Techdirt T-Shirts: DMCA Takedowns And Election Voting -- Only Available For A Few More Days

from the get-'em-now dept

Instead of the reading list, this week we're reminding folks that two of our most popular t-shirts are available on Teespring, but only if you order quickly. Our popular copyright takedown t-shirt is available again, after someone pre-ordered a whole bunch yesterday, tipping the campaign and re-opening it. But you've only got 3 more days to get in on that one. And then we've got our new Vote2016() t-shirt explaining your Presidential voting choices this year in code (and, yeah, yeah, we've already heard all your comments about third parties, but let's keep this real here and admit that the code here is what most people are actually looking at). That one's available for just four more days, and you should order soon so you can wear it as much as you want this election season (that one also has stickers which have proven to be quite popular as well!). Either way, once these campaigns end, that's it for getting those t-shirts, unless there's suddenly a major new influx of demand -- so don't miss out. Get yours today -- and help support Techdirt in the process.

Filed Under: dmca, t-shirts, vote

Time Running Out On Techdirt T-Shirts: Nerd Harder & Home Cooking Both End Soon

from the don't-miss-out dept

As you may know, last month, we ran a t-shirt campaign for our "Nerd Harder" t-shirt, in response to various folks in governments and legacy companies thinking that if only the techies "nerd harder" they can solve everything from terrorism to copyright infringement. The campaign was super successful, with hundreds of folks buying shirts. But, apparently, some of you (you know who you are) somehow missed that campaign. Teespring has a feature where if enough people reserve a t-shirt from a campaign that's completed, the campaign will reopen for a short time -- and that's exactly what's happened with our Nerd Harder t-shirt: But it's for a very limited time: just a few hours left until that campaign closes, and who knows if there will be enough demand to reopen it. So don't miss out. We've already seen lots and lots and lots of happy customers from the first round, so here's a chance to join them. But only for a few more hours.

And, then, of course, we also have our second t-shirt campaign running as well, for our Home Cooking is Killing Restaurants parody of the old "hold taping is killing music" campaign. People seem to really like that shirt as well (and we also have it in hoodie version). That campaign is running through this coming Tuesday, but might as well buy both shirts in one shot. Both shirts come in multiple color choices (buy more than one to have a variety!) and in men's and women's cuts. And, of course, buying these t-shirts not only makes you look cool, but also helps support Techdirt.

Filed Under: home cooking, home taping, nerd harder, t-shirts, techdirt

CafePress Takes Down T-Shirt Calling Donald Trump A Cheeto-Faced Shitgibbon, Saying It Violates Frito-Lay's Trademark

from the trademark-at-work dept

As you probably heard in the news, last week, Presidential candidate/reality TV star Donald Trump took a bit of a detour from the campaign trail last week to fly to Scotland to open his new golf course. That the timing of the trip coincided with the Brexit referendum for the UK to exit the EU was just the wacky icing on the bizarre global political cake we're all now eating (bad metaphor apology). As you also probably heard, Trump talked about how wonderful the Brexit stuff was, and how much the people in Scotland must be thrilled, apparently missing the fact that Scotland, somewhat overwhelmingly, voted to stay in the EU. And because this is Scotland, and Scotland is awesome, folks there took to Twitter for a series of increasingly funny insults: There are a bunch more at the Quartz link, but a pretty good one came from @MetalOllie, also known as Hamfisted Bun Vendor, who is English, rather than Scottish, but got into the spirit quite well: As I write this, it has over 6,000 retweets and over 7,000 likes. Not bad. Based on all of this, Jay Lender, a writer/director for SpongeBob SquarePants, Phineas and Ferb... and also his own movie, They're Watching, created an image in the style of Shepard Fairey's famous (and legally disputed) Obama Hope poster. After some discussion Jay and MetalOllie teamed up to put the image on t-shirts at CafePress. I have no idea if anyone was actually buying it, but earlier today Lender announced that CafePress had shut down the page for trademark infringement. Whose trademark? Frito-Lay's, the makers of Cheetos, of course! It's not at all clear if Frito-Lay made this request or if it's just CafePress worrying about future Frito-Lay concerns. Lender asked CafePress for clarification, and all they sent back was a link to Frito Lay's corporate contact page, telling him to contact Frito Lay to ask for authorization, implying that Cafe Press made this decision on its own. But, really, there appears to be a ton of other merchandise hosted at CafePress that mentions Cheetos in some form or another, so if the company is suddenly concerned about trademark threats from Frito-Lay, it seems to be targeting rather selectively. Lender pushed back on CafePress's decision to take down the store, and received some rather ridiculous "suggestions" for replacement terms: If you can't read that, it says:

The use of "Cheeto" infringes on Frito Lays trademark. If would be different if you used "cheese puff" or "cheese-snack"-faced in your design.

