umbro

[hullbadge]

As anyone had any problems lately? Seems that badges are selling on ebay freely.

[Footybits]

It would be nice to think theyve finally decided to lay off the little guys who only sell a few badges here and there and concentrate on the real criminals who knock out dodgy gear by the lorry load.

I haven dared put up any badges for about a dozen teams that umbros vero guy covers as he got me suspended a year or so ago for selling one Hearts, one West Brom and a Hull badge !!

The annoying thing is though there were still sellers selling the same badges who didnt get touched so Id still be very carefull if I was you.
_________________
Footybits Football Memorabilia & Souvenirs - http://www.footybits.co.uk

[craig]

Footybits wrote:

It would be nice to think theyve finally decided to lay off the little guys who only sell a few badges here and there and concentrate on the real criminals who knock out dodgy gear by the lorry load. I haven dared put up any badges for about a dozen teams that umbros vero guy covers as he got me suspended a year or so ago for selling one Hearts, one West Brom and a Hull badge !! The annoying thing is though there were still sellers selling the same badges who didnt get touched so Id still be very carefull if I was you.

Whats the history behind this sorry as i dont think most of us programme collectors here next door have a clue what your on about?

[Footybits]

Hi, sorry Craig, should have maybe fleshed it out a bit.

Basically theres a guy (was a guy?????) who looks after the umbro VERO (copyright issues) side of things on Ebay and for a while he was absolutely ruthless in getting anything that he thought infringed umbros intellectual properties/copyright taken down off Ebay.

Problem was Ebay didnt have any real sort of say in the matter and if he asked for an auction to be removed it was, even if sometimes the stuff was genuine memorabilia that was legal to resell.

This meant that a fair few people had auctioned pulled (some of the items were dodgy some werent) and if you had more than 3 pulled in a certain period of time you were suspended for up to 3 months.

I actually had a few email conversations with him and determined what he thought was legal and what wasnt and henceforth have only put stuff up if Im 100% certain he wont be able to pull it.

Problem is the majority of badges for teams can usually be classed as unofficial as the clubs dont really have that many in their official ranges and as you probably know theres hundreds that other people have had made that are strictly speaking illegally so its a bit of a risk selling them on ebay in case he starts pulling them again.
_________________
Footybits Football Memorabilia & Souvenirs - http://www.footybits.co.uk

[hullbadge]

Hi footybits, just to let you know Hull city is not umbro this year and could you send me a pic of badges you have for Hull City.
I got taken off ebay for 6 months and got asked to pay £1000, what I got down to £200 than found out that he couldnt really prove anything.

[craig]

Surely the rights to use a clubs logo would belong to the Club though so would Umbro act on their behalf?

I could fully understand if a Hull contacted you for example but find this strange.

[hullbadge]

Umbro seem to take over the trademark of the cup and have ownership of that badge till there contract runs out

[Footybits]

Yeah, it caught me by surprise as well but apparently as umbro were the kit suppliers or whatever they are allowed to act on the behalf of ....

The F.A. (England), Sweden, Norway, The Republic of Ireland FA, Northern Ireland FA, Blackburn Rovers, Glasgow Rangers, Heart of Midlothian, Hull City, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Olympique Lyonnais, Southampton FC, Sunderland AFC, Swansea City and West Bromwich Albion.

Or at least thats what his profile is stating at the moment.
_________________
Footybits Football Memorabilia & Souvenirs - http://www.footybits.co.uk

[hullbadge]

I think Umbro is one of the reasons, badges are so hard to come by. Before umbro badges where easy to come by, now getting harder and harder.

[craig]

Oh right. All very interesting.

Cardiff generally sell all our commercial rights to our suppliers - Puma at the moment but previously Joma and years and Lotto but ive never seen anything like this so its interesting to see how they can effect peoples ability to pick up items for their collections.

Out of interest - did they do a big line of pin badges for the mentioned clubs? And did they also clamp down on sellers outside the ground or was it just a busy body in an office miles away just emailing eBay?

[hullbadge]

At Hull, I do not think clamed down on the seller outside and was most proberly a busy body in a office trying to make as much money as possible. Badges did change tho, no using trademarks by the sellers. For hull city we was lucky to get 3 new badges a year. So collections are smaller than could be.

