Ron Coleman on the law affecting brands, the Internet & free speech
A story from the L.A. Times / Washington Post syndicate, evidently sent to press before the Pope’s death, told of the increase in sales of John Paul II-related merchandise. This includes perfectly reasonable and understandable things such as the Pope’s own book, Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way (forgive me, but it reminds me of a different book by a very different man) and rather silly things like the pineapple in red lemongrass soup…
The Tata Group put out this press release about a trademark decision that some people seem to think is funny. It is evidently connected with this WIPO decision. Likelihood of Confusion doesn’t get it. No one said trademarks were supposed be fun, much less funny. Much less bodacious. Hat tip to John Berryhill via the INTA List. Apparently he gets it. Read more
Wired reports on a new book whose thrust, evidently, aligns decently well with my own little personal views (and not just mine): Brand Name Bullies. Says the review in Wired: To prove his point that the commons is under attack, Bollier has filled Bullies with example after example of how corporate lawyers have swooped in on artists and consumers who have tried to use products and logos in ways other than those prescribed by the... Read more
By now you must have heard about the dustup involving Yiddish with Dick and Jane. The irony for me is that not long after I was learning to read English with the original Dick and Jane at P.S. 225, I was learning Yiddish from an essentially identical book for little secular Yiddishists (it turned out handy later at the Chaim Berlin yeshiva, but I digress) with “Motl” and “Gitl” standing in for Dick and Jane.... Read more
The online Globe and Mail has an important item on how documentary filmmakers and others are being slammed by the IP equity grab, called “How Copyright Could be Killing Culture”. Okay, maybe “killing culture” is a little over the top. I suppose if more rigorous enforcement of copyright would throw a speed bump in front of the likes of Michael Moore, our modern Leni Reifenstahl, that would put a little chill in the air —... Read more
The New York Times (linked to by Drudge) has an article entitled The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody which opens, compellingly, as follows: One mislaid credit card bill or a single dangling e-mail message on the home computer would have ended everything: the marriage, the big-time career, the reputation for decency he had built over a lifetime. So for more than 10 years, he ruthlessly kept his two identities apart: one lived in a... Read more
The Media Bloggers Association is setting up a stable of attorneys “to provide MBA members with first-line counsel on matters relating to the use of intellectual property, defamation and other issues arising from their weblogging.” Looks like they got a real crackerjack guy to take the laboring oar. Originally posted 2005-01-10 23:05:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Read more
Yahoo! News reports that the Ninth Circuit (them again!) has ruled that an online photo caption referring to him in the presence of two women as a “pimp” means “pimp in a good way.” They must mean in the rapper vocabulary sense of “ladies’ man,” which assuredly the Bangled One is. But does Evel Knievel have any truck with the world of P. Diddy and 50 Cent? Shouldn’t that matter? It seems that the fate... Read more
If trademark / Internet cases are not at the top of things to stay on top of in late December, you may have missed this potentially important decision giving Google an out of the box win in the battle (not, as suggested by the CNET story’s headline, the war) between its own quaint self and insurance mass-marketer GEICO. This is a case being watched by all of us practicing in this area. Indeed we have... Read more
No, not more about that constitutional dustup at the Volokh Conspiracy. The delivery guys were supposed to be here yesterday with a blog roll and a direct link on the top to the firm website. But you know how it is — they just called from Route 3 for directions. Sheesh. UPDATE: The Dean intimidated me into sticking the darned HTML code in there myself. It’s “good enough for government work.” Thanks to him (again)... Read more