You may forward your notice of authorization from Frito Lay, giving you permission to use "Cheeto" or "Cheetos" in connection with the sale of commercial merchandise to us via email....

Yes. Really. Nothing like having CafePress ruining your jokes for you with its bizarre interpretation of trademark law.

As we've discussed many times in the past, CafePress is frequently targeted by bogus takedowns concerning political speech and the company doesn't exactly have the best record in dealing with such takedowns. But this seems just blatantly ridiculous on so many levels.

Either way, to argue that this is trademark infringing is crazy. No one is confusing the t-shirt or the image above as coming from Frito-Lay. I don't care how much of a moron in a hurry you might be, there's no consumer confusion here. For CafePress to declare absolutely that the use of Cheeto as an adjective here (not even as a noun!) is infringing on Frito-Lay's trademark is just... wrong. Second, this is pretty clearly protected political speech -- whether or not you agree with it or even think it's funny. Yes, CafePress has a right as a private company to refuse to host any shirts it dislikes, but at the very least it should come out and say that's why it's shutting down the shirt, rather than hiding behind a bogus "trademark" claim from Frito-Lay.

Filed Under: cheetos, donald trump, political speech, shitgibbon, t-shirts, trademark
Companies: cafepress, frito lay

Nerd Harder: The T-Shirt

from the support-techdirt dept

Limited time offer: Support Techdirt and get a "Nerd Harder." t-shirt!

When the "going dark" encryption debates kicked off, a very, very long list of technology and encryption experts wrote a letter explaining that designing backdoors for encryption was a monumentally bad idea that inevitably would lead to weaker security and more vulnerabilities that made everyone less safe. In response to this, FBI Director James Comey, twisted what the letter said around to claim that the tech industry was claiming that it was too hard to backdoor encryption. But there's a difference between saying "this is hard" and "this is dangerous."

Either way, a bunch of defenders of backdooring encryption started to pick up on this ridiculous framing, leading Julian Sanchez to coin the term "nerd harder!" as a way of describing non-technical policy people insisting that techies can just solve some problem if they put their minds to it. Then, last week, at the Copyright Office's DMCA hearings, I noted a similar kind of thinking, around copyright issues. That time, a lobbyist for legacy content companies insisted that if Silicon Valley was able to build a self-driving car, surely they could build a technology that would stop infringing content, without harming fair use.

It was Nerd Harder all over again.

After commenting on that, a few people suggested that Nerd Harder might make a good t-shirt slogan -- and we agree! So we made one. Nerd Harder may be an absolutely terrible policy idea, but it sure does make a nice looking t-shirt. We're doing this as a bit of an experiment, and we're using Teespring to make it work. Teespring is a t-shirt, crowdfunding setup, and we need to have enough people order the shirts in order to actually get them printed. So if we don't get enough orders, no t-shirts. But this also means that the campaign is for a limited time -- just through May 29th -- so put your order in now!

And, oh yeah, obligatory xkcd:

Filed Under: copyright, encryption, going dark, nerd harder, t-shirts

The Orwellian Story About CafePress Takedowns By Orwell's Estate... Was Really CafePress Screwing Up

from the perhaps-it's-more-kafkaesque-than-orwellian dept

If you were online last week, you probably heard the story about how the George Orwell Estate supposedly had issued a takedown to CafePress for some T-shirts made by a guy named Josh Hadley that merely showed the year "1984" on them. I first saw it when someone pointed me to Hadley's Facebook post about it, in which he's quite reasonably angry. This was the T-shirt image that Hadley said was taken down: Something about this seemed weird, so I reached out to everyone involved -- Hadley, Bill Hamilton (the literary agent who manages the Orwell Estate) and CafePress. While I was talking to all of them, the story exploded with stories in TorrentFreak, Consumerist and a number of other places, all attacking the Orwell Estate for such a (dare we say it?) Orwellian takedown. Clearly the image above is not infringing anything from Orwell's estate. The simple year "1984" is not infringing in any way.

