Wrapping it all up some more

I just wanted to say some thank yous publicly.

The people of Your Mom's Basement for coming to my rescue. You're wonderful people and your support was one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

Ali and Mike for keeping me distracted with conversation about standing on one's head in Australia, sci-fi that I am lukewarm to and other things that stink substantially less than this whole situation. I was going completely insane over this mess, and you made it only slightly mad.

Mike Netzer and Evan Dorkin, who have been exceptionally generous to me since I started this silly fansite and both of whom made me feel less like an ass for trying to do something good but doing it clumsily. I also want to thank David Mack, who I just met through the fundraiser and has also been very very generous and kind.

The people who said nice things. It really helped.

The artists and bidders who were affected for being so understanding about this. That you guys accepted it and didn't blame me was a huge relief.

I heard from Warner Bros.

Late last night, one of the two auctions that got canceled was re-instated. Just one. I sent another email to the WB, not expecting a response because I didn't get one from the last two emails.

I sent them this after seeing the auction was reinstated-

Hi, I'm Thomas Denton. I recently emailed you (and believe a number of emails were sent on my behalf, and apologize for any confusion that may have caused) about two ebay items that were pulled due to trademark infringement concerns. (ebay user ID mistermxy).

I just received notice that one of them has been allowed to go ahead, for which I am very grateful. The full situation was this: I organized an auction where many professional and amateur artists donated some of their original work with the intention of donating all the proceeds to the candlelighters (www.candlelighters.org) It was an entirely non-profit venture. Many of the auctions, all original works, featured characters owned by your subsidiary DC Comics. After the auctions were canceled, I pulled all auctions relating to your properties. Would I be allowed to relist all of them?

In response, I got this-

Dear Mr. Denton:

We made a exemption for the item that was relisted.

Thank you,

Craig M. Hoffman

Director

Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Technical Operations

Corporate Communications

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

So it seems I'm allowed to sell that one item. And WB does not respect grammar. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that this wasn't just ignored by the WB altogether.

This is the item I'm allowed to sell:

I'll be emailing Paul Salvi, the artist, to ask him what he'd like to do. If he wants to try again, we'll be putting it up as a special lone piece as something of a finale to all the auctions. Some of which are still going, by the way. Buy some stuff! Help some kids!

Wrapping it all up.

Okay, this all taken care of. I've not heard back from WB, but it doesn't matter much now. The artists have their work, the buyers have their money, all the donations have been squared away. And please don't worry about my money woes. That was just me venting because this whole thing freaked me out. I'm okay. Some very good friends helped me out.

This whole thing has gotten WAY out of hand, and I think it'd be best if I just stopped fueling the fire.

Thank you to every one who has helped me out with this. It's meant more to me than you will ever know.

the way things be

More random reactions to what I've seen online:

I didn't get a cease and desist. WB shut down two auctions, and to prevent any further troubles I killed the rest myself. I also refunded all the auctions featuring DC characters that were already completed. So as of right now, no profit at all has been made or will be made from items featuring Time Warner's intellectual property.

All of the original art that could not be sold is in the hands of the original artist. I do not have it. The exception is one piece, the one by Mike Netzer, who has asked me to hold onto it in the hopes this can all be straightened out. I have no profited by gaining art or money.

DC Comics does not hate kids. They probably don't even know this happened. My order came from the WB, and was likely wholly random and came up in regular searches they do of ebay. I'm sure once I get some replies from the WB this will all be straightened out.

Yes, I know it was stupid of me to use their property. Thanks to every one who has pointed that out. I was operating under the assumption that this would fall under the same umbrella of artists doing sketches at conventions or guys like John Byrne who make thousands for personal profit making drawings of DC characters.

My name's not Alex, it's Thomas. Hello. Alex was the guy who submitted this to Boing Boing. I don't know him. But if you see this, hey Alex!

