A few weeks ago, I brought up the idea of an “OM System Professional Photographer” club. And then – I’m not tired of life – I sent the logo and the corresponding idea quite high up to OMDS. Nothing came back at first.
A few days ago I actually received an email from Mrs Galea (Marketing EMEA):
Thank you for your e-mail and sharing your initiative with us. We also believe that photographers value education, knowledge, and communication; and as a consequence, we have global strategies for these services available in EMEA at https://my.omsystem.com/. Thus, whilst we appreciate your enthusiasm for the OM SYSTEM brand and supporting photographers, we cannot support your request.
OM SYSTEM is used as a trade name and trademark, and the OM SYSTEM logo, in particular, is a registered trademark of OM Digital Solutions. Any use of the trade name and trademark – even in slightly altered graphical design – by a third party needs approval and a licencing agreement, to mitigate confusion in the marketplace.
We wish you well establishing your club for professional photographers and kindly request that you revise the name and logo, and to stop any use of it.
I thought to myself – great, I was interested in licensing, so I asked about it. The answer was a long treatise that was no longer “friendly” at all, saying that I should set up my “club” under a different name and with a different logo because they had all the rights and everything. Not a word about a licence.
It would be a slight exaggeration to say that this would bother me too much – the number of “professional photographers” who actually run around with OM stuff is so small that it probably wouldn’t even be enough to found a German association _ you need seven members. And that the tutorials on the OMSystem website have anything to do with professional photography and further training for professionals – how unworldly is this company now? Do they even have a rough idea of what professional photography is, or do they think only influencers take professional photos?
And of course Mrs Galea is not actually responsible in this case because the trademark owner is not the GmbH but the Japanese Corp. And they didn’t register the trade mark for photographic services or clubs. Or Mettwurst. Maybe I should set up a CO2-neutral firewood hire business with the logo. Just to annoy Mrs Galea….
I could also open the club and write it into the statutes that we don’t do any kind of training in the club. Club meetings are held in absolute silence. But I think the firewood hire would make more sense.
Dankenswerter Weise ist der Titel dieses Posts kurz und knackig. Bei solchen Fotos, wo der Cheffe dem Horizont entgegen schreitet, stockt mir immer der Atem.
Das ist zwar mein Mantel. Und der Gitarrenkoffer meiner Tochter. Aber der Typ bin nicht ich, sondern ein Model…. Ein Männliches.
Dachte schon, da marschiert Einer mit einem umgebauten Geigenkasten ….
Reinhard, war sicher ein Versuch wert, das mit dem Verein. Aber ehrlich, wäre ich die Firma, hätte ich auch dankend abgelehnt. Zu viel Aufwand und potentiellen Aerger.
Gruss
Georg
Logo-Lizensierung ist ne völlig normale Sache. Da gibt’s Verträge dazu, was man wann mit dem Logo anstellen darf und was nicht. Sie hätten das “Professional Photographer”-Programm ja auch selber auflegen können, ich hab ja kein Patent auf die Idee.
… müsstest Du, wenn er anstatt eines Gitarrenkoffers eine dicke Fototasche tragen würde.
Du bekommst Mails in Deutsch? Da tippe ich mal auf VIP-Service und Frau Galea als persönliche Betreuerin ;).
Ich habe die Mail als Service für meine deutschen Leser übersetzt….