Last year I helped organize a panel for the AIPLA national meeting on the intersection between IP rights and free speech. One of the speakers was Paul Levy of Public Citizen, who at the time was representing a designer and a purveyor of T-shirts and coffee mugs in a suit filed against some rather humorless goons at the NSA. The NSA had sent a cease-and-desist letter and was threatening the merchants with criminal prosecution for selling wares emblazoned with the logos below:
Eventually cooler heads prevailed, i.e., the NSA folded when it realized that it was going to have its rear handed to it on a platter if the case proceeded.
I was reminded of this when Patently-o reported earlier this week about another group of humorless people, namely Hillary Clinton and her lawyers, who tried to stop the same merchants from selling t-shirts that modified her campaign logo to make a point:
This time, the bozos are asserting trademark and copyright infringement, and have told the online sellers to remove the goods in question. Mr. Levy has told them in lawyerspeak to back off; they have until tomorrow to rescind their takedown demand or he's going to haul them into court, where he will trounce them if the case is ever heard on the merits. You'd think a lady with a law degree from Yale would know better. Particular a lady who aspires to take an oath of office in which she'll swear to uphold the Constitition of the United States, the First Amendment of which protects this kind of speech.
I pointed out the Hillary debacle to some friends who I thought would appreciate it, and one of them was kind enough to send me this link to a T-shirt that as an IP practitioner I find very funny:
As Homer Simpson might say, "It works on so many levels."
UPDATE: Hillary (or her sycophants) remembered what the First Amendment is about and backed down before the expiration of the June 12 deadline. No suit filed, T-shirts again available at CafePress and Zazzle.