( Everything Under the Cut... )

Photoshopped Fillipa Hamilton, Olive Oyl, and a more "robust" and real Hamilton.
Actually, poor Olive would need to lose weight for the runway these days.

 

Great Video Coverage of this by Rachel Maddow
"She sort of looks like she was shrinky-dinked, doesn't she?
Look at the ratio of her torso to her head.
That is not a ratio that exists in nature, at least outside the insect world....
It looks like whoever was in charge...was inspired by a combination of Barbie and those
giant-headed Bratz dolls. Actually those dolls
look more normal and more human than the model."

It's obvious by now that Ralph Lauren *hates* being mocked. They hate being mocked so much that they ordered their attack lawyers to send letters trying to fool ISPs into pulling an "infringing" advertisement featuring a ridiculously skinny model (in fact, our posting of the image was fair use, not infringement; Ralph Lauren's takedown notices are bogus and they should know better).

It's also obvious that the photo of Filippa Hamilton used in the Ralph Lauren advertisement was digitally manipulated. But we still have three questions: 1) who, exactly, gave Ms. Hamilton the Olive Oyl physique? 2) If the photo was manipulated after it appeared in the advertisement, why didn't Ralph Lauren's law firm make mention of that in their silly DMCA takedown notice? and 3) Where's the original advertisement?

The tradition of accepting amicus briefs comes from a larger concept, the amicus curiae, or “friend of the court.” A friend of the court may be interested in a case for various reasons, although he or she is not directly involved. For example, a court might be preparing to try a case related to online file sharing, an issue of great concern to many people. An amicus brief might be filed to discuss the larger ramifications of potential case outcomes, since these ramifications might not be brought up by the prosecution or defense during the course of a trial.

( Read an Excerpt ).

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My friend   bohemianspirit   showed me a developing story over on the Zenhabits blog.
 
It seems that the blogger, Leo Babauta, had used the phrase "Feel the fear but do it anyway" as the title of a post, and was then served with a Cease and Desist email from the attorneys of a writer who has that phrase trademarked as the title of a book. Unbelievable. He had never heard of her book, nor was he quoting her, but she wanted him to put a trademark symbol beside the words and a disclaimer that she was granting him "permission" under the title.
 
Zenhabits: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway or The Privatizaion of the English Language

bohemianspirit and I left comments over there. There are alot of comments, pro and con, but mostly in favor of the blogger.


UPDATE: Lots and Lots of bloggers are picking up this story. Techdirt even gave me credit for sending them the story - wow! I didn't expect that.

Techdirt: Using Trademark To 'Privatize The English Language' from the did-you-(R)-that? dept

Jeanne sent in news of yet another overly aggressive trademark claim, this time on a blogger who just so happened to use the phrase "feel the fear and do it anyway" in a blog post.

. . . trademark law is only supposed to apply to use in commerce, and it seems like a stretch to claim the blog post is use in commerce (though, since the blog has ads, the lawyers might disagree). However, the fact that the use of the phrase seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the book again raises questions about how this could possibly be considered confusing or dilutive of the mark. Either way, Barbauta makes a point we've been trying to make here for a long, long time...

Andrew writes: ...Susan Jeffers holds a federal trademark registration for “FEEL THE FEAR…AND DO IT ANYWAY.” She actually owns several registration for that precise trademark, for different goods and services.

The main trademark registration at question here is probably registration # 3338961 for these specified services: Education services, namely conducting seminars, workshops and training programs both in person and online, and the production of video and television programs in the field of psychology, spirituality, personal development and self improvement.

But the real question is: How did Leo use the trademark? He wrote a blog post that used the phrase “feel the fear and do it anyway” deep within the content.

Here’s the key: Leo didn’t use the phrase as a trademark. Susan Jeffers doesn’t own the exclusive right to “feel the fear…and do it anyway.” She just owns the right to use that phrase as a trademark on certain goods and services.

OK, I just found more stuff about AP that is mind-boggling.

I found this at  Bigsole Blogspot. It seems now that AP doesn't even want their own affiliates to embed their YouTube news videos, and sent out a cease and desist to a country music radio station here in Tennessee - WTNQ-FM who was posting their content on a website.
The man you see in this video is Christian Grantham a Nashville television producer. His own post about this topic is HERE. 

You cannot make this stuff up. Forget for a moment that WTNQ is itself an A.P. affiliate and that the A.P. shouldn’t be harassing its own members. Apparently, nobody told the A.P. executive that the august news organization even has a YouTube channel which the A.P. itself controls, and that someone at the A.P. decided that it is probably a good idea to turn on the video embedding function on so that its videos can spread virally across the Web, along with the ads in the videos.

