Questions Raised About Logo Artist Who Was Accused Of 'Stealing' From Himself

from the look-again dept

Well, well, well... a few folks have been sending in some of the investigations that have been going on concerning the logo designer, Jon Engle, who caused a big stir on a variety of sites (including ours) by claiming that he was being accused of infringing on his own logo artwork. However, as more people started investigating the matter, his story has become increasingly suspect, both with certain elements not adding up, and additional evidence suggesting that Engle himself may have, in fact, used images from others in the logos he had uploaded to sites. There are also some other claims that Engle had absolutely nothing to do with some of the logos that he said he designed. However, as the public scrutiny of Engle's story is spreading, Engle's reputation is taking a big hit -- showing how the damage done to one's own reputation by plagiarism can be punitive, even without invoking copyright law. Reputation is a scarce good... destroying it by lying and duping a bunch of folks is going to come back to bite you.

Filed Under: accusations, copyright, jon engle, logos, reputation

Microsoft Claims Patent On Popular Children's Magazine Feature

from the rebus-indeed dept

theodp writes "Remember those cute Highlights for Children rebus stories that pair pictures with words? Well, Microsoft has laid claim to a patent for bringing the same concept to your e-mail and the web, replacing words with corporate logos (logocons in Microsoft parlance), which may someday make the web look like this."

Filed Under: logos, patents, rebus
Companies: microsoft

Major League Baseball Deletes Popular MySpace Page For Using Cubs Logo

from the how-many-fans-can-we-alienate-this-week? dept

By now, it certainly shouldn't come as any surprise that Major League Baseball mis-interprets various intellectual property laws to pretend is has total control over certain content. After all, this is the organization that has insisted repeatedly that it owns facts, despite court after court explaining that facts aren't copyrightable. MLB also seems confused about copyright law when it comes to the legality of placeshifting. In the past, MLB also freaked out about fan websites potentially violating trademarks -- but that was a long time ago. Or so we thought. Apparently the fun lawyers at MLB shut down an immensely popular MySpace page for Chicago Cubs fans that was linked to a fan website called Cubbies Baseball. That fan website actually has a license to use the official Chicago Cubs logo, but MLB claims that the license didn't extend to MySpace as well -- just the Cubbies Baseball site. King Kaufman, the sports writer at Salon, blames MLB for not asking the owner of the site to remove the logo -- but puts more blame on MySpace for simply shutting down the site the second MLB complained, without giving any warning. He seems to think MLB isn't totally in the wrong in demanding the logo be removed, but again that's not necessarily true. If the site was clear that it was a fan site and had no official endorsement or association with the Cubs, it should be fair use to use the logo. MLB trots out the tired explanation that it has to defend its trademarks or risk losing them, but that's not so in a case where there's an obvious fair use exception. Either way, from a common sense standpoint, it's ridiculous for MySpace and MLB to shut down a vibrant fan community -- and it's made worse when you realize that the use of the logo probably isn't even a real violation of trademark law.

Filed Under: logos, trademark
Companies: mlb