but wait! there's more!
Matt notes that applying copyright to fashion is a bad idea, and of course he's right. But look! That's not even the most reprehensible intellectual property news of the day: via Slashdot I see that Johnson & Johnson is suing the Red Cross for using... the red cross symbol. But it sounds like the Red Cross has also been misbehaving, licensing the symbol to businesses in a way that's disallowed by an old agreement between the RC and J&J.
I realize that trademarks don't expire in the same way that patents and copyrights do, but surely there's a genericide argument to be made here — I had no idea the red cross belonged to Johnson & Johnson. I thought their mark was the intertwined Js that appear on their products, and that the cross was just generic decoration.
Who knows what the courts will decide. But it seems obvious to me that the symbol belongs in the public domain. Johnson & Johnson shouldn't be dragging charities into court over it, and charities shouldn't be selling licenses that they aren't entitled to grant.
Comments
Normally I'd agree with claims that generic symbols belong in the public domain, but the red cross symbol is a tricky case. I don't know offhand of a legal way to make happen what I want to see happen: Johnson & Johnson doesn't get any say in who uses the red cross symbol, but it's not a symbol that just anybody can use. The thing is that only very few symbols are recognized for relief efforts (e.g., red cross, red crescent in the Middle East, maybe a red diamond nowadays), and you wouldn't want just anybody sticking such a symbol on the side of their van and claiming the status it confers.
Then again, I'm not clear on whether Johnson & Johnson's suit would affect the International Red Cross at all, and I suppose there may be context-specific rules for use on commercial packaging versus on trucks in war zones, in which case I agree that it should be in the public domain for the former. So, actually, maybe I had nothing useful to say after all. Carry on.
Actually, I think that's a very useful point. But I agree that it probably makes the most sense to regulate that sort of thing through laws that apply specifically to war and other disasters. I assume there are regulations on what you can do when displaying a white flag on the battlefield, for instance, but wouldn't expect them to apply to me if I flew a white flag from my tree fort (not that I'd ever surrender to the marauding hordes of girls below, but you get the idea).
Penny Arcade said they had to change the design of their Child's Play charity shirt because of the Red Cross. Seems odd that it would be the Red Cross and not J&J, but maybe there is no love among nonprofits.
How NerdyShirts stays in business I'll never know. Copyright infringement galore over there.