Louis Vuitton Sues Darfur Fundraiser; Seems Unclear On The Concept Of Trademark
from the such-fashionable-bullies dept
An artist named Nadia Plesner recently put together a project to try to raise money for the victims of genocide in Darfur. As part of the campaign, she created a t-shirt with a drawn image of a Darfur victim "pimped" out to look like Paris Hilton -- that is, carrying a designer handbag and a small dressed up dog. The entire profits from the t-shirts are going to help the victims. The handbag drawn in the image is not specifically a Louis Vuitton bag, but the design firm seems to have gone ballistic, claiming all sorts of intellectual property rights it simply does not possess. First, it sent a (admittedly friendly) cease-and-desist, which Plesner wrote about on the site, while responding and telling the company that she would not take down the t-shirt or the image. In response, LV went from friendly to nasty. It sued, demanding $7,500 for each day she keeps selling the product, $7,500 for each day she displays its original cease-and-desist letter and (my favorite) $7,500 for each day she mentions the name "Louis Vuitton" on her website.
While, there may be some difference due to the specifics of trademark law in Europe, it's hard to see how this is not overreaching. This is an entirely non-commercial venture. All of the profits are given to charity. The design has some differences from the Louis Vuitton bag, and hardly seems likely to specifically damage the Louis Vuitton brand (the lawsuit will take care of that). The t-shirts are clearly not competing with Louis Vuitton and there's little reason to have anyone think that Louis Vuitton somehow "endorsed" this effort. Furthermore, posting the cease-and-desist or even mentioning the name Louis Vuitton simply should not be infringing activities. I don't know if Europe has the equivalent of the "moron in a hurry" trademark test, but LV gets the "moron in a hurry" award for the week.
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by Reality Check on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 6:27pm
Sad thing is that she will probably cave due to the pressure from LV, even though those bags are nothing more than overpriced POS.
I would love to see this go to court and for LV to lose.
Uh, I better watch myself or LV will sue me too...
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Holy Terms of Use! by Monkeyboy on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 6:54pm
these people are nuts! check out the terms of use for their website: http://louisvuitton.com/web/flash/index.jsp;jsessionid=I1J50DP1ED5IYCRBXUXFAHYKEG4RAUPU?buy=1&la ngue=en_US
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by Anonymous Coward on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 7:05pm
I don't blame LV as an owner of trademarked and copyrighted web material and trademarked automotive parts i would not want my materials associated in such a manner with a tragedy like that in darfur. Everyone is just so wrapped up in the fact that everyone is suing everyone for everything that no one stops to like about the reason that LV may be doing this. She is associating LV's products with a tragedy in a manner that makes them look bad. I sadly have to side with LV on this one.
I think people should think more about the underlying reasons for lawsuits before that bash a company for trying to protect themselves. In trying to show the fact the Paris Hilton gets more media coverage than. The conflict in darfur she is making a company that has no control over Paris Hilton's actions or control over what TV stations and news mediums cover.
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by Jake on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 8:19pm
Re the third comment, when you put it like that I say LV ought to offer Ms Plessner one of their actual bags for the t-shirts in order to explicitly and publicly disown the shallow, self-centred culture whose inane antics draw attention away from the important issues in the world. They wouldn't be slighting anyone smart enough to realise they'd been slighted, it's good PR, and most importantly it's ethical.
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by Anonymous Poster on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 9:02pm
Louis Vutton = jackasses.
Way to make yourselves look like idiots.
Also, in before Techdirt gets sued for defamation, trademark infringement, and any other frivolous charge the lawyers who are (apparently) running the Louis Vutton company can think of.
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Bad PR move just bad PR move by anne on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 9:41pm
Hey LV, why don't you donate one of your overpriced genuine bags so this woman can auction it off to raise money for the starving people in Darfur?
In my opinion, there isn't much of a correlation between consumer excess in the West and the wretched conditions of those poor souls who are suffering in Darfur, but in this case, LV should engage in a little bit of good PR and end this lawsuit.
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Rofl, this is funny... by Rose M. Welch on Apr 25th, 2008 @ 11:24pm
...because if they hadn't done this, it probably never would have gotten any press. Those LV bags look just like two dozen other designer handbags. The one on the Ts could have been any of them. Some people might have associated the big bag with LV before, but we all will now.
Way to go, morons!
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Re: by DanC on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 1:08am
She is associating LV's products with a tragedy in a manner that makes them look bad. I sadly have to side with LV on this one.
