Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:57:16 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110815/10555015531/canadian-political-party-threatens-widow-using-its-logo-ad-criticizing-canadian-government.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110815/10555015531/canadian-political-party-threatens-widow-using-its-logo-ad-criticizing-canadian-government.shtml threatening to sue her for trademark infringement. The Globe & Mail story linked here doesn't do anything useful like show the actual banner, so we've hunted it down, and you can see it below: That's the party's logo on the right, of course. You can see why the party might be upset, but damn, was it ever a braindead move to threaten a poor old widow for trademark infringement over something like this. As even the woman notes, she doesn't have much money. Threatening and/or suing her doesn't do a damn thing... other than give her campaign a ton of free attention.

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]]> how-do-you-spell-streisand-in-canadian http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110815/10555015531 Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:20:00 PDT Dennis Yang http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100418/2325419057.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100418/2325419057.shtml Nicolas Sarkozy -- and recently in the UK with the Labour party -- who put forth the Digital Economy Bill -- apparently infringing on copyrights in a campaign poster. Of course, to push the DEB through, Labour did a deal with the Tories -- so is it really any surprise, as reader Rabbit80 submitted, that apparently the Tories used a Keane song without permission during their manifesto launch.

It would be great if we could just take this as a "teaching moment" to remind these politicians just how easy it is to infringe upon copyright laws. But considering how quickly the Digital Economy Bill was shoved through Parliament recently with the help of the Tories, perhaps it's time to turn off the Tories' internet connection. Or maybe they can hope that their ISP is one of the ones that refuse to comply with the law.

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]]> do-as-I-say,-not-as-I-do http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100418/2325419057