Bernie 2016 Joins Long Line of Campaign Committees Abusing Trademark Law to Suppress Criticism

What is it about presidential campaigns that brings out some of the worst examples of trademark bullying?

Two years ago, we shot down bogus a trademark demand by the Ready for Hillary pre-campaign PAC, which tried to suppress Liberty Maniac's “Ready for Oligarchy” parody. (Readers of this blog may remember Liberty Maniacs (and its owner, Dan McCall) for having drawn threats from the NSA for calling it “The only part of the government that actually listens.”)   Last year, it was a demand from Ben Carson’s campaign trying to take the Carson name off both critical and complimentary campaign wear.  In 2012, Ron Paul’s campaign committee contended that its trademark was infringed by a YouTube video that satirized its efforts.  And in 2008, we had to seek a declaratory judgment against the Republican National Committee to get it to back off an effort to use trademark to prevent people from using the elephant logo to describe the Republican Party as an object of affection or derision.  Each time, the lawyers representing candidates or political committees made stupid legal threats based on a misunderstanding of trademark law (or using pretended trademark law claims as an excuse), and each time, the public response to the demands taught them about the consequences of making such demands. 

Now it is the turn of Bernie Sanders' campaign to learn that lesson.  Yesterday a Seattle lawyer claiming to represent "Bernie 2016, Inc." sent a demand letter to Daniel McCall of Liberty Maniacs, contending that the following parody image, which plays on Sanders' personal background as an avowedly Socialist candidate by referring to him as a "comrade" and linking him to Communist leaders from the 19th and 20th centuries, might confuse users into believing that the Sanders campaign is voluntarily associating its candidate with the communist party.   

Bernie Image

Invoking the campaign’s trademark and copyright in the Bernie 2016 logo, a lawyer named Claire Hawkins has demanded that McCall stop purveying this image.  


Hawkins is not a newbie lawyer; she is a mid-level IP partner at a substantial Seattle-based law firm; her web page suggests that she should know better than to make such trademark claims.   I do not know whether the Sanders campaign saw her letter before she sent it.  If it did not, it might want to consider keeping its lawyers under tighter control; if it did, it deserves all the negative attention that this foolish letter from its lawyer will likely bring.

On behalf of McCall, I have explained to counsel for the Sanders campaign why her trademark and copyright claims (and an election law claim!) cannot succeed.   I hope that she will have the decency to renounce her attempt to use trademark law to suppress speech.

UPDATE:  Just after I posted this article, my email to Ms. Hawkins produced a call from the "lead counsel" for the Sanders campaign — a lawyer whose web page represents that he "provides strategic advice to candidates [and] political committees."  I understood him to say that the demand letter was sent by the law firm without any consultation with the Sanders campaign, as part of what he regards as his responsibility to protect his client's intellectual property.  But when I tried to explain to him that such responsibilities do not extend to trying to suppress parodies, he complained that I was lecturing him.  I recognize that his thing is election law, not trademark law. 

0 thoughts on “Bernie 2016 Joins Long Line of Campaign Committees Abusing Trademark Law to Suppress Criticism

  1. Jason Yungbluth says:

    Ladies and Germs, this is Darth Yungbluth. here is the red hot T-shirt controversy as it has been perceived from my point of view:
    Last week I took umbrage with the coverage that an online T-shirt retailer, Liberty Maniacs, was receiving as they fended off a complaint from a lawyer representing the campaign of Bernie Sanders. Liberty Maniacs has created a T-shirt incorporating a barely transfigured version of the trademarked Sanders campaign logo, and dressed it up in the noble garb of “parody”, which is, of course, protected speech. Half a zillion websites rushed to the defense of Liberty Maniacs, calling Bernie Sanders a crusty old cocksucker with no sense of humor, and why can’t his high powered lawyers–from WALL STREET?!? Wouldn’t that be fucking IRONIC!–just leave Liberty Maniacs alone to sell their knockoffs of Mr. Robot merchandise in peace?
    Now, I loves me some parody, and I am not saying that what Liberty Maniacs has done isn’t necessarily fair use of the logo. Under the law, there are many kinds of fair use of protected trademarks. But I am dubious as to whether what Liberty Maniacs has done is genuine parody.
    To drive that point home, I created a T-shirt mock-up that incorporated Liberty Maniacs’ own trademarked logo, and contacted the company’s owner, Dan McCall, asking if he would consider my shirt to be parody or infringement. I also posted a link to our resulting exchange on the website of the lawyer defending Liberty Maniacs, one Paul Levy of Public Citizen.
    Paul contacted me through my website and by e-mail, and we eventually spoke on the phone. Although he apparently has no horse in the race as to whether my T-shirt scheme is itself a parody, he had a lot to say about Liberty Maniacs’ work, as he has defended them several times (successfully) against claims like the one the Sanders campaign’s lawyer is making.
    Paul then sent me a detailed commentary on this matter, which also touched on our personal conversations. Here is what he had to say with my ripostes spliced in. (Note: Paul’s quotes here are not taken from his commentary above, but from what he at first tried to post on my website. My comments filter initially treated Paul’s writing as spam. Go figure.)