But it didn't stop the takedown from happening... and from people angrily piling on against the estate. It took a while to get the complete story, and Hamilton was bizarrely reticent to share the details of what happened with me, other than to insist he did not send a takedown for that T-shirt, but rather for a mug that he insisted was "obviously infringing." I kept asking for the specific takedown, saying we'd be happy to put up a story showing that he was blameless, but he refused to share it. CafePress was similarly slow to respond -- and eventually would do nothing more than say "no comment." Eventually, we were able to get a copy of Hamilton's original takedown message, which was a bit vague, and just discussed a photograph of Orwell that another account was using, and some extensive quotes that were made to look like "official" licensed merchandise -- such that the takedown was a slightly vague combination trademark/copyright/publicity rights takedown.

Dear Lindsey Moore,
Your Orwell merchandise has been brought to my attention as the literary executor to the Orwell estate, responsible for all licensing and copyright. The Orwell estate does not license merchandise, and the quotes you use and the photograph of Orwell are in breach of copyright. Please remove from sale immediately.

I look forward to hearing by return.

Yours
Bill Hamilton
A M Heath & Co Ltd
6 Warwick Court
London WC1R 5DJ

Yes, the takedown message is a bit vague (Moore, if you're wondering -- whose first name is actually Lindsay, not Lindsey -- is CafePress's intellectual property agent). An official DMCA takedown notice requires the specific identification of what is infringing, and Hamilton's note fails that test. The proper thing for a company to do is to reject the deficient notice, and let the sender know that they need to file a compliant takedown notice. CafePress did not do that, and apparently just started taking down Orwell/1984 products at random. However, it does appear that the target was not Hadley's T-shirts, but rather than actually assessing whether or not anyone's rights were violated CafePress just went on a crazy takedown binge and pulled down what appears to be anything even loosely connected to Orwell/1984. And Hadley's T-shirts got caught in the crossfire.

And then CafePress refused to admit it made a mistake.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we've written about CafePress overreacting and taking down lots of stuff over which there was no legitimate takedown. The whole situation seems rather ridiculous, and even worse is that CafePress sat there and let the Orwell Estate take the heat for its actions. It seems that, once again, if you're looking for a print-on-demand partner, CafePress is not your best choice.

While many have reported on this story as the Orwell Estate being Orwellian, the truth here seems more like CafePress being Kafkaesque.

Filed Under: copyright, george orwell, josh hadley, orwell, privacy rights, publicity rights, t-shirts, takedowns, trademark
Companies: cafepress

NewEgg Selling Anti-Patent Troll T-Shirts

from the nicely-done dept

While lots of companies hate patent trolls, few have gone quite as far as NewEgg to flat out declare very publicly that they will never settle with a patent troll. While this has lead to some lawsuits, the strategy seems to be working for the company, and we wonder why more companies don't do the same. Since many trolls just want companies to settle quickly, having a reputation as a fighter should (hopefully) lead those trolls to stay away.

Either way, it appears that NewEgg has figured that some of its loyal customers might want to get in on the fight as well, and are now offering an anti-patent troll t-shirt which can be purchased on their site, of course. The company says that the proceeds from the sale of the shirt will be used to (you guessed it) help fight against patent trolls:

The proceeds of Newegg's new T-shirt will go to fighting said patent trolls in court. The shirt warns victims not to settle in court -- that's how patent trolls get all of their money.

"We've been proudly kicking patent trolls' asses for eight years -- it's terrible what they're doing to small companies that can't defend themselves," Lee Cheng, Newegg's chief legal officer, told The Huffington Post. "It's the [patent] litigation that's kicking everyone's butt. The only thing we can do is fight the patent itself."

Nicely done. Good to see companies being more and more public about the harm that patents do.

Filed Under: lee cheng, patent trolls, patents, t-shirts
Companies: newegg

TSA Declares Themselves Fashion & Funny Police

from the bombs-zomg dept

While we were just discussing an accusation against the TSA for racial profiling (GASP!), did you know that they were also the official state-sponsored fashion and humor police? I mean, who couldn't see these guys adjudicating your local fashion show?

TSA uniforms: like Michael Jackson, but creepier
Image Source. CC BY-SA 2.0

Reader pixelpusher220 writes in about the tale of how one man's shirt got him booted off of a Delta airplane after passing through TSA security, as recounted by Cory Doctrow.

