News: Ferrari suing to try to take away kid's facebook page

DannyITR

DannyITR

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http://europe.autonews.com/article/...1-year-old-racer-for-control-of-facebook-page

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/03/28/ferrari-embroiled-legal-battle-21-year-olds-facebook-page/

Ferrari is facing a court battle in Switzerland due to alleged copyright infringement over taking over a Facebook fan site. If the suit is successful, it could cost the company millions and harm its reputation on social media.

Sammy Wassem started the Facebook fan page for Ferrari when he was 15 and eventually grew it to over 500,000 followers. In 2009, the company congratulated him on the site's success, but said that "legal issues" forced it to take over the administration, according to Automotive News Europe. Wassem could still use the site, but managers had oversight.

Wassem asked Ferrari for financial compensation to keep working on the page but continued creating content on it for the next four years. Eventually, the company terminated his administration rights. In 2013 he and his father Olivier filed the lawsuit against the business alleging it owes payment over 5,500 hours of work and copyright infringement for taking over the page. They are asking for 10 million Swiss francs ($11.3 million).

Ferrari is counter-suing them for misusing the company's trademark, including allegedly advertising other merchandise on the page and using it to send invitations to Sammy's 18th birthday.
"The issue isn't with Facebook or with our fans but with those who try to use Ferrari's intellectual property to make money out of it," said Stefano Lai, a spokesman for Ferrari to Automotive News Europe.

The case highlights the difficult balance companies have to maintain with social media. Even if Ferrari is right, the fallout from lawsuit could be a loss of fans.
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Gotta feel for the kid. Ferrari should have just paid him for building the page so he can finance his racing. Real thumbs down to Ferrari on this one.
 
wow what a bunch of assholes

I told them how I feel on their facebook page and suggest to everyone to do so as well.
 
Without having read too much into it (just what was posted here), I'm going to side with Ferrari on this one. Trying to sue for $11 million for what was basically a hobby? Please...

If Ferrari had ever hinted that they would compensate him for his "work", it would be different.
 
It's no different than those people that bought domain names (like coke.com, disney.com, etc.) back in the 90s and tried to hold them hostage for a huge payday.

LoL suing Ferrari. They are going to drown at the hands of their corporate lawyers.
 
En!vy said:
It's no different than those people that bought domain names (like coke.com, disney.com, etc.) back in the 90s and tried to hold them hostage for a huge payday.

LoL suing Ferrari. They are going to drown at the hands of their corporate lawyers.
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Yes but the bad publicity might be worth more than what they would have to pay him. They basically stole his Facebook page. He did nothing different than any other Club website on the internet. They just wanted access to his Facebook Followers. Do you know much some companies pay internet advertising companies to get that number of followers? They basically got a kid to do it for them for free and now they booted him out
 
kdryden99 said:
Yes but the bad publicity might be worth more than what they would have to pay him. They basically stole his Facebook page.
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Ferrari sells shiny things to the 1%. You really think the 1% gives a sh!t about how their car manufacturer treated some kid over his Facebook page?
 
En!vy said:
Ferrari sells shiny things to the 1%. You really think the 1% gives a sh!t about how their car manufacturer treated some kid over his Facebook page?
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even tho this kid deserves a medal and 1XXXXX USD at least
 
En!vy said:
It's no different than those people that bought domain names (like coke.com, disney.com, etc.) back in the 90s and tried to hold them hostage for a huge payday.

LoL suing Ferrari. They are going to drown at the hands of their corporate lawyers.
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Yeah lol unfortunately that shit doesn't work anymore :)
 
En!vy said:
Ferrari sells shiny things to the 1%. You really think the 1% gives a sh!t about how their car manufacturer treated some kid over his Facebook page?
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and they make more money selling t-shirts/stickers to the other 99%

Social media is king these days, Ferrari should have played it smart and offered him a car in exchange. This way Ferrari looks like the good guy, the youth is happy he got his dream car and teh intarwebz is happy because everyone is happy.

This will be a interesting case to follow as both parties have valid points.
 
Sorry to say but the kid is 100% right! And shame on Ferrari for stooping so low. If they would of been properly thankful to him for building a FB fan page with 500 000 followers, none of this would of occurred. Instead they pretty much stole it from him.

Now, obviously there might be more to the story but just based on the info we're given, Ferrari and the kid should settle this out of court for a reasonable amount of cash and that's it.

PS: X2 Greg, the smartest thing Ferrari could of done is to do some favors for the kid in return for even more good social media publicity.
 
500k followers is at least worth 1$/each for any advertising company. add the cool factor cuz it's Ferrari and people generally says good thing about you, you have a winner. the way information spread worldwide instantly, I wouldnt be surprise if there's a settlement off court in the next week.
 
J adore les voitures Ferrari..


mais c est tellement une compagnie qui se croit au-dessus de tout..

Juste leur des match comparatifs de journalistes, ils envoient des ingenieurs pour setter le char pour chaque test, reprogrammer l ecu etc... Pour etre sur de bien faire partout.

C était assez drole de voir la chicane quand Mclaren avait fait la meme affaire et avait retuner la MP4-12C juste avant d aller sur le dyno...
 
Gregster said:
and they make more money selling t-shirts/stickers to the other 99%

Social media is king these days, Ferrari should have played it smart and offered him a car in exchange. This way Ferrari looks like the good guy, the youth is happy he got his dream car and teh intarwebz is happy because everyone is happy.

This will be a interesting case to follow as both parties have valid points.
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Imagine if at all the F1 races from now until this resolved people would wear Anti-Ferrari t-shirts how much bad press this would give them. Just an idea of how sometimes social media might make a difference
 
The kid and his father agreed to make their fan page the official page for Ferrari. The minute they agreed to do that without negotiating compensation is the minute this whole situation turned into a "whoops we made a mistake and now we want to be paid for what we forgot to negotiate". Nothing was stolen. These two are just trying to abuse the social media sh!t storm that they knew would ensue in hopes that they get some money out of it. I hope Ferrari pile drives them.



Lexus said:
Sorry to say but the kid is 100% right! And shame on Ferrari for stooping so low. If they would of been properly thankful to him for building a FB fan page with 500 000 followers, none of this would of occurred. Instead they pretty much stole it from him.

Now, obviously there might be more to the story but just based on the info we're given, Ferrari and the kid should settle this out of court for a reasonable amount of cash and that's it.

PS: X2 Greg, the smartest thing Ferrari could of done is to do some favors for the kid in return for even more good social media publicity.
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En!vy said:
The kid and his father agreed to make their fan page the official page for Ferrari. The minute they agreed to do that without negotiating compensation is the minute this whole situation turned into a "whoops we made a mistake and now we want to be paid for what we forgot to negotiate". Nothing was stolen. These two are just trying to abuse the social media sh!t storm that they knew would ensue in hopes that they get some money out of it. I hope Ferrari pile drives them.
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Exactly.
In the end, there are always two sides to every story, and what you hear from the media is a half true version of one of those sides.

For all we know the kid is a spoiled shit. Maybe Ferrari offered him some compensation that he thought was insufficient for his "work" (hobby). Now he's getting greedy and suing for $11 million.

If Ferrari really just took over the page without offering him anything, that would indeed be pretty low.
 
Ferrari could have offered a trip for the family to Maranello at the Museum and workshop.
It would have costed a few thousands, and the family would have been more than happy with this.

Like its been said, Ferrari think they are always better than all other manufacturer. Only thing they actually are better at, is looking like a stuck up kid with a rich dad.
Enzo Ferrari would be angry with his staff if he'd still be alive.
 
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