Monday, October 08, 2007

Leftists Resort to Attempted Censorship Again



Leftists just cannot stand criticism. They think that they should be able to say anything at all about conservatives but that no criticism should be directed back at them.

An organization called CafePress makes knick-knacks (mugs, T-shirts etc.) with slogans on them designed by members of the public.

The Leftist MoveOn organization attracted heavy criticism for its NYT advertisement defaming General Petraeus so that soon showed up at CafePress, with people designing items that ridiculed MoveOn. The logo above was designed by a DEMOCRAT voter disgusted by the MoveOn advertisement.

The crybabies at MoveOn could not take it, however. They sent off a legal letter to CafePress demanding that CafePress stop selling those items:

"Last week it demanded that the site remove eight items, arguing that they violated MoveOn's merchandising trademarks.

Trademark law doesn't confer monopoly rights over all uses of a registered phrase or symbol, however, and it wasn't created simply to protect the trademark owner's interests. Instead, it's designed to protect consumers against being misled or confused about brands. The courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of parodies and critiques; that's why www.famousbrandnamesucks.com doesn't violate famousbrandname's trademark. And most, if not all, of the items targeted by MoveOn were clearly designed to razz it, not to trick buyers into thinking they were the group's products.

Beyond that, it's amazing that MoveOn would try to squelch political speech.

Source

I'm not so amazed. CafePress left most of the "offending" items on sale.

Michelle Malkin has a big coverage of the story.