Back in 2007, I designed a shirt for Woot! that featured a screaming eagle clutching an unlaced shoe and a crushed water bottle, surrounded by the motto MOISTURE BOMBS ZOMG TERRORISTS ZOMG GONNA KILL US ALL ZOMG ZOMG ALERT LEVEL BLOODRED RUN RUN TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES. Among the lucky owners of this garment is Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha, who proudly wore it this week as he headed for a Delta flight from Buffalo-Niagara International Airport to his home in Phoenix.

But it was not to be. First, the TSA Delta agents questioned him closely about the shirt, and made him agree to change it, submit to a secondary screening and board last. He complied with these rules, but then he was pulled aside by multiple Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority cops, more TSA, and a Delta official and searched again.

Apparently the new terror plot is to make you laugh so hard your face explodes

It's worth noting that these shirts were designed by Cory Doctrow and sold as part of a charitable program.

Now, I'll restate it again, Arijit had already gone through the TSA screening when he and his wife were then approached by Delta employees at the gate who informed him that he had committed the crime of making other passengers "uncomfortable". When Arijit informed the Delta employees that he was wearing the shirt specifically to mock the security theater we call an airport these days, he was put through another round of screening at the gate by several TSA and local agents and then told that he would be allowed to board. The Delta pilot, catching wind of this, requested Arijit not be allowed to board, because laughter would not be tolerated on his enormous hunk of flying metal. Oh, and they also refused to allow his wife to board the plane too. No reason was apparently given for this, but I'm guessing there may have been some plaid mixing with pin-stripes in her outfit, and the pilot found it to be lacking in fabulousness.

Or maybe there was another reason. According to Arijit, the officer wanted to interrogate him further, saying that Arijit had given a "stupid answer" and "looked foreign":

“Certainly he wasn’t implying that dark-skinned people are not real Americans and that white people are the only true Americans,” Arijit writes in part of his snark-filled synopsis. “Fortunately, Mark’s request was denied. Apparently, someone at NFTA recognized this bigoted meathead for the bigoted meathead he was and that nationality is simply a concept that exists solely on paper and cannot be discerned from just looking at someone.”

And yet he still wasn't allowed on the plane. Was it because of his t-shirt? Was it because the motherfucking eagle on it caused concern amongst passengers? Or, as has been previously accused, was it because too many TSA agents find brown-skinned people suspicious and alarming?

Filed Under: jokes, privacy, security, t-shirts, tsa
Companies: delta

This T-Shirt Has Been Seized

from the the-eagles-have-landed dept

“Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes.”
– E. F. Schumacher

NON GENERANT AQUILÆ COLUMBAS
– Unknown

For the feds, it’s not enough to simply seize domain names without warning or due process—they want to make sure everyone knows the website operators were breaking the law, even if that has yet to be proven in court. That’s why every domain that gets seized ends up redirecting to one of these dramatic warning pages, replete with the eagle-emblazoned badges of the federal agencies involved. You know the one I mean:

I thought eagles were solitary birds—but apparently they'll flock anywhere the RIAA points. At least that seemed to be the case with the hip-hop blog Dajaz1, which was treated to a year of Promethean pecking while the court waited patiently for the RIAA to fail to produce any evidence.

And that's just one of over 700 websites seized without due process. The first round of seizures, commencing the so-called Operation In Our Sites (which I suggest renaming to Operation Motherfucking Eagles), was announced from Disney headquarters, possibly by a tyrannical Mickey Mouse, but more likely by ICE Director John Morton sporting a dumb grin over the presence of whatever movie stars Disney managed to rustle up for the event. It's Chinatown Hollywood. The only place where eagles and mice get along.

To commemorate the fruits of this alliance, I created the Seized Tee for Techdirt's new Insider Shop. Government regulations prevent us from directly replicating agency badges, but that proved to be a plus, since I think I have drastically improved them in terms of both clarity of purpose and, more importantly, overall eagle-ness, which was clearly a prominent factor in their original design:

Buying the Seized Tee also gets you access to the Techdirt Crystal Ball for one year, two First Word/Last Word credits, and an Insider Badge on your profile and comments. Wear it with pride, and when people ask you about it, be sure to tell them that this kind of government censorship is a real thing that is happening as we speak, and it's a problem that's only going to get worse if it goes unchecked. Eagles do not beget doves.

