Thursday, February 02, 2006

"You will pay us to see!"

"The Act contains certain anti-speech aspects which will directly affect illustrators, photographers and others.

It will serve to eliminate the current protection for non-commercial speech currently contained in the Lanham Act. It will prevent businesses (artists)and consumers from invoking famous trademarks to explain or illustrate their discussion of public issues.

For example, using the phrase "Where's the Beef" could be actionable. Although you might use it in a non-commercial way, the (very) famous Wendy's slogan when used to comment might not be protected by the fair use exception.

The Act would give companies considerable leverage in preventing artists and photographers from employing their marks in images by claiming the mark is being "diluted". The bigger the company, the more famous the trademark, the easier it will be to prevent you guys from using it. National companies with highly recognizable marks would have more leverage than any single creator or small business and would easily outspend any of you to prevent your using their mark. Exceptions for fair use, non-commercial use, reportage, commentary, etc. currently existing could disappear and would be no defense to claims of infringement of a registered or unregistered mark."
More here...

2 comments:

Pete said...

I myself am not particularly worried about the erosion of fair use, simply because, even though trans-national corporations (TNCs) are rich, they aren't in business to bully everyone with law suits. That's not to say they won't pick on people to try to "make an example of them". But having law suits and legislation to the point at which the open discussion of ideas and issues was stymied... too costly, not bottom-line friendly.

Pete said...

Then again...