Except that the bag, as noted, is "in the style of" a Louis Vuitton handbag rather than a direct copy of a design. Unfortunately, what would be covered by fair use in the U.S. is not so clear cut in Europe. The image is obviously being used satirically, which is typically covered by fair use in the U.S.
people should think more about the underlying reasons for lawsuits before that bash a company for trying to protect themselves
A company that demands payment for the posting of a cease & desist letter or for mentioning their name on a website deserves to be ridiculed. If Louis Vuitton doesn't want the negative publicity from suing a fundraiser, then they should not have filed the lawsuit.
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by Rekrul on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 1:18am
Do you make ridiculously overpriced status symbols? If not, then I doubt your materials would be used in this manner.
And you're not stopping to think about the reason she drew a bag that resembles something from LV. It's not meant to represent Paris Hiltom directly, it's meant to represent people like her who have money to waste on over-priced crap like LV. Honestly, does anyone really say "Wow, that bag is so well made and versatile" or "Gee, that bag is a work of art"? No, they say "Is that a LV bag or a knockoff?"
If it didn't have a designer name on it, celebrities wouldn't be caught dead with such a garish eye-sore.
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by Smitty Werbenjaegermanjenson on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 3:56am
I wouldn't know what an LV bag looked like even if someone came up to me and said "hey, I have an LV bag!"
Even then, I would shrug my shoulders, and say "so what?"
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Re: by Anonymous Coward on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 4:27am
So true, but then I bet if I came up to you and said "hey, I just bought an Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX9770 "LGA775 Yorkfield" 3.20GHz" you'd wet yourself ;-p
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Re: Holy Terms of Use! by Eric the Grey on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 5:15am
Thanks. By viewing their web site, I've copied and stored parts of it into my browser cache. Now they're going to sue me. :0
EtG
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by Jesse on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 8:43am
Dear person above me,
LV associated their name with this cause. LV is making this into a big case. If that was really the motivation, they are being dumb because making a legal case is only going to make it worse.
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Re: 3. Anonymous Coward by anon on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 9:06am
But she didn't do anything illegal. Even if she did use the handbags image, she's not profiting from it, and even if she were, it's creative expression. Is it copyright infringement to make a painting of a can of soup, too?
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LV dish by Original Nancy on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 9:38am
LV=Lotsa vinyl LV has just managed to keep its plastic self in the moron's of the world book
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by Peter on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 11:29am
I would be interested to find out if and by how much the sales of the t-shirts increased because of this foolishness by Louis Vuitton. What is the the name of the effect from this sort of action, I know I have read it here in techdirt before but it slips my mind now, darn old age creeping up on me.
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Sue Happy by barrenwaste on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 12:03pm
I don't know who Louis Vuitton's legal and pr heads are, but they obviously suck at thier jobs. First, there was no infringement. Second, you can't sue a person for disclosing legal information about themselves. And, third, you cannot sue a person for mentioning your company name unless that person is claiming to market your products. It is quite evident that Louis Vuitton has stepped on it's own equipment with this one, and my hope is that if it is taken to court that the court assigns severe penalties to them for it's frivolous attitude and attempt to bully a charity aimed at helping starving people.
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Re: Sue Happy by Anonymous Coward on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 1:23pm
I don't know who Louis Vuitton's legal and pr heads are, but they obviously suck at thier jobs.
They are french, which should explain some things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH
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All I can say to this is by Anonymous Coward on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 2:40pm
Louis Vuitton is an asshole.
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by Justin on Apr 26th, 2008 @ 3:49pm
Streisand effect represent!
BOOOOOOOOOOOYEEEEEEEEEE
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Hope Louie Vitin (non-froggy version) is reading by JustMe on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 6:50am
1) Nice one, good job, just added LV to list of things which aren't permitted in my household.
2) You Don't Own The Trademark On Handbags You Freaks!
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by Jeremy on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 8:36am
I was going to be purchasing a $1500 LV bag for my bf. (Don't ask me why he wanted it, but he did none the less). He has now decided that instead he will be getting a different brand.
Corporations cannot control using their logo (even though she wasn't using their logo) as long as they are not competing with them. Which she clearly is not. Furthermore her use is for a good cause and I hate when companies act like the entire world is like the set of leave it to beaver. I agree with another poster on this forum. Why don't they just embrace it and make a donation to the cause. They would look like such better people, and I would actually make my purchase of the bag for my bf.
But they are idiots. Maybe we will check out Gucci or Prada!
Go to hell Louis!
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Re: by Anonymous Coward on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 10:44am
I think your BF wanted a $1500 handbag because... er. I'm sorry Jeremy, I'm real lost. How did I get here. I am going to bang my head against the wall now.
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by Jim W on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 11:54am
My ex-wife spent all our money shortly after our divorce on a Louis Vuitton colostomy bag. (I think that's right) She said it helped to ease the 'trauma of it all'. Overpriced status symbols. That's all it is.
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Re: Re: Sue Happy by frenchman on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 8:37pm
I fart in your general direction!
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Re: Re: by Different Anonymous Coward on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 8:38pm
*wets himself*
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Re: Re: by Anonymous Coward on Apr 27th, 2008 @ 9:50pm
Not really, because I've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The Millionare Nextdoor.
The main concept I'm trying to focus on is this-- If you buy one nice thing, then you need to buy a bunch of nice things to complement it. In your example, it's quite possible to drop $4k more into that machine, and upgrade everything. Then, lo-and-behold, it would depreciate to $500 within 2 years.
This same idea works with trendy purses that are no longer trendy in one year. They depreciate just like a lead balloon!
But as far as LV is concerned, they seem to be digging their own grave by suing a nonprofit fundraiser. It's not difficult to imagine that the brand will be segregated within the fashon industry, and in consumer mindset itself.
Hopefully they wake up and drop the silly suit.
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I could be wrong... by Lisa Westveld on Apr 28th, 2008 @ 4:47am
I could be wrong but Louis Vuittin bags have a monogram on their bags with the letters "LV". Nadia Plesner created something similar with a monogram of the letters "LS". Also, the texture of Nadia's bag does look a bit like the louis bag but such a thing is common for designer bags, isn't it?
Of course, the "LS" actually stands for "Simple Living" and I don't think it's even possible to copyright a monogram. (Lots of prior art anyways...) But the original letter mentions this monogram as a trademark violation.
Then again, maybe LV is actually trying to help this girl by using the Streisand Effect! Maybe they're so stupid on purpose because I can't imagine any qualified Lawyet to be this dumb, even if they're french...
Fact is, this publicity makes their name better-known again, even though it's bad publicity. People tend to remember the name only, anyways. But people will now also start supporting this woman a lot more, with a lot of extra publicity for her case. So, they might have blemished their own reputation a bit, this is helping thos good cause quite a lot. :-)
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Re: Holy Terms of Use! by Spike on Apr 28th, 2008 @ 9:55am
Those TOS are crazy! And it can't be blamed on being French - Hermes, more or less a competitor, is also French and says nothing remotely like the LV site. They're even friendly!
Makes me glad about all those "LV bags" I picked up in Saigon a few years ago for gifts. Think I paid about $6 each.
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Re: Re: by jerjer on Apr 29th, 2008 @ 4:21am
there is much misconception about copyright and trademark laws.
one, the American Copyright Act is infinitely harsher than the corresponding French laws.
two, fair use which is by nature loosely defined has never been a very effective line of defense in court. what you refer to as satire which is typically covered by fair use in the U.S. is rather seen by this legal system as a derivative work from copyrighted material which is an offense.
three, damage is constituted whether the work is used for profit or not. unauthorized use of copyrighted works for teaching, charity, whatever, still constitutes an infringement. whether the sales of the t-shirts directly hurt the business of LV is completely immaterial to the case.
So as much as I hate to see an artist who fights for a good cause to be locked in a nasty lawsuit I can't condemn LV who have the duty to protect their image. she really should have altered her design rather than picking that one fight.
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by Namdnal Siroj on May 1st, 2008 @ 12:07pm
I understand why LV would react to this: her image ties their brand to a very negative message. Basically she's suggesting that every time someone buys a LV bag, a baby dies. She places LV in the enemy's camp.
I understand of course the juxtaposition of wealth vs. want, but this type of imagery is not original, very arbitrary and not even specific to her cause.
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by Ole Juul on May 1st, 2008 @ 6:38pm
It is egotistical of LV to think that this Darfur campaign has anything to do with them. The artistic message of the shirts is clear, but perhaps LV's "Intelectual" (ahem) Property Management is poorely educated on these matters.
@Namdnal Siroj: I would agree with you but actually, it is a very positive message and is not tied to LV any more than it is tied to dog breeders.
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by Carlos on May 5th, 2008 @ 2:58pm
I just sent an email to these buffons. That was my first reaction, to tell these poeple off personally somehow. They have an excellent comment/email page so make use of it.
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That would be something... by Anarchy of Sweden on May 6th, 2008 @ 6:00pm
You should get a bag saying "I'm not a Louis Vuiton bag"... That would be something.
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