Filed Under: cwf, eagles, eagles eagles, eagles eagles eagles, forfeiture, ice, more eagles, rtb, seized, seizures, t-shirts

Announcing The New Techdirt Insider Shop

from the rtb dept

A few years ago, in the pre-Kickstarter (but post-artists-crowdfunding) world, we decided that there was no reason why some of the basic experiments for funding that musicians were doing shouldn't apply to blogs as well. So we launched our own "tiered" "CwF+RtB" (Connect with Fans + Reasons to Buy) store entirely as an experiment. By the end of the year, we made over $50,000 with it, which exceeded any modest expectations we might have had. Since then, it's always been on the list of things to do to update the store in a big way, and a few months ago, we finally decided to focus in on it. While it took longer than we expected, we're proud to launch the new version:

The Techdirt Insider Shop

It has many of the same offerings that the original had, but a bunch of new and expanded offerings as well. It's designed more as a store than a "tiered" setup, so shop around a bit. We'll have a few more posts highlighting some key features and merchandise, but for those of you already familiar with the Techdirt Crystal Ball -- which allows you to get early access to some stories and preview the headlines of others -- that's still around, but it's now been expanded, so you get to see some stories up to two hours early, rather than just one. And, if you sign up for a premium package, you can even get the brand new Crystal Ball Plus, which gives you pretty detailed access to all sorts of posts we're working on, including false-start stories that never make it onto the site, and some works that are very much in progress. If you're already a Techdirt Crystal Ball subscriber, your account has been upgraded to the new version, meaning you get to see more stories earlier, and you get some other features.

We also have some brand new features on the site for Insiders, including the new First Word/Last Word offering, which I'll have another post discussing in more detail a little later today. There's also the brand new Insider Chat which all of you should be able to see to your right. Certain Insider membership packages allow you to join in the chat. Without one of those... you can still view the chat, but you can't participate. Also, for those who sign up for longer term packages, we have a number of offerings, including special Insider Hangouts (using Google+'s Hangouts feature), which should be a lot of fun. Check out the store for a detailed explanation of all the new blog features that are available.

You want more gear? We've got more gear, including new t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, bottles and other assorted paraphernalia. We've got a brand new Seized t-shirt in honor of various domain seizures (more on that later!) and an updated DMCA takedown t-shirt. The original was our most popular seller, so don't miss out on the new, revamped version. We've also got a very special, limited edition Techdirt staff bundle -- of which only five are available to buy. These are special staff-only hoodies and an assortment of other goodies. If you don't want to splurge to that level (or if they all sell out before you get a chance) we've got some other hoodies to choose from.

Downloads? We've got downloads. You can "pay what you want" for the ebook version of my book Approaching Infinity (built off a collection of Techdirt posts) or our famed Sky is Rising report. Name your price and help support more such works in the future! Hell, if you don't want anything specific in return, you can also just donate some money.

There's plenty more as well, including getting lunch with me -- which we offered only as a one week special last time, but it was quite popular (and a lot of fun) -- as well as the indisputably Awesome Day with Techdirt (which a few folks did last time around, and it really was quite awesome). There are also various business services that tie back into how we normally make a living.

And, last and most certainly least, we still have options for those of you who hate Techdirt. Last time around, we offered to take a year off for merely $100-million, and surprisingly none of you took us up on it. We did have some requests for pro-rated offerings, so we'll now shut down for 24 hours for just $1 million (pocket change!). As for the big one? Well, we always hear the haters insist that price is equal to value, and no one appeared to value that $100-million offering enough... so the price is going up. You can shut us up for an entire year for the new, more luxurious price of $100,000,001. Hurry up. We may raise the prices again before you know it.

Either way, the store platform we've put together is a lot more robust, and we're hopeful that we can do a bunch of other things with it over the next few months and years, so shop away...

Please note that while we've been testing the new store & features extensively, when things go live, problems always pop up. If you spot any errors or bugs, please let us know and we'll get to them as quickly as possible...

Filed Under: crystal ball, cwf+rtb, gear, insider, shop, store, t-shirts, techdirt

Not Wise: French T-Shirt Company Tries To Trademark Anonymous Logo

from the this-will-not-end-well dept

Via Asher Wolf, we learn that a French company by the name of Early Flicker, who appears to focus on making and selling pop-culture referencing t-shirts, has applied for a trademark on Anonymous' logo and slogan (pdf and embedded below).

This does not seem wise.

If you look around, there are others selling Anonymous apparel, but trying to trademark the logo, and limit its use by others isn't just playing with fire, it's directly taunting a large group of people with weapons that shoot fire... and who have little hesitation in using them.

Filed Under: anonymous, france, logo, t-shirts, trademark
Companies: early flicker