The painting of the S shield and the comment about hoping WB gets mad about it was joke that came after the fact. It's not why WB came after me. I was just talking to the artist while making posts about all this and put that up to promote her work and because we were having a laugh about the absurdity of all this. I'll mention her name and site again because she likes being famous. Hello, Ali.

Yes I am trying to laugh at this. No, it's not easy. Mostly it's stressing me the hell out and making me sad.

Let's see... what else. Oh, yeah, i am having some money troubles because of this. I'm not putting up a public donations thing because, well, I don't want it to seem I'm making money off this. Some friends helped, and they are most brilliant and wonderful people in the world. Thank you, guys.

A bit of good: the first round of auctions netted $1400 for the Candlelighters. That's pretty awesome.

Lastly, I wish the original auctions had gotten this much attention.

What I've decided to do

I've already pulled the auctions from round two of the fund raiser that featured Warner Bros properties. I am going to refund and return the art from the first round that featured DC characters so they cannot point at me and say "Look at the money you've made from our properties."

Should things get straightened out with the WB and I get their permission, I can always relist the items later.

Some updates about the Warner Bros thing

This is just kind of rambling and thinking out loud, but I wanted to reply to some things I've seen said online about this.

1 Yes, I know I was legally wrong. I was just naive about how strictly DC enforces these things because there are dozens of pieces of art on ebay featuring their properties at any given time and I know of other charities that have used donations similar to mine. I just thought this would slip under the radar like artists selling sketches at conventions.

2 Warner Bros pulled two auctions, both already completed. One had been paid for, one had not. The one paid for has been refunded, though I'm not sure if I'm still obligated to ebay's charity handler for the final price.

3 I pulled the active auctions featuring Warner Bros properties. No, I'm not going to be relisting them.

4 I may be canceling the bids on the other completed auctions and issuing refunds. Since this is already on the Warner Brothers legal department's radar, I'm not sure having accepted money for art featuring their characters is a good idea. I'm not sure what to do there yet.

5 The money thing I mentioned. The ebay fees won't be that much, and if I issue refunds paypal doesn't charge me anything. But, the way ebay's charity handler works is you give them your final information and then make a donation based on the final price of the auctions. Technically, these auctions did end, so I may have to pay for them any way. I have until the 19th to get them their money. Which sucks.

6 Please don't send nasty emails to DC. They probably have no idea this even happened. What probably happened here was some suit saw something for sale with Superman on it and didn't go any further.

7 I'll likely be shutting down SIB once the dust has cleared here. I've sort of lost my enthusiasm for promoting WB's products, and I've been told lots of times I sold people on some Superman comic or toy or whatever.

Warner Bros is cancelling the Superman auctions

First and foremost, at its core, this is all about helping out some kids. So donate some money to the candlelieghters while you're here.

Also, follow the link at the end of the post for lots more information about what's going on here.





I messed up. I just got notice that two of the Superman related auctions have been removed from the site and the rest are probably next. I don't know what to do now. I have to start canceling auctions and issuing refunds. That means all the fees and such I'm now responsible for which is money i just don't have, and I have no idea if I'm still obligated to the middleman ebay uses for their charity auctions.

I've gone ahead and canceled the auctions still running that featured Warner Bros properties. I'm not sure what to do about the ones (like the ones that were canceled by DC) that are already completed. I'll be talking to ebay, paypal, missionfish (the people that handle ebay's charity donations) the artists and auction winners.

ALL ARTISTS! If you have done a DC comics related piece, DO NOT MAIL IT! KEEP IT! If I already have it, I'll ship it back to you ASAP. Or, if your piece is not DC related and you just don't want to part of this any more for whatever reason, please say so. I'll understand completely.

I am heartbroken. I am really sorry to any one this is any trouble for. Legally, I was in the wrong. I used their intellectual property without their permission. I'm not going to play the victim on that front. I swear I just wanted to do something good.

My most sincere apologies to every one involved; artists, buyers and people who helped me promote the auctions.

Edit- You can read all the posts I've made about what's going on by clicking here.