    PL:
    “You have gone seriously astray in three respects. First, you are apparently focused on ways in which people do parodies of logos – certainly if it is the logo that is being parodied, then you make changes in the logo. But if the objective is to parody the trademark owner, then by all means the logo can be used to identify the trademark owner. We often see that with respect to attacks on Barack Obama, which use his familiar Obama rising sun logo, unchanged, in the context of disagreeable criticism (for example, here and here. Similarly, we often see attacks on Wal-Mart, using its familiar blue-block name with a star in the middle, perhaps with the cursive Always across it, but coupled with words that express disdain for what Wal-Mart “always” does (for example here and here). Similarly. what McCall did here is use the Sanders campaign’s logo to make clear which “Bernie” is the target of his design’s commentary, and he does it in a way that poses no likelihood of confusion about whether the campaign is behind it.”
    JY:
    I think the critical issue here is the meaning of the word “parody”. Paul seems to be conflating it with another, related term: “satire”. Parody is specifically about transfiguring what is recognizeable to give it new meaning or expression. The examples he cites do indeed use all or part of a famous trademark, but the resulting parody turns the trademarked graphic against itself to comment on the mark’s owner. So Obama’s “O” becomes a letter in the term “B.O.”, which are the President’s initials, but also the abbreviation for body odor. The completed comment, “B.O. Stinks”, is then obviously a clever political commentary, but one that would lose much of its content and worth without the benefit of the Obama logo.
    Likewise, the use of the Wal-Mart logo in the other examples leaves the graphic “Wal-Mart” alone, but then lampoons another part of Wal-Mart’s advertisements, the text and graphic regarding Wal-Mart’s “always low prices”. Taken as a whole, the trademark has been parodied, and through it, Wal-Mart has been ridiculed. The message could have been delivered using the same words but not the existing graphics, but the message would lack any punch.
    In the case of Liberty Maniacs, the entire Sanders logo is intact except for a tiny change to a small graphic of a star, changing it into something resembling a Soviet star. Is that enough to call it a parody? Perhaps. But this is a very meager innovation, and if the Sanders logo were put on a T-shirt alone with only that small change, it is doubtful most people would recognize the innuendo.
    The T-shirt thus requires more than just the Sanders logo to sell the message, so a cartoon of Sanders’ face alongside the faces of famous communists is added, as well as a tag line under the logo that reads “is my comrade” (Collectively, “Sanders is my comrade”). But the term “is my comrade” refers to nothing in the existing logo (the true Sanders logo does not say “Sanders is my” anything.) Therefor, this additional text is not like the Wal-Mart example where “Wal-Mart’s low prices” becomes “Wal-Mart’s low wages.”
    But for the tiny modification of the star, the Sanders logo has not, in any real way, been turned against itself. Sanders is being called a communist, in so many words, which does mock his avowed socialism, but nothing about the Sanders logo is necessary for the gag. There is already a picture of Bernie on the shirt, and that plus any use of the name “Bernie” in any typeface would sell the message. The use of the trademark does evoke Bernie Sanders, but no more than his own name does. That is why the shirt, though plausibly a satire (i.e. a jest of Sanders’ affiliation with a movement often viewed negatively in a democratic country) is not really a parody of anything.
    In short:
    1) The logo itself is not being parodied.
    2) The trademark is not being used to comment on the mark’s owner.
    3) The use of the logo is not beneficial to the humor or the political content of the shirt.
