NY Stock Exchange Claims Trademark On Any Depiction Of Trading Floor, Threatens TPM
from the ownership-society dept
For quite some time now, we've been detailing the rise of "ownership society," where misleading concepts like "intellectual property" have been so driven into the heads of some people, that they believe they can claim "ownership" of totally abstract things, and then aggressively claim that no one else can make use of them. It's a really sad statement on what we're teaching people when it comes to "intellectual property." The latest such example is that the NY Stock Exchange (NYSE) apparently was able to secure a trademark (2587615) a few years back that appears to cover any representation -- such as a drawing or photograph -- of the NYSE trading floor.Overbroad enough for you?
Well, the NYSE's senior VP for its "Intellectual Property Group" (the NYSE has a whole IP group?!?) is now threatening the news site Talking Points Memo for writing a story that was illustrated with the following stock photo:
Thankfully, it appears that TPM has good trademark lawyers they can call on, and they're calling the NYSE's bluff:
TPM is represented on Media and IP matters by extremely capable specialist outside counsel. And we've been advised that the NYSE's claims are baseless and ridiculous on their face. But this is yet another example of how many large corporations have given way to IP-mania, trying to bully smaller companies into submission with inane and legally specious claims of intellectual property rights.Not only that, but TPM has proposed a contest, asking people to predict what the NYSE will try to stop next. Should be interesting to see the NYSE's response. The proper response would be to apologize, admit that it overreached, and promise not to do so again. The more likely response is silence. The really dumb response would be to press this issue.
Well, TPM's small but we have big teeth. And we don't like being pushed around. So we're again posting the same picture as an illustration for this post. But really, what's next? Mayor Bloomberg trademarks his face and the city newspapers have to get his permission to publish photos of him so not to infringe the Bloomberg face trademark? Or more likely, the Empire State building trademark's the image of the Empire State building and demands a fee or bars photographs of the New York skyline.
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Re:
One word: lolwut?
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Re: Re: :-D
;-P
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Including the ones that's don't exist!
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Nice try though.
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For that matter, the two people in the image would also have rights, and would require a model release. That could only be avoided if they agreed to waive those rights upon entering the premises.
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Care to post a citation for that? I believe what's stated above is almost entirely wrong.
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"Care to post a citation for that? I believe what's stated above is almost entirely wrong."
It is completely and 100% wrong. The private location can bar you from TAKING pictures while ON their property AT THAT TIME, but once you are gone, if you have pics, tough cookie. Otherwise, NO news organization or paparazzi would be able to take a pic of ANYTHING. I cant believe people actually believe the tripe that gets posted like the above commenter. "subject to the approval of the location owner" has ZERO codification in law ex post facto. Sorry, FAIL.
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Listen folks, they don't make the rules. They just make them up and post them as Anonymous Cowards.
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http://w ww.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/ip_photography.htm
http://communications-media.lawyers.com/privacy-l aw/Videotaping-and-Photography-on-Private-Property.html
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All three say, specifically, that the owners have NO rights to demand that the photos be deleted, handed over, etc.
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They may have copyrights if something creative such as artwork were photographed. Of course, the photo could still be used in a fair use manner, such as a story that is unrelated to the artwork, and the artwork that happens to be incidentally in the photo is not the reason people flock to the story. But this paragraph is irrelevant to the issue.
They have trademark rights to their NYSE logo. But that doesn't mean this photo is infringing those rights.
In this case, they allowed someone access. They even allowed them to photograph. The use of the photograph is fair use. There is no trademark issue.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portlandia
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Even if that is the case, there can still be fair use defenses of a photo that happens to include the statue. There are probably fewer possible fair uses of a photo where the statue is the subject of the photo.
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That's retarded.
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If you buy a music CD, you own the CD. But the Copyright is owned by the artist.
Same principle could apply.
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Yes really.
"If you buy a music CD, you own the CD. But the Copyright is owned by the artist."
No city should buy things if the copy protection is 'owned' by the artist. It should demand that it be released under a CC license of some sort, or that it be in the public domain. Things on public property should belong to the public. Public property is not the storage place for someones private intellectual property.
and usually the copy protection isn't owned by the artist, but by the labels. To say that it's owned by the artist is generally false.
"Same principle could apply."
Though the principle you speak of itself is retarded, the same principle doesn't apply. In one case, public space is being used to store intellectual property at taxpayer expense. In the other case, that's not so.
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"In one case, public space is being used to store private intellectual property at taxpayer expense."
