Today Kim Kardashian sued Old Navy for using someone in their ads who looks like Kim Kardashian.
I don't really care about this case in particular, but it is symptomatic of the larger problem of trademark law gone too far. Cases like this are the intellectual property equivalent of Somali pirates boarding ships demanding ransoms. They are the sort of thing that beg for genuine tort overhaul, but that is a fatwa for another day.
For today, let's concentrate on this: Trademark controls have to be trimmed back, pruned back or just plain cut to the bone so the holders of trademarks will no longer find it in their interests to run around the intellectual property neighborhood demanding protection money. If someone in a film is holding a can of Coca-Cola, they shouldn't have to ask for permission from Coke to use that image. If the corporation didn't want its logo to be seen publicly wihout their permission why did they put it on the side of a common item available for sale. It's not like it's a secret that it's a can of Coke. Blurring the image isn't going to make me think it's not a can of Coke. Taping it up on the side or putting a fake label on it (Cake Cola anyone?) is sometimes funny until you realize that the reason for the subterfuge is that a corporate owner is holding the world hostage. This trademark enforcement piracy has also been extended to documentaries and at this rate we will eventually find ourselves being sued for making home movies without blurring out advertisements and logos we recorded without permission.
This is a racket, nothing more, nothing less. Our aspirational culture keeps it going because all of us dream of the day we can sue someone for looking like us in the hope that the poor schmucks will be willing to settle to get us off their backs. That is the same as boarding an oil tanker in the Red Sea in the hope of getting a payout for not scuttling their ship.
Isn't there a need for some trademark protection? Sure. Nobody should have the right to sell a can of dog poop with the logo for Coca-Cola without the express permission of the Coca-Cola corporation. Nobody should be able to massacre the inhabitants of a small town and leave a Pizza Hut flag flying to implicate Pizza Hut in the killings. But if some poor schlemiel in Toledo wants to open up a place called Pizza Hat, then Pizza Hut should have to suck it up and take it like a man. (After all, if corporations claim to be just like individual people for the sake of arguments, then they should man-up and stop suing people like rat pansies.)
And if you want to sell a delicious soft drink in a red can called Caca Ole, then you should have that right. And nobody should have the legal right to demand protection money from you for coming close to their trademark.
For those of you about to quibble about the law.
I don't care what the law currently says or how it has been interpreted to this date.
They are wrong. This fatwa is a declaration of just how wrong those interpretations have been and an exhortation to those who have it in their power to make a difference that trademark law must be changed or reinterpreted in line with this fatwa. No more trademark enforcers running around threatening to break the legs of free speech (insert less ridiculous analogy here).
Viva Pizza Hat and Caca Ole and Tennessee Fried Chicken and Boing Rubber Aircraft and Ex-On Oil.
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