >Duke Life Flight
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Flightmed mailing list


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