Godfread Law Firm - Intellectual Property and Business Law » free speech

Fair Use – Priority Marketing Blog

Paul — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:36:39 +0000

I missed this when it was originally published. I spoke to the IABC a couple of weeks ago about internet law for marketing and public relations professionals. In attendance was Jen Carlton of Priority Marketing who blogged about the copyright and fair use portion of my talk. Thank you Jen!

I’m not surprised that the group found fair use to be interesting because its one of the more frequently contested and misunderstood areas of copyright law. You can read Jen’s post for a bit of fair use law and I’ll probably be blogging about it again soon.

Don’t Let Your Business Decisions Be Clouded By Rumors

Paul — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:15:54 +0000

“Mark Twain famously said that a lie can go around the world while truth is still putting on its boots.”

MinnPost has a great article with lessons businesses can learn from the Shirley Sherrod story. Cooler heads and actual evidence should have prevailed in the first place.

Why I Volunteered for the EFF

Paul — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:11:23 +0000

A group called the U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) has filed a lawsuit against thousands of as yet unknown people who may (or may not) have downloaded or uploaded movies on file sharing networks. The strategy, which has been employed by others in the past, is to file or threaten to file a lawsuit and then offer to settle for a few thousand. Defending a copyright lawsuit will almost certainly cost much more so the offer is tempting. Plus, copyright law allows statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work, so the potential risk can be severe.

One problem with employing this strategy on the scale that the USCG is doing is that it will almost certainly result in a large number wrongly identified people who feel compelled to pay up because its cheaper than fighting. It undermines rights to privacy and anonymity. Furthermore, it doesn’t get to the real issue of how to compensate artists for their work. Lawsuits can’t possibly be a realistic long-term business model.

As far as I know, the USCG only has a large list of suspect IP addresses and is currently attempting to obtain the identities of people so they can give them the pay up or go to court offer. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a resource for people who are faced with responding to a subpoena and would like advice with responding. I have volunteered to work with people in Minnesota who are faced with this situation. There are other attorneys in other states who have volunteered as well.

The EFF Subpoena Defense Attorney List
The EFF’s press release about the case.

F-bomb Trademarks

Paul — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:37:29 +0000

One of the several reasons your trademark might be refused registration by the USPTO is that your proposed mark is scandalous or immoral. Without too much further explanation you might guess that a certain word starting with “F” and rhyming with “duck” might be problematic as a trademark. You would be right. Trademarks can be refused registration for being scandalous or immoral. Now you might think that this is America and you can say what the F— you want, and you can. But at least for now, you aren’t going to get the US government to help you protect that as a brand name.

But many people do try anyway. In fact, if you search the USPTO for applications for marks containing that word, you will see nothing but refusals (were 0 for 53 so far), probably causing the applicants to shout . . .

Trademarks and Oil Spills

Paul — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:10:04 +0000

The Twitter account @BPGlobalPR has more followers than the real BP Twitter account. Yes its fake and they use the BP name and logo. The tweets are both biting and funny, at least to people who don’t work at BP. But is it trademark infringement?

If trademark law exists primarily prevent confusion in the marketplace and to let companies control their own reputation, then probably not. Does @BPGlobalPR tarnish BP’s brand? Probably, but it seems as though everyone knows its a parody, and how could you not with tweets like:

“We feel terrible about spilling oil in American waters, we’ll make sure the next spill happens where the terrorists live. #bpcares”

“Please help us with rebranding. We’re not calling it an “oil spill” anymore, now it’s a “Southern Fun Party”. #bpcares”

So, if a decent trademark infringement or dilution claim could be made, BP might ask themselves, “should we?” The answer to that might be “no.” The fallout from a trademark lawsuit now could be worse than the tweets. (See Streisand Effect) It might make it seem like BP is trying harder to plug the word leak than the oil leak.

The value of a trademark is based in large part on the reputation of the company. To BP’s credit, it seems as though their tweeting has been pretty focused on keeping people updated about the oil spill. This might be one time where protecting a trademark might be done best by letting people vent and take a few jabs.

UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: I am pretty sure that this wouldn’t be a good trademark case for BP anyway. It is such a clear parody as well as a non-commercial, non-competing use. However, there have been some inconsistent results in the area of trademark parodies. Sometimes judges as well as brand owners just don’t have a good sense of humor. Thanks to @cathygellis for the reply tweet and comment.