MicrostockGroup

Oops I shouldn't have mentioned it, now the trademark and copyright police will come and take away all your bull dozer photos. 

I think this is just as dumb as others, I'm just trying to deal with the law and face it because we don't have a choice. I think the agencies are going crazy with the rejections. Pretty soon we'll only be able to take photos of mud and dirt. Bricks will be protected by the manufacturer. 

Let me end my portion of this debate with the one point that I think is missed too often. It's not the photo, it's how people use it. If we were allowed to upload the photos and the final user was responsible, then the whole problem is solved. Who knows better what they want to do with what they buy and how to use it, than the buyers? Oh wait, people who have small newsletters and websites, don't have legal teams, and may know less about the law than we do. So we get the over regulation by the agencies.

He must have changed his mind then because it's actually for sale at the Simpsons ride at Universal Studios in Florida and I have seen it for sale in Europe.A quick check on internet showed that it's been for sale since the summer of 2008.

One thing I learned during my years in corporate jobs is that internally, it's all fad-driven and runs in cycles. This year,  "protect your trademark" is being pushed by the legal people because it gives them a nice bullet-point for their year-end PowerPoint  Send out a few threatening letters and get  quick bend-overs from some little companies.  It costs nothing and looks like you've done something.

But actually enforcing these wild claims in the courts would take time and money, so that's not likely to happen unless a big company thinks a trademark violation is actually hurting the bottom line.

My point is that this will eventually pass.  It will become a dead issue due to lack of enforcement.  Outside of a couple of junior lawyers, no one at John Deere really cares if their tractors show up in stock photos here and there.

No shots of recognizable cell phones isolated on a white background.  Just had a Motorola Razr phone deactivated.

RT, John Deere may be totally innocent, I have no way of knowing, but does it really matter? Obviously the microstocks have received enough threats from big companies, claiming enough weird stuff as "trademarks", that they've decided they have to get rid of all recognizeable products. It's now a witch hunt.

John Deere's green and yellow color scheme, the leaping deer symbol, and John Deere are trademarks of Deere & Company.

So... really, if I change the wheel wells and the yellow stripe to just green, it is no longer a color scheme?  Not that I'm inclined to do so.