A few folks sent in the story from the NY Daily News saying that the Los Angeles Dodgers had filed a lawsuit against the owners of Brooklyn Burger, for using a version of the old stylized "Brooklyn" logo as part of its own logo: Of course, (not surprisingly) it appears that the NY Daily News account is not accurate. Apparently it's actually Major League Baseball who put in the claim "on behalf of the Dodgers." It's also not quite a lawsuit, but just an opposition to the trademark filed by the burger place. MLB's reasoning is the standard cop out from companies asserting trademark claims in questionable situations, as they say "oh we have to do this."

"As MLB, we are obligated by law to protect our trademarks or we are at risk of losing them."

Of course, this ignores the bigger point, which is that the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1957 and haven't used the logo since then. On top of that, it's not at all clear that the Dodger's original trademarked logo would cover food at all. And, of course, it's not as if anyone (moron in a hurry or not) would rush by the Brooklyn Burger restaurant and think "gee, the Dodgers have opened a restaurant!" The whole thing feels like yet another (in a long line of) intellectual property overreaches by Major League Baseball.

And here's yet another story of important content that could be put to use, unfortunately being totally locked up thanks to copyright. A few readers sent in the story of the Brooklyn Historical Society refusing to let someone putting together a book of photographs of the Canarsie section of Brooklyn use some old, historically relevant, photographs, because of fears over copyright. The photos in question were from well over 100 years ago, and no one has any idea who owns the copyright -- but rather than risk getting sued for infringement, the Historical Society has said no to using the photos in the book. This is the sort of situation that could be solved with orphan works legislation, but there's a vocal contingent of photographers who loudly are attempting to block that legislation, often falsely stating what the orphan works bill would actually allow, claiming that companies will "steal" their photos. So, instead, we sit around, unable to see important historic photos. I'm sure that's what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.