Back to School Furniture
With college students heading back to school this month, I figured this post might be helpful in figuring out inexpensive furniture for your room. While Target and IKEA are considered “upper end” for furniture by most college students, Goodwill and rummage sales are probably more around their price ranges. Well, why pay, when you can get something for free… as long as you don’t mind putting in a little work?
Take a looksie at that furniture (Courtesy of Jose Avila at www.fedexfurniture.com). Yes. Those are FedEx Boxes.
This guy, Jose Avila, was strapped for cash, and decided to make his furniture out of FedEx boxes… which have been surprisingly sturdy. He has a bed, couch, table and other furniture all made out of these things. The bed can even handle him jumping up and down on it. Pretty nutso.
FedEx isn’t amused though. They think that Avila is infringing on their copyright…
But that feel-good message seems to be lost on FedEx. The company claims that Avila is infringing on its trademark and its copyright. T he day after Avila launched the site in June, FedEx asked him to take it down, claiming he had violated the DMCA.
Now, what Avila was saying was just his attempt of telling people that “it’s ok to be ghetto” has turned into a legal uproar that he is fighting.
Personally, I think the guy has just found a creative way to make cheap furniture. FedEx doesn’t charge for it’s boxes. The only reason this guy is getting in trouble is because FedEx is being anal about something that just happened to get a little media hype.
What do you think?
(and a Thank you to Neill for sending me this article)
If anyone should be worried about copyright infringement, I’d say it should be Coca-Cola. Look at all those nasty Coke cans scattered about…
Comment by Christy — 8/13/2005 @ 2:12 pm
companies only get worried about copyright infringement when someone is making money off of their name/product/etc or using it
in a way that would negatively affect the company’s image. unless someone is making money off of coke cans laying around, or if
coke could sue everyone that has ever bought a coke (not sure why they would do that), im not really sure how copyright infringement
applies for coke cans laying around.
it would be sweet if you could make money off of that though.
harold blog probably knows.
Comment by Neill — 8/14/2005 @ 7:05 pm
I can see fedEx’s point on this when the name of his web site directly uses the companies name and can cause confusion granted you would have to be a complete idiot to think that Fed Ex would start a furniture company using there own shipping boxes for furniture they built to sell… On the otherside maybe this guy shoudl cover his as and simply stuff a disclaimer at the bottom of the page.
Comment by Tulsa — 8/15/2005 @ 10:00 pm
the disclaimer is actually at the top of the page
it reads: “This website is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by FedEx in any way. If you are trying to reach FedEx, click here. “
Comment by Neill — 8/16/2005 @ 3:07 pm
Yeah, I noticed that after the fact I wrote it…
Comment by Tulsa — 8/16/2005 @ 11:52 pm