Watch Out Mommar, Mickey Mouse may be gunning for you

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/25/navy-seals-fights-mickey-mouse-trademark/


"On May 3, just two days after Usama bin Laden was killed in a raid on the Al Qaeda leader’s Pakistan compound, Disney filed trademark applications to use the name "SEAL Team 6" on everything from entertainment, toys, video games, clothing, footwear -- even Christmas ornaments and snow globes."

This just shows how screwed up out IP laws are. The idea that there is enough of a chance of this succeeding that Disney even bothered to file for the trademark is ridiculous. It is absolutely and abundantly clear that Disney will be attempting to leverage the already existing reputation of the actual Seal Teams to sell these products without the actual members of the seal teams or the US Navy who sponsors them getting any credit or profit.

The proper response at the patent and trade mark office to this should be a hearty laugh followed immediately by a denial, however under current law that so favors large corporations they have a very real chance of winning their claim and getting the trademark which would mean that the Navy couldn't even use the name in their recruiting ads without paying tribute to Disney.

Comments

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

What's kind of stunning about this, aside from the moral injustice of this being yet another law that grants corporations more legal protections than actual human beings, is that the corporations who are the most gung-ho about securing copyrights and trademarks on everything, as well as preserving them into eternity, seem not to get that, in a post-Internet era, trying to protect their brands forever, literally, is essentially The New Prohibition, in that it's objectively unenforceable and everyone hates it except for the very small cadre of folks whose interests it serves.

The only moral or economic justification for such laws is if they reward people for CREATING things, by ensuring that those creations can't just be ripped off by anyone and everyone else, to the point that there's no incentive left to create, but if and when Disney can acquire trademark on a branch of the United States military, without those service members seeing dime one of the profits hat will be made? Then, much like Jack Kirby and Bill Finger getting screwed out of their proper rewards, that instead PUNISHES those individuals for doing THE ACTUAL WORK, while rewarding corporations who should, by all rights, be held in contempt as being even worse than the "parasites" that Ayn Rand railed against in her shitty fanfic. Then again, Disney made most of its classic movies by waiting for other people's stories to pass into the public domain, so I shouldn't be surprised.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Then again, Disney made most of its classic movies by waiting for other people's stories to pass into the public domain, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Yeah that's the thing that really kills me about Disney of all companies pushing these horrible IP and trademark laws. If there is one freaking corporation out there that has made a fortune off of other people's creative work, it's the freaking Mouse House.