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| AC Ask And Ye Shall Probably Get Earlier this month, an America's Cup (Louis Vuitton Cup) Sweepstake was set up by a New Zealand software development company, called Sandfield Associates. Despite a notice saying that only those with a New Zealand postal address would be able to claim a prize, a number of sailing enthusiasts worldwide joined in. A few days later, a notice appeared on the game website saying "we've had to shut down the AC Game" and the company published this statement: "We have had to close down our America's Cup competition for legal reasons. Basically we've been contacted by lawyers representing the America's Cup Properties Inc and told to shut it down or they'll take action. We're appealing to the America's Cup people to let us carry on playing and I'll keep you posted if we have any success.Thank you all very much for your support and I hope we'll see you back for future On Game fun." Later, the New Zealand media reported Sandfield Managing Director Bruce Copeland as saying that they were served papers from the lawyers of the America's Cup ordering they remove the competition as it used official logos. BYM News asked AC Management's Julian Hocker whether the sweepstake could have proceeded if it had not used America's Cup official logos. Hocker said "Basically, that's right. AC Management is a company set up to protect the rights of the Defender and the Challengers and that includes unified Trade Marks that support the merchandising programme. This is not my province, but I know that the man who deals with this has issued hundreds of licensing agreements and bends over backwards for use of logos, but people MUST ask before using them." "That is something we have to insist on. We must maintain the reputation of the event and, if we did not insist that logos are not used without our permission, we could end up with all sorts of people using them, some of which would be undesirable. This is not a money problem, it isn't a case of AC Management trying to grab money, it is a matter of preserving the integrity of associated products. Take calendars, for example, we have gone out of our way to supply good companies with material for these." Asked about other criticisms that have dogged AC Management recently, Hocker said "I don't think anyone seriously believes we were responsible for the weather." On the question of reports suggesting that Valencia was a hotbed of crime, Hocker said "That was very unfair on this city." On the America's Cup in general, he said "I was at the last Cup in New Zealand and there is no comparison. I am delighted that we are now also seeing superb Louis Vuitton racing, the best racing ever in terms of close competition and that has been made possible by the way this edition of the Cup has been run. There is no way that a team like Shosholoza could have hoped to be up there, as it is, without all those ACTS." Marian Martin BYM News 04/27/07 |