    PL:
    “Second, your blog post and particularly your chat incorrectly suggest that you need “permission” from a trademark owner to do a parody using its logo. That is a foolish suggestion: parody is protected both by the fair use defense to the Lanham Act and by the First Amendment; indeed, when a parody is plainly a parody, it does not create an actionable likelihood of confusion (if the mark is “famous,” then dilution considerations come into play and the analysis is a bit different).”
    JY:
    I am well aware, of course, that one does not seek “permission” for parody. My conversation with Liberty Maniacs owner Dan McCall was simply to suss out whether he considered the explicit and unaltered use of his own company logo on an unflattering T-shirt to be parody or infringement. My conversation, if anything, made plain MY view: that it would be infringement–at least in this context–and that I thought I should get his permission before I pulled what he pulled with the Sanders logo. If McCall said that he didn’t mind, then at least he would be consistent.
    (FYI: after sending the mock-up to McCall, he has offered me no opinion on whether he thinks it is parody, and certainly no permission to play with his logo even if he thinks it is not.)
    PL:
    “In fact, although your reproduction of the “chat” you conducted with Dan McCall elides this part of the conversation, McCall told you exactly that. I was a bit suspicious and so I asked both you and McCall about that. When we spoke on the phone, you equivocated but ultimately denied having been told by McCall that you did not need permission. However, McCall has supplied me with an unexpurgated version of the chat, and at the location where your image of the chat says “a bit of the chat got lost when my computer crashed,” he told you that, if what you were doing was a parody, you didn’t need his permission. Certainly that was a convenient “computer crash.” But I do not appreciate the fact that you lied to me when we spoke.”
    JY:
    Let me tell you something, people: if you ever find yourself running an online store that sells cheap merchandise entirely dependent on parasitizing pop culture, Paul Levy is the kind of prick you want on your side when the owners of the intellectual property you’ve pirated come kicking in your door. (I’m already saving up for his retainer!)
    I did speak to Paul on the phone, and suffice it to say I have never had anyone so aggressively try to buffalo me, and I’m from Buffalo. But when I finally did make Paul stick a sock in it long enough for me to get a word in edgewise, he immediately hung up on me like a common pussy.
    PL:
    “Finally, you have asked me a number of times to tell me whether “my client” objects to your what you characterize as a “hilarious parody.” I have tried to explain to you that I am not McCall’s general counsel. I have represented him a few times to defend some of his parodies. I have never represented me in affirmative enforcement of HIS intellectual property. And he has not asked me for help in addressing your design,; thus I have no occasion to address whether you have done a parody.
    In fact, to my knowledge, McCall has done nothing to stop you. Whether that is because he thinks what you are doing is a protected parody, or whether it is because he thinks you are making a play for attention by trying to bait him into objecting so that you can make a stink about it, you would have to ask him.”
    JY:
    Far be it from me to make a play for attention, since I could never hope to top the skills of Paul’s client, who has used the occasion of the cease and desist order he received from the Sanders campaign to blast the world with cries of injustice that would make a Syrian refugee weep. I would never hesitate to defend those products of McCall’s that featured the craft or wit necessary to rise to the level of honest parody. It’s an easy bar to reach, but one that I am not convinced Dan has cleared.

