Homeland Security Totally Misunderstands Trademark Law; Seizes Perfectly Legal Sporting Goods Anyway
from the because-fuck-you,-we've-got-guns dept
Homeland Security's Immigration & Customs Enforcement group (ICE) has a history of seizing stuff without understanding even the most basic concepts around intellectual property. After all, these are the same meatheads who seized some blogs for alleged copyright infringement, and then had to return some of them over a year later, after they realized it was a mistake. ICE also has a history of using big sporting events to kiss up to the multi-billion dollar sports organizations by shutting down small businesses, protecting Americans from unlicensed underwear. And, of course, what bigger sporting event is there than the Super Bowl. Every year they make a bunch of seizures related to the Superbowl, and this year was no different.ICE agents gleefully were patrolling Phoenix looking for clothes to seize. But there was just one, rather large, problem with how they went about it. It appears that the people in charge of all this, didn't know the first thing about the "law" they were supposedly enforcing. Seizing counterfeits is about stopping trademark infringement. But not everything using a trademark is infringing. Trademark, after all, is a form of a consumer protection law, designed to protect people from buying one thing, believing it's another. If there's no likelihood of confusion, then ICE isn't supposed to be seizing it (and, yes, there is also dilution of trademark, but ICE isn't supposed to be seizing products that dilute someone's trademark -- just those that are "counterfeit"). But that's not, apparently, how ICE sees things:
The profane debasing of a mascot — and really anything that denigrates a team — is guaranteed to be contraband, said Daniel Modricker, a spokesman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That “Yankees Suck” T-shirt you put on for special occasions? If it uses anything that looks like a team or league logo, it probably constitutes trademark infringement.Almost all of that is wrong. Using someone else's trademark to comment on them is a perfectly legal use -- and not at all counterfeit. Pretending otherwise gets into some pretty sketchy First Amendment areas, as using a trademarked word, phrase or image to criticize someone is considered protected. But, not to ICE. As Rebecca Tushnet explains:
"Profane debasing"--and when did mascots become sacred?--is not confusing. I don't think ICE has authority to seize diluting merchandise, and anyway very few of these will be using the profaned mascots "as a mark," meaning the dilution exceptions for parody and criticism apply. This is a blatant misunderstanding of the law, being perpetuated by a federal official with only the small reassurance that federal agents won't come down and rip a previously purchased shirt off your back.Of course, the small time vendor with a table on the street isn't likely to challenge the federal government for stealing his perfectly legal shirts that "debase" a mascot. So ICE's Daniel Modricker gets to spew his ignorant and wrong statements and get away with it. Because ICE is ICE, and this is generally how it goes about its business. It has the guns and it gets to decide the law, no matter what the Constitution has to say about it.
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Filed Under: counterfeit, daniel modricker, dhs, first amendment, free speech, homeland security, ice, mascots, seizures, super bowl, trademark
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Let me have a minute while I contemplate the absurd in this sentence.
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Ahem. Parody? Satire? Joke? It's not that subtle for the Police State it seems.
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Those are not allowed in a police state, along with hyperbole, metaphor, and other forms of expression that require intelligence to interpret. Every statement a person makes will be interpreted literally, especially if that means the state can take action against them.
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ICE
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They actually describe these issues as a matter of national security. I wish that were a joke.
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Gun rights advocates, here is a setup for you. ;-)
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It seems to me the 4th is under even more pressure, though the disagreement could be more a result of what each of us pay the most attention to than actual facts.
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Lawyers, meaning "Show me how much you can pay and I tell you what rights you have."
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Not to start a flame war, but do you know of any incidents of people successfully defending themselves from the government using guns? Maybe that thing with the illegal grazing in Nevada, I didn't hear how that turned out.
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It does seem to have changed the history of the world, though.
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There are fifteen holdouts remaining, per Wikipedia.
Gun rights do NOT protect us from an out of control government. It's been out of control since 9/11 and no gun rights group has done anything about this - apart from whine that gun rights are under assault.
Please don't take this as a call to violent revolution, I happen to think that's a stupid idea and that we would lose. You fight this crap at the ballot box, not with bullets.
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Good luck with that. Even if there were significant options for voting, the system is officially rigged. At the end of each election you get the results people voted for ("popular vote") along with what they actually get instead.
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We need to convince them to care enough to take it on.
Remember Kshama Sawant?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant
She's a damned socialist! And she got elected to office because enough people wanted her in. We CAN do this if we get enough people to care enough to vote for a real alternative. Negativity never achieved a thing. Let's be positive, make plans, and effect the change we want.
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Your Papers, and up against the wall
"Homeland," a new fascist creation seeking another way to control, suppress and intimidate in the name of insanity.
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But then isn't that how "justice" usually works?
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Profane debasing mascots actually sounds rather fun. It ought to be taught in schools, like critical thinking (obligatory obscure reference to the time the Texas Dept Ed was encouraged to ban teaching of critical thinking because it 'challenged parental authority' - which is what I thought children were for).
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I might give that band a listen, just for the clever name.
(Unless they're Punk Rock -- what genre of music do they play?)
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My favorite parody shirt involves AT&T. The one where the bald eagle with red glowing eyes is grasping all the telcom cables with it's talons. The eagle is wearing a AT&T shield stamped on it's chest. No doubt ICE would taser and rip that shirt off you if they saw you wearing it around in public.
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And if you don't see that, you will be joining an Attitude Readjustment Program at one of our FEMA camps.
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No Misunderstanding
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