From Duke University Libraries Blog

Falzone will talk about these cases and the importance of fair use for scholars and universities in a talk at Duke on MARCH 2, 2009 in the Schiciano Auditorium (Fitzpatrick CIEMAS engineering building) at 5 pm. He will emphasis that fair use is vital in higher education not only to prevent copyright from stifling scholarship but also to support free speech and academic freedom.

His lecture is entitled “From James Joyce To Harry Potter And John Lennon: The Impact Of Fair Use On Scholarship And Free Expression.” A reception will follow.

This event is open to the whole Duke community, but it is especially relevant for scholars and teachers who rely on fair use to create their own scholarship or to distribute scholarly works to students and colleagues, as well as to those interested in the role of free speech in the academy.

...Falzone’s lecture will be repeated at UNC Chapel Hill on March 3 at 5:30 pm in the Wilson Library. These events are jointly sponsored by UNC University Library, Duke University Libraries, UNC’s Center for Media Law and Policy, and Triangle Research Libraries Network.

Fair Use Held Hostage by ABC-Disney

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So what are the lessons to be learned here? Many media companies want to assert their copyright privileges beyond legal limits - not for petty cash, but for petty power. They aim to establish the precedent that they are in control, regardless of their legal standing. I’d guess the last thing ABC-Disney would want is to sue me or OUP over the frame grabs, as a loss in court would firmly establish the limits of their claims (and an unlikely win would yield little in revenue anyway). What they really want is bully power, the ability to make outsiders assume that rights holders also hold all the power. Unfortunately because the book was already in press, we had to yield - if we were able to, both my editor and I wanted to swap out the cover Lost image to avoid having to pay for the frame grabs that we had the right to use, thereby implying that fair use did not apply.

Lawyers for Fairey acknowledged that the artist used the photograph. But they said he transformed the literal depiction into a "stunning, abstracted and idealized visual image that creates powerful new meaning and conveys a radically different message."

AP spokesman Paul Colford said the company would have no immediate comment until its lawyers reviewed the lawsuit. The AP had said in a statement last week that it was in discussions with Fairey's attorney and hoped for an amicable solution.

The AP has not taken legal action against Fairley. But the lawsuit noted that the AP had threatened twice to sue Fairey, possibly as early as Tuesday, and that it considered all works that incorporate the imagery of the "Obama Hope" poster to be infringements of its copyrights.

Take, for example, an influential 2006 decision vindicating Jeff Koons. A fashion photographer named Andrea Blanch sued Koons for using a picture of hers in one of his paintings without paying her. Koons had scanned her photograph, which she had taken for a Gucci ad, and cut and pasted it into a digital composition he then painted. The federal appeals court said that Koons didn't need to pay Blanch to do what he did, because of how thoroughly Koons had transformed the photograph.

How the AP can argue that use of this picture hasn't been transformed by Fairey to offer "new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings" is beyond comprehension. Perhaps they are feeling the pinch of newspapers abandoning their product -- they've been dropped by Dow Jones, Tribune, NY Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Spokane Spokesman-Review, while newspapers in New York and Ohio have banded together to create competing networks to rid themselves of the AP blight.

Throw in the newspapers that are simply going out of business, and apparently the AP's new business model is to legally intimidate artists basing their artwork at least partly on AP images. Like going after small bloggers for blockquoting material from their news stories, It's morally bankrupt, legally questionable (at best), and a direct assault on the very notion of intellectual property fair use. The day the AP finally shutters its doors can't come soon enough.

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lunas_ceiling

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Expelled is Absolved :  ...so the film goes out on DVD on October 21 in censored form, illustrating the damage that even an unproved and unsupported infringement claim can do. At the same time, the result here -- great but imperfect -- is a fantastic lesson in how we might start to solve the fair use dilemma.

If a film with Hollywood producers has trouble using media clips, what hope does an average citizen have of using something without worrying about huge legal expenses that could result? . . . Legal protection is nothing but words on paper if the de facto law is that whoever has the most money decides what constitutes fair use.

Praetorianguard: HAI, JUDGE PATTERSON!

Derek Bambauer: Rowling 1, Lexicon 0

Foresthouse: Conclusions of Law
&
Foresthouse: Harry Potter ~ One More Thing

Dustbunny105: Go, JKR!

Liz B.: Top Eight Things To Know About the Lexicon Ruling

Quidawn: Aaah, The Sweet Taste of Justice Like Chocolate!

( Links to Articles and Quotes from Steve Under Here )