Ken McGuire : Cease And Desist

So my World Cup blog, World Cup Access has finally gotten some extra attention. Just when I notice a quiet spell in the stats due to lack of my activity over the past two days and the quiet spell between the semi finals and the final…

Dear Sirs

I am writing on behalf of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) with respect to the 2006 FIFA World Cup(tm). FIFA owns the exclusive rights around the world in a number of trade marks and copyright works created for the tournament, including but not limited to the Official Emblem, Mascots, FIFA World Cup Trophy and numerous word marks such as FIFA WORLD CUP (the “FIFA Marks”). FIFA has various exclusive contractual arrangements in place with sponsors and licensees around the world relating to the exploitation of such rights in accordance with strict terms.

We have discovered that FIFA’s Marks are being misused in the following way on the website under your control and/or legal ownership at: http://www.worldcupaccess.com/

Unauthorised use of FIFA’s copyright and trade mark protected Official Emblem.
FIFA has not consented to this activity and consequently, this is a clear infringement of FIFA’s rights and/or a misuse of FIFA’s marks. Such activity is likely to cause material damage and harm to FIFA and its sponsors or licensees.

FIFA requires that you immediately remove the offending material and/or cease the offending activity within the next 24 hours. Please note that further monitoring will take place to ensure that this request is fulfilled and the infringement is not repeated, and that FIFA’s rights and those of its sponsors and licensees are protected.

Not only that, but they were kind enough to email me a screenshot highlighting in a lovely red colour where I broke the rules… (the use of the World Cup logo on the top left of the page). So 24 hours to come up with a new logo… for the love of God, the World Cup is nearly over!!!

Now in fairness, FIFA ran wild on Spreadshirt and anybody selling tshirts or unofficial merchandise with mention of the World Cup but does a lowly blogger who has a passion for football look like I’m about corrupt FIFA? For the love of God, I’ve got stuff to do today apart from changing the entire header graphic of the site. They were kind enough to email me in German, Spanish and Chinese as well.

They could have at least been nice about it and told me how they found the website. Through Google? Referred by a friend? Or is someone in the FIFA marketing department subscribed to the RSS feed? If so, are you happy with the full posts or would you rather snappy summaries? Did you like my blogging efforts? The screenshot’s primary post was after the Germany vs Italy game on the 4th so I’ll have to see what I can find from the stats….

Guess I got busted for causing material damage and harm to FIFA for promoting the World Cup 😉

Bwaaagh! I’m finishing this cup of tea first…