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If that were true, that's a good argument not to buy PC's running Windows.
You own the PC, the hard disk. You don't own the copyright nor the copy protection on Windows.
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The statute needs to be removed from public property and be placed on private property. Things on public property should both intellectually and physically belong to the public, to freely copy, take pictures of and redistribute those pictures. That public property is being used to host private intellectual property at the expense the public's freedom to take a picture is unacceptable.
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I don't care what kind of artwork you put on your property.
If I can take a picture of it from public space, then it's fair game to publish my photo.
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See for yourself:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1120+Southw est+5th+Avenue,+Portland,+OR&aq=0&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.578161,56.513672&ie =UTF8&hq=&hnear=1120+SW+5th+Ave,+Portland,+Oregon+97204&ll=45.515907,-122.679133&spn =0.001609,0.003449&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=45.515804,-122.679187&panoid=PLuEEqAagj m6hH4Csnl0eQ&cbp=12,110.6,,0,-42.69
Even though the view is a little blurry, obscured by tree branches, the illegal image pirating of the sculptor's intellectual property clearly ought to be worth a couple of bucks in some "sue-em-all" court.
Poor Google...
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Lawyer gladiatorial combat!
Only the strong survive!
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Who owns your knowledge
As far as I can tell PayPal are trying to claim ownership of the knowledge in a former employees brain and are suing google for employing him. If the guy took documentation or code with him then fair enough, if he had a contract that that said he couldn't go work for google or whoever then fair enough. But suing google for employing someone who has useful and relevant knowledge is crazy. All google is doing is competing for employees the same as all firms do constantly. I am a software developer and before working in my current role i had no experience of Dynamics CRM development. Now i have lots and demand for my services does my current company get to sue if i get a better job elsewhere.
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Makes perfect sense
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Re: Makes perfect sense
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What the NYSE Will Stop Next
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Re: What the NYSE Will Stop Next
so, not all bad then...
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Rich at last (totally sarcastic)
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This is due to a resonance effect that develops between the two layers of foil at exactly twice the frequency of the government's invisible brain lasers.
Also, I have found that if you fashion two antennas on top instead of the usual single antenna that it further increases the effectiveness by an additional 37 %.
I have a patent pending on these and other discoveries.
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The NYSE Has A Point
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Re: The NYSE Has A Point
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Re: Re: The NYSE Has A Point
"your unauthorized used of the images of the trading floor, tarnishes NYSE's trademarks and it's affiliated companies by associating NYSE trademarks with entities and issue with which it is not affiliated or relevant."
Again, this doesn't make the NYSE right, but you can see their point. Can you imagine the uproar if TPM used a Starbucks photo for a story about slave labor in China? Even though the two had nothing to do with each other, Starbucks brand would still be guilty by association. The NYSE is a 200 year old institution, the hedge funds that were busted for sleazy behavior were young companies that had much less regulation. To use a NYSE photo with the story is almost slanderous. The mere fact that no one seems to acknowledge this is proof that the NYSE has a branding problem and should be defending their reputation somehow.
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Re: The NYSE Has A Point
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Trademarking an image
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050202/1946248.shtml
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Chrysler Building Trademark
Not the Empire State Building, but the Chrysler Building is trademarked:
http://www.trademarkia.com/chrysler-building-75982939.html
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...And the TransAmerica Pyramid is trademarked.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/08/DDGM7C8H4O1. DTL
Which is ridiculous. Nobody should be able to essentially own a city skyline by dint of having a trademark on a building.
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Re: ...And the TransAmerica Pyramid is trademarked.
> also trademarked--and it is routinely removed from the San
> Francisco Skyline to avoid trademark issues.
I've read similar stories about Seattle's Space Needle.
Of course none of those trademarks would give their owners any legal grounds for recovery merely because a movie or photographer showed the city's skyline in their work.
This is just another example of moneyed interests using the law like a club to extort money to which they're not entitled, knowing that even if the defendants win in court, they lose financially.
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Re: Chrysler Building Trademark
Isn’t it?
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Genuine question
Could an argument be made that the trademark conveyed by the image has been turned generic, a la the fears of Band-aid Brand bandages, Kleenex tissues, or Xerox copying? Can an image become generic?
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Glad to see this story
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Landmark buildings do charge fees for their image
It's my understanding that this is the case for the CN Tower* in Toronto, at least for use in movies.
* — It's currently the tallest building in the Americas, and it was the tallest in the world for over three decades.
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