[Footybits]

I got the impression he was just a young lad in an umbro office somewhere watching the auctions then emailing Ebay, mind, judging by the times he sent some mails he was doing it in his own time as well so he was very committed !!

No, there wasnt a list of badges or anything, in fact one of the ones he pulled of mine was an original Coffer which after a bit of investigation by me was legal to resell because of the Trademark Directive Act.

Made no difference though, still got suspended on his say so.
_________________
Footybits Football Memorabilia & Souvenirs - http://www.footybits.co.uk

[Tynie Topics]

Craig wrote:

Surely the rights to use a clubs logo would belong to the Club though so would Umbro act on their behalf? I could fully understand if a Hull contacted you for example but find this strange.

I'm no expert but surely the club retain the copyright/trademark and then licence Umbro to use the badge on their kit? afterall, the clubs sell a lot of other stuff (produced by other companies) with their badge on which has zero to do with Umbro.

Therefore with regards to someone at Umbro telling ebay to shut down auctions on enamel badges, I doubt they have any right to do so, it would only be the club itself that could do that and I doubt clubs have much interest in that respect.
_________________
https://www.flickr.com/photos/footballprogrammes/albums

[houghmartin]

just to back up everyone else's stories, my ebay account got suspended for trying to sell an official Sunderland badge that I had picked up in a bulk lot a few weeks earlier. I only got my suspension lifted after completing the ebay trademark infringement tutorial. As other posters have said, the actions of the guy at Umbro were ridiculously over the top and totally pointless (and I still don't think the clubs were aware of what this guy was doing).

Go after the people trying to sell fake shirts etc but don't go after collectors selling or re-selling a badge or two.
_________________
Crewe Alexandra FC Collector
www.crewepins.blogspot.com

[Footybits]

The reason why Ebay let him (i.e Umbro) do it was because he (Umbro) had joined the "Verified Rights Owner Programme" - VeRO.

This then gave him the right to act on the clubs behalf if he felt their intellectual rights were being infringed in any way, i.e people selling stuff using the clubs name.

Annoyingly, like in houghmartins case some of the auctions that got pulled were official badges (badges are what he seemed to concentrate on) that people were legally entitled to resell.

Ebay have no real control (interest?) in what auctions Vero members request to be removed - if the Vero member says its infringing they pull it, simple as.
_________________
Footybits Football Memorabilia & Souvenirs - http://www.footybits.co.uk

[El Tel]

I got "done" twice by Umbro and had my eBay account suspended for a year

Terry
_________________
Leeds United & England Badges

visit my site http://www.badges.esmartdesign.com/

[hullbadge]

anyone know what umbro like at the moment ?

[The Badgeman]

THEY (HE) ARE STILL THE SAME, HE PULLED A RETRO MAN UTD KIT BADGE FROM 1992 BECAUSE UMBRO MADE THE KIT BACK THEN, HE ALSO PULLED ENGLAND AND SOUTHAMOPTON BADGES! IF ONLY WE KNEW HIS ADDRESS!!!!

[ForestMick]

By that same logic then, he could pull programme sales, as they have pictures of their kits in them? Or any other item of memorabilia?
_________________
PLEASE check out my Prostate Cancer UK charity auction page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1550474568596587/

[Footybits]

Hi, no, its illegal for him (or any company) to restrict trade on items that (and I quote from Article 7 of the Trade mark Directive 89/104/EEC)

"Products advertised are items that have at some point been licensed and/or released commercially by, or with the consent of, the
trademark holder and as such the product CAN BE LEGALLY RESOLD providing clear and concise reference is made to the origins of the
product, furthermore the trademark can legally used in the descriptive manner outlined above under the exhaustion of trademark rights as
set out in Article 7 of the Trade Mark Directive 89/104/EEC.

Basically if a company has, or has authorised the sale of an item they cant then stop people selling it on at a later date so stuff like programmes, shirts, magazines etc etc are ok.

I have actually has an email conversation with the umbro guy about this and he confirmed he has no right to stop the sale of programmes and the like.

The problem with badges though is that the majority of them are unoffical so it allows people like "Umbro" man to claim trade mark infringement and Ebay take their word for it.
_________________
Footybits Football Memorabilia & Souvenirs - http://www.footybits.co.uk