The StartUp Podcast tagged along with him a few years ago: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/pirate-needs-pirate-season-3...
Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
31–40 of 283 posts
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like after you buy something at point of sale whatever you do with it is fair game. I can buy Coke from Sam's Club or Costco and sell it in my restaurant. How is what Pirate Joe's did any different?
This is a trademark infringement case. The (alleged) problem is that he set up a store which billed itself as being basically a Trader Joe's.
Except he didn't. It was always clear what he was doing.
This is pretty straightforward legal bullying, in my opinion.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clearly better than much of what America has to offer, given that many consumers in the US choose to shop there.
What does it even mean "what America has to offer"? The Trader Joe stores are in America. True TJ is owned by a multi-national corporation, but almost all stores are owned by multi-national corporations. If what America has to offer only includes stores that are not owned by multi-national corporations then I'm not really sure what is left that TJ is being compared to.
I suspect that meant that many Americans will go out of their way to go to a Trader Joes, because their products are unique in some way. Ergo, the rest of "what America has to offer" isn't a good TJ replacement, either.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually it doesn't work to buy products at full retail price and resell them at a higher retail price. I guess the "in Canada" part is how it worked out for him? Trader Joe's probably wants to protect their brand in hopes of a future Canadian expansion.
Lets be serious here. This is a standard "I'm wrong, but I have more money so Ill exhaust your resources to get what I want." There's no trademark devaluation. There's no copyright infringement. There's no patent infringement. This is straight up First Sale Doctrine stuff. And even if there was the above 3, SCOUTS ruled those rights are exhausted on sale recently. This is directly an issue of "More Money = Better Leg…
There ought to be a law against that. Better, an amendment. No idea on the verbiage though.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#35Does anyone else feel like he didn't raise the money because he didn't use a sensible crowd funding site like GoFundMe?
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#36Gotta love capitalism, eh? Just like votes, more money = more protection. This certainly wasn't a trademark issue. Trader vs Pirate. There was no question this store wasn't run by Trader Joes/Aldi North. They were buying in bulk to stock a store where they couldn't normally get the goods. Reselling should be 100% A-OK. Any trademarks go along with the products. And as far as I would guess, the grocer certainly wasn't…
This has little to do with capitalism. More like the corporo-fascist police state we inhabit. In capitalism, Pirate Joe's could open up right next door to Trader Joe's and charge whatever prices they like for the products purchased next door.
Capitalism just means private ownership of the means of production. What you call corporo-fascist is just the natural end game of such an economic system.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#37Gotta love capitalism, eh? Just like votes, more money = more protection. This certainly wasn't a trademark issue. Trader vs Pirate. There was no question this store wasn't run by Trader Joes/Aldi North. They were buying in bulk to stock a store where they couldn't normally get the goods. Reselling should be 100% A-OK. Any trademarks go along with the products. And as far as I would guess, the grocer certainly wasn't…
This has little to do with capitalism. More like the corporo-fascist police state we inhabit. In capitalism, Pirate Joe's could open up right next door to Trader Joe's and charge whatever prices they like for the products purchased next door.
This comment is perhaps a little hyperbolic but it's also pretty dead-on. India is FAR more capitalist the US is these days, possibly too much but here in the States our capitalism is regulated to death, ironically to a large extend by the corporations who whine about too much regulation all the time.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#38I don't understand with what right trader Joe's can prohibit somebody from reselling their products. If he clearly states where he bought them from, and that he is not affiliated, and doesn't misuse their trademarks (impersonate them), it should be absolutely legal. A side remark, people often say how great the US / north America is for entrepreneurs, compared to (continental) Europe where there is a lot of red tape…
> I don't understand with what right trader Joe's can prohibit somebody from reselling their products.
I can see this line of reasoning: a lot of products TJ sells are of TJ's brand. If this individual buys the product but then lets it spoil and resells it and makes someone sick, there might be a chance for that end-consumer to sue TJ for it.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually it doesn't work to buy products at full retail price and resell them at a higher retail price. I guess the "in Canada" part is how it worked out for him? Trader Joe's probably wants to protect their brand in hopes of a future Canadian expansion.
Lets be serious here. This is a standard "I'm wrong, but I have more money so Ill exhaust your resources to get what I want." There's no trademark devaluation. There's no copyright infringement. There's no patent infringement. This is straight up First Sale Doctrine stuff. And even if there was the above 3, SCOUTS ruled those rights are exhausted on sale recently. This is directly an issue of "More Money = Better Leg…
^This. This kind of shit along with the archaic copyright system we have (though thats slowly improving) I think is one of the biggest reasons the American economy is so sluggish right now.
Easiest way to fix this I think is to make it so that the plaintiff in these kinds of suits has to show real, actual damage: not to branding, not to "theoretical sales", not to "possible expansion", but actual and documented ill effects on their business resulting from the activity of the defendant, and more importantly make the award for such a case relative to that damage. That would shut down 90% of these cases overnight.
Re: Pirate Joe’s, Maverick Distributor of Trader Joe’s Products, Shuts Down
#40Gotta love capitalism, eh? Just like votes, more money = more protection. This certainly wasn't a trademark issue. Trader vs Pirate. There was no question this store wasn't run by Trader Joes/Aldi North. They were buying in bulk to stock a store where they couldn't normally get the goods. Reselling should be 100% A-OK. Any trademarks go along with the products. And as far as I would guess, the grocer certainly wasn't…
> Just like votes, more money = more protection. That's what I find strange with the often-seen "well, just vote with your wallet" argument when a company screws up; it's almost literally the definition of an oligarchy (IE, more money = more decision power).
"Vote with your wallet" means hit them where it hurts, because you don't have much of an actual vote in a company's behavior. It has nothing to do with using money to subvert the democratic process.