FedEX Furniture: The Lawsuit

SO Jose Avila needed a little furniture, of course he does, but no cash, so with a little quick thinking Jose goes over to his local FedEX office and gets a bunch of those FREE shipping boxes that the people from FedEX have been GIVING WAY for years...

He made an L-shaped desk, a chair, a small bookshelf, a dining room set, and a bed — all of Fed Ex boxes and padded envelopes.

He was proud of his handmade furniture, and thought he could show other people who were broke how to do it themselves. So, he created a Web site called FedExfurniture.com.

"I thought I could go out there and maybe inspire somebody and show people that, 'You know what? It's okay to be ghetto when you're in a bind and feeling down. Go out there and be creative and you can get by," he said.

But the site earned him a phone call and threatening letters from Fed Ex, ordering him to "cease and desist" and requesting that he "transfer registration of the domain name fedexfurniture.com to Fed Ex."

Avila was stunned. "I really didn't have enough money to go out and buy furniture and they're over here threatening to sue me into oblivion," he said.

Even though Jose never offered to sell the furniture he made , he received legal threats saying he was "commercially exploiting" Fed Ex, and that the Web site "willfully infringed" Fed Ex's rights. And because he used the free boxes for furniture, not shipping, Fed Ex said, he "did not obtain the packaging lawfully."

Fed Ex says Avila's Web site must come down, but Avila doesn't want to back down. "I feel like if I take the site down, it'll show companies that it's okay to push around the little guy and just toss lawsuits at somebody to get them to take down the information that you don't like."

Jose isn't alone with his cardboard furniture, a site called Cardboard Construction Company dis cusses various ways to create things out of discarded boxes.

What about the guys who made Gladiator costumes out of Coors Boxes?, Sport Illustrated made bikinis out of beer caps, Lizzy Gariner made a dress out of American Express cards, and of course all those grandmothers back in the 1970's CROCHETING HATS MADE WITH BEER CANS?

Its nice to see the little guy fight back....