You Can't Be A Fan Of University Of Cincinnati's Sports Teams Unless You've Paid The Proper License
from the don't-wear-red-and-black dept
In response to our recent post about whether or not a company like Black & Decker could legally resell sporting event tickets without being an "official sponsor" of the event, Public Citizen's Paul Alan Levy wrote about how it wasn't that long ago that anyone could make their own fan gear. And then greed set in:The case is reminiscent of a revenue grab by sports teams in the 1980's. At one time, anybody could make up a shirt that said "Dallas Cowboys" or "Boston Red Sox", and then wear it or sell it. The fans wearing those shirts didn't care one whit about whether the Cowboys or Red Sox made the shirt or had taken a cut of the shirt-makers' revenue. But Major League Baseball and the National Football League, armed with surveys created by consumer survey expert Jacob Jacoby, started filing lawsuits claiming that some minority of fans would automatically assume that the Cowboys or Red Sox had endorsed or at least approved of the shirt sellers. By winning a couple of cases, they created a new rule of law -- you can't sell shirts showing support for a team without paying the team off for the privilege of doing so.That has since expanded further and further, including college sports teams as well. Reader Sys Admin alerts us to a story out of Cincinnati, where the University of Cincinnati is being so aggressive in enforcing these sorts of claims that it says pretty much any type of clothing that might be mistaken as supporting the team (t-shirts with red and black? watch out...) it needs a license. The University says it doesn't matter if the University's name or logo isn't on the clothing at all. Even a shirt that says "Go Cats!" needs a license. Even worse, they're not just looking to stop people from selling such clothing, they're happily putting them in jail for it.
Be careful what teams you cheer for, and what color clothes you wear when you do...
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Filed Under: colors, fans, sporting events, trademark, university of cincinnati
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I Hate Cats
I foresee a future in which local peddlers of team gear start catering to visitors rooting for the opposing team.
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Re: I Hate Cats
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Re: Re: I Hate Cats
And then there is always this: (seems like a Win-Win to me).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_time_you_masturbate..._God_kills_a_kitten
BTW Cat Stevens thinks infringing is bad too.
Frickin' felines!
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Re: Re: I Hate Cats
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Air Jordan watch out
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:GQ0df7Woo9cTDM%3Ahttp://www.nikenew.com/images/air-jordan- 1-i-black-varsity-red-1.jpg
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That is great!
Hope this happens a lot more often so people start to pay attention to the insanity that IP laws have become.
Those things will hurt any economy and will start hurting the public and when that happens law or no law attitudes will change.
People will start discriminating more about what they do and who they support.
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Go Hokies!
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Guess that's out now, for hats, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and so forth.
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Re:
Sure, there are other scarce items which can't be copied that can be sold, such as lunch with the artist or a chance to sing on the album. But, it does seems like not being able to control your trademark removes one of the popular pillars of the new "sell scarce products" model.
(The issue of course is where to draw the line. "Go cats!" on a t-shirt? Meh, seems OK. "Go UC Bearcats!" on a t-shirt? That gets a little more murky.)
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Sure, you could buy a knock-off, but that may open you to being called out by 'real' fans. It may not be worth the ridicule.
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Cease and Desist
(as many people cannot readily detect it online, heavy sarcasm is being used)
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I smell a franchise opportunity...
* This t-shirt is not endorsed by XXX University
* This t-shirt is not endorsed by XXX Band
* This t-shirt is not endorsed by XXX Company
in BIG contrasting letters right in the front in order to avoid confusion. That way, nobody can claim false endorsement.
Then we can add an optional clause on the back:
XXX Team/University/Band/Company were/are idiots for punishing their fans.
Or something.
DIBS! So don't you all be stealing my idea. ;)
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lolcats
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fUCk 'em.
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Re: fUCk 'em.
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University of Cincinnati Brand
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So help me out here.
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Title is sort of misleading
you can be a fan, you just can't make your own cheap knockoff official products.
Aren't t-shirts and other things like this the scarce goods that are suppose to pay the bills in the future of entertainment?
You can't have it both ways.
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Re: Title is sort of misleading
Neither can they.
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Re: Title is sort of misleading
You can buy knockoffs of plenty of sports teams if you look hard enough. "Real fans" will typically spend the extra money to get the official good anyways.
Funny how you believe that Google will pay a price with the whole Nexus trademark/copyright dispute, but it's okay for the University of Cincinnati to piss off it's fans.
Who is having it both ways?
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Re: Title is sort of misleading
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the cats
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Late to this car rodeo, but...
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