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White House Threatens Blog For Accurately Using White House Logo
from the feeling-safer? dept
Last year, we wrote about the FBI threatening Wikipedia for having the FBI logo on its site. Wikipedia, thanks to its General Counsel Mike Godwin (of Godwin's Law fame), responded with a wonderful snarky reply. While the FBI backed down, it does not appear that the administration got the message that there are situations in which a website might post federal logos and not break the law. The latest involves the White House, who apparently got upset that blogger Keith Cowing (of SpaceRef.com -- a blog about science/space policy) included the White House logo in his post about a meeting of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In response, the White House actually called Cowing and demanded he take down the logo. In case you're wondering, this is the logo:
Now, this is a perfectly reasonable use of the logo. We're discussing it, and it's relevant to the news story. It was also relevant to Cowing's post. The issue that the White House has is with 18 U.S.C. sec. 701, which is designed to prevent someone from falsely passing themselves off as working for the government by misusing such a badge. Posting the badge on a website where it makes sense clearly does not qualify. No one was reading that blog post thinking he represented the White House. The White House also mentioned the "proximity to advertising," suggesting they were afraid that it would be seen as being associated with the White House. However, as the EFF notes in the link above, that's a pretty ridiculous interpretation:
Cowing's use isn't deceptive either. The seal is plainly used in conjunction with the news article and the advertisement is no closer on this blog than ads are on news websites and in most newspapers and magazines for that matter. In fact, the seal of the Executive Office of the President of the United States is used extensively all over the internet, sometimes even in promixity to advertising. Threatening phone calls from the White House only serve to chill free speech. Indeed, Cowing has replaced the image of the seal with a pixelated version and the words “OSTP Logo Pixelated Due to a Phone Call Complaint from the White House.”Finally, we agree with the EFF in noting: "surely the White House has better things to do than to threaten bloggers engaged in legitimate free speech."
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Reader Comments (rss)
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There are many more important things the White House could be doing...
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I dunno, I think peddling garbage is pretty much their modus operandi these days.
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Agreed, but...
I agree, however that would require them to actually put in effort because those other things are much harder to get done.
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Its almost as if they don't know that they have been preaching about protecting IP but not understanding what IP really is, how it is used, and what its legitimate uses are. You know, things like usage in legitimate free speech, derivative works, parody, etc, etc.
I would move that the definitions have been colored by lobbyists for so long that the politicians no longer even have a grasp of what the truth is.
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Keep us posted...
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Re:
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Usage question.
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Employed
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Makes sense
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legal advice needed:
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Ah. My taxes put to good use.
Lawyers? As in plural?
Question 1: More than one so-called legal expert made this mistake?
Question 2: At least three white house employees (Weiss and his lawyer buddies) wasted their taxpayer-funded time chasing down the use of a government logo in some guy's blog entry? It's a good thing there aren't any bigger problems they should be spending time on (e.g. fixing poverty, corruption, war, etc.).
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Re: Re:
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Dammit this administration was bought and paid for by Pepsi, not Coke. Call the lawyers.
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No. These morons can't ever seem to catch real criminals so they have to do something to look useful.
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Re: Ah. My taxes put to good use.
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Articles
overcome their reading problems, but they still could not spell well.
I have to admit that I am a culprit of a few of these.
It's funny that I didn't realize until now that I was making a mistake!
Thanks for the post. Here's to a better-spelled 2012.
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