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Crayola Clan vs. Binney & Smith, Inc.

Note: The edit password is "crayola." It's only there to reduce spam.

Late in 1999, Silver (who setup our crayolaclan.com domain name) received a cease-and-desist order from the company of Binney & Smith, who are the makers of the Crayola crayons. (As of January 1, 2007, Binney & Smith changed their name to Crayola LLC.) They wanted us to shut down our web site and stop using the name of Crayola. (I'm told that at one point, a search for "Crayola" listed the Crayola Clan web page ahead of the Binney & Smith Crayola web page.) A public uproar ensued as the news spread throughout the gaming community. We decided to comply (sort of), and changed our domain name to waxlub.com and modified the graphics on our page a little bit.

Here is Turquoise's .plan update, who was then working at Rogue Entertainment, regarding the events. His message caused a flood of emails from gamers everywhere to Binney & Smith, all to no avail.

 Updated Dec 12 1999, 05:24:28 (GMT -5)
 Email atsmith@rogue-ent.com
 Rogue - www.rogue-ent.com - Skin Artist
 Login: atsmith
 Name: Aaron Smith

 Plan: 

 It is a sad day indeed. 

 It has come to my attention that my buds and clanmates in Clan Crayola
 have recieved a cease and desist order from the owners of Crayola Crayons.
 Crayola Clan is to remove all references of Crayola and the black swirl
 graphics from the crayon graphics. Also they are to give up the
 Crayolaclan.com domain. 

 I guess I could understand it better if we were trying to make a profit
 or public defame Crayola. But we arent, and I even went out of my way
 to make our website nice and cheerful. 

 So I guess I'm looking for help from fellow gamers out there. 

 Please dont let this 4 year old clan of harmless outgoing guys change
 everything they stand for! Send emails to Crayola. Tell them that we
 have nothing but 'lub' for Crayola and color creating wax sticks everywhere. 

 If only we had Sally Struthers and some TV commercial time.... 

 I would give you a link to our page... but that would be bad. 

 ..and that makes me a sad panda. 

 Disclaimer: These are my own personal views and not that of Rogue Entertainment.
 I'm pretty sure they would just point and laugh at me anyways 

And here is a copy of an email response from Binny & Smith to the people that emailed them regarding the cease and desist against Crayola Clan:

 We appreciate your interest in Binney & Smith and your
 comments in reference to the Crayola Clan web site. 

 The CRAYOLA brand name has been used by Binney & Smith
 for more than 90 years in connection with our children
 art materials. We believe our Crayola trademark is our
 most valuable asset, a position attained by producing
 high quality products for more than nine decades. It is
 also a position we have maintained through careful
 supervision of the use of our trademark consistent with
 the US trademark laws. 

 While we appreciate it is not your intent to damage the
 Crayola brand in any way or cause harm to Binney & Smith
 trademark rights, uses of the brand name such as that by
 the Crayola Clan does dilute the distinctiveness of the
 name and make it more difficult to protect the mark against
 infringement by others. 

 Although we understand our trademark enforcement actions
 may cause you some inconvenience, we are obligated by the
 operation of the trademark laws to take these steps if we
 wish to preserve the integrity of our trademarks in the future. 

 Thank you for taking the time to share your comments with us. 

 Sincerely, 
 Binney & Smith Inc.