  2. Paul Levy says:

    It is generally our practice not to allow comments posted in an effort to draw paying business to a commercial web site. However the comment above from “Jason Yungbluth” includes a substantive comment as well as trying to sell his own product: basically, if you follow the hyperlink in his comment, you will see that he argues that the Liberty Maniacs Sanders parody is indefensible because it does not change the Sanders campaign’s logo. In a comment on his site, I tried to set him straight; he, in turn, responded to me. I then posted a more direct response, which he has so far “held pending moderation” — perhaps it hits too close to home?
    Given that Yungbluth is unwilling to face trenchant criticism in the comments, I am posting them here (with some typos corrected, and switch from second to third person; readers will only be able to understand my criticisms on the context of his blog post and comments; apologies for the inconvenience):
    Yungbluth has gone seriously astray in three respects. First, he is apparently focused on ways in which people do parodies of logos – certainly if it is the logo that is being parodied, then you make changes in the logo. But if the objective is to parody the trademark owner, then by all means the logo can be used to identify the trademark owner. We often see that with respect to attacks on Barack Obama, which use his familiar Obama rising sun logo, unchanged, in the context of disagreeable criticism (for example, here http://www.cafepress.com/mf/35147984/antiobama-sticker-bo-stink_bumper-sticker?productId=443885599 and here http://www.cafepress.com/+obama_parody_car_magnet_10_x_3,572488382. Similarly, we often see attacks on Wal-Mart, using its familiar blue-block name with a star in the middle, perhaps with the cursive Always, but coupled with words that express disdain for what Wal-Mart “always” does (for example here https://www.etsy.com/listing/235133042/walmart-always-low-wages-always-funny and here http://walmart–sucks.blogspot.com/). Similarly, what McCall did here is use the Sanders campaign’s logo to make clear which “Bernie” is the target of his design’s commentary, and he does it in a way that poses no likelihood of confusion about whether the campaign is behind it.
    Second, Yungbluth’s blog post and particularly his chat with McCall incorrectly suggest that one needs “permission” from a trademark owner to do a parody using its logo. That is a foolish suggestion: parody is protected both by the fair use defense to the Lanham Act and by the First Amendment; indeed, when a parody is plainly a parody, it does not create an actionable likelihood of confusion (if the mark is “famous,” then dilution considerations come into play and the analysis is a bit different). In fact, although Yungbluth’s reproduction of the “chat” he conducted with Dan McCall elides this part of the conversation, McCall told him exactly that. I was a bit suspicious and so I asked both of them about that. When Yungbluth and I spoke on the phone, he equivocated but ultimately denied having been told by McCall that he did not need permission. However, McCall has supplied me with an unexpurgated version of the chat, and at the location where Yungbluth’s image of the chat says “a bit of the chat got lost when my computer crashed,” McCall told Yungbluth that, if what he was doing was a parody, Yungbluth didn’t need his (McCzll’s) permission.
    Certainly that was a convenient “computer crash.” But I do not appreciate the fact that Yungbluth lied to me when we spoke.
    Finally, Yungbluth has asked me a number of times to tell me whether “my client” objects to what he characterizes as a “hilarious parody.” I have tried to explain to him that I am not McCall’s general counsel. I have represented McCall a few times to defend some of his parodies. I have never represented him in affirmative enforcement of HIS intellectual property. And he has not asked me for help in addressing Yungbluth’s design; thus I have no occasion to address whether he has done a parody. (Readers are welcome to express their opinions)
    In fact, to my knowledge, McCall has done nothing to stop Yungbluth. Whether that is because he thinks what this image http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/libertymaniacs_parody.jpg is a protected parody, or whether it is because he thinks Yungbluth is making a play for attention by trying to bait McCall into objecting so that Yungbluth can make a stink about it, you would have to ask McCall.

  3. Paul Levy says:

    “Shimke”’s comment above asks whether the Sanders campaign might not have had better support for its takedown demand had it accused Dan McCall of defamation, in that McCall has, in Shimke’s view, created a false association with some hateful historical figures.
    But Sanders could not possibly bring a libel claim, because McCall’s montage of images expresses no more than an opinion about political similarities between Sanders and the historical figures pictures along side him. Now, Shimke might well contend that it is an ill-informed opinion, in that the comparison glosses over the many significant differences between a social democrat such as Sanders has been over the years and the dictators who took millions of lives in Russia and China — indeed, it over looks the intensely anti-Communist stance to which many socialists have adhered over time — but libel claims can be brought only over false statements of fact, not over opinions. As the Supreme Court said in Gertz v. Welch, “Under the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a false idea.”
    Shimke suggests that the shirt design could be understood as reflecting a statement by Sanders about his own understandings of comradeship, but again I think not, not least because the phrase is written in the third person by someone supposedly calling Sanders the speaker’s “comrade.”
    I might add that, although this demand was directed at the author of the parody and not at the host, trademark owners often prefer to invoke trademark law to attack speech that they don’t like because trademark claims are generally understood to be within the “intellectual property” exception to section 230 immunity.

  4. Hal Brown says:

    I just put this on my blog: http://halbrown.org – Buzzfeed has already covered this. Here the original source, Liberty Maniacs, the manufacturer of the t-shirt (and you can get a cup too). And we thought Trump was thin skinned. I think this is a better than most negative anti-candidate parody. The cease and desist letter from an attorney claims trademark infringement. I don’t see much of a case since this is clearly a parody. Did Obama try to stop it when he was depicted with a Hitler mustache? Some things are better left alone. This publicity will only increase demand. I’m even tempted to buy one.
    To Shimke: I don’t see any blue, but even if this was a more expensive to make t-shirt in r/w/b it wouldn’t matter because it is clearly satire. There is no libel, not even close. The first amendment came first for a reason. There is nothing in American case law that says satire must clearly be labeled satire. Of course, in North Korea, some mid-eastern countries, and even Russia depending on Putin’s mood, publishing satire can get you sent to prison (or worse).

  5. Shimke says:

    It seems that it is sometimes a thin line between “parody” and misrepresentation. This logo comes dangerously close to one that might say, for example, “I am proud to be a communist” under a big picture of Bernie Sanders. With enough red white and blue, this could look like a legitimate ad by the Sanders campaign. Or how about Hillary portrayed as saying “Let’s stop criticizing Wall Street bankers.” If there is nothing to indicate that it is satire, it becomes libel.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *