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Colleges Cracking Down On High Schools Using Their Logos
from the logo-wars dept
We recently had a story of a high school caught with a logo copied from the Dodge Ram logo. Apparently, this idea of high schools copying their logos is hardly an isolated instance. For decades, it's been commonplace for high schools to just copy the logos of various colleges (or, at least use them for very close "inspiration"), but lately colleges have started cracking down on this practice, threatening high schools, or even demanding payment. This is really the latest result of a trend we've noted in the past, where universities and colleges have taken trademarks to a new level after some court rulings suggested exclusive rights in college logos existed. Of course, it seems a bit silly. It's not as if anyone's going to buy a high school t-shirt instead of the college shirt, but it seems like these universities and colleges want to be aggressive with their trademark efforts. At least some appear to have very reasonable licensing programs. Apparently KSU lets anyone use their logo for $1 every two years -- but does put some restrictions on it, such as not letting you sell t-shirts with the inspired logo unless they use a KSU-connected vendor, who gives a percentage to the university.
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Mikkel Paulson
Pirate Party of Canada
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Re:
That said, I don't think there's much overlap between people buying high school and college gear. I would end all donations to my college if I found out they were suing a high school for trademark infringement.
Since you can get a licensed college logo on extremely cheap merchandise, I can't accept that the logo provides any consumer protection. And due to that, it doesn't seem like a very strong trademark issue to me.
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KSU Logo
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But...
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Re: But...
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I remember hanging around the local gas station / garage and watching the mechanics fix the cars and it was so cool being in the garage with all the tools and the older guys would teach me stuff about garages and cars. My son can't do that because the insurance company says no one allowed. Why? None of us ever got hurt there.
I remember when we all sang 'Happy Birthday' in public. I remember when there was music in the malls. I remember when you could walk into a club and hear covers.
Now it's all about ownership.
Go to a restaurant for a birthday and you don't even recognize what they sang. How can my party sing along? Now we don't go to restaurants to celebrate any birthdays. We now hide out in our homes and only invite relatives that we can trust.
Then we sing a pirated copy of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"
AND WE BECAME CRIMINALS.
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What?
Do you really think they are strictly concerned with the sale of t-shirts? Wouldn't you expect they'd be more concerned about the image the high school being conveyed, which might impact the decision of future applicants at the College, as oppose to the sale of a few $20 shirts? No? Okay.
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Logo Stealing
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And what's behind this sudden discovery? The Times cites the greatly increased visibility of high school logos due to the Internet. But while they mention, and include quotes from people at, various organizations like "Collegiate Licensing Company, which represents about 160 colleges and universities" and "International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association" and "Licensing Resource Group" and "Licensing Resource Group", they somehow fail to note how *the very existence of organizations that make their money from creating disputes over the use of logos* just, possibly, might play a role in ... the growing number of such disputes.
Old saying: "When there's one lawyer in town, he starves; when there are two, they both get rich."
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