Now hear this: Sony has officially declared war on the makers! A bullying shut-down notice was recently sent to the individuals behind the Retropod, a hand-made iPod case out of recycled Sony Sport Walkman housings. Sony’s reason for the shutdown was made clear in this cease and desist letter:
Your use of casings for such a purpose is a clear infringement of the SONY and WALKMAN marks because it is deceptive. Consumers likely will be misled and deceived into believing that Sony is somehow connected with the iPod personal stereo when in fact it is not.
Come on Sony?! What kind of example are you setting for the rest of corporate America? What’s next? Coca-Cola suing Girl Scouts for making bird feeders out of discarded 2 litter bottles or The New York Times trying to prevent people from using their newspaper for paper mache projects? This is just silly. Although we can see where Sony would take offense to their name being used – and how hurtful it must be for them that not only have they failed to make a comparable product to the iPod, but now people are using their products as cases – but this is ridiculous. Sony must really be upset with the success of the iPod.With the Sony lawyers breathing down their neck, unfortunately we don’t expect retropod.com to stay online much longer. But if the site goes down, you can always find a bunch of RetroPod images on Flickr here.
What do you think? Are you on the side of the makers or Sony? Please leave a comment below.
Related Articles:
- Meet the DIY iPod Case Sony Killed: The RetroPod… (makezine.com)
- Banana Dipped in Liquid Nitrogen and then Shot [pic] (methodshop.com)
- Apple’s Shipping Strategy = Little Things in Small Packages (methodshop.com)
Monster Announces New iPod Car Stereo Interface Called iCruze
→