Holy See Declares a "Unique Copyright" On the Pope

An anonymous reader sends in news of what must be some kind of record in overreaching intellectual property claims: the Vatican has declared that the name, image, and any symbols of the Pope are for exclusive use of the Holy See. They may have a point if, as the declaration hints, some have used "ecclesiastical or pontifical symbols and logos to attribute credibility and authority to initiatives" unrelated to the Vatican. But how much room will they allow for fair use? Will high school newspapers have to remove the Papal Coat of Arms from their Vatican news columns? The royalty schedule was not released, so it's not clear how much Slashdot will have to pay to run this story (or if there will be a penalty for the accompanying pagan idol).

Comments

Get the checkbook out !

[redelm]

... with so many slashtards, /. will not qualify for the normal "news" exemption on images and stories.

Re:Power Mad Papa

[natehoy]

If a schism group wanted to form their own church, why would they even want to use the Papal symbols as they exist today? Wouldn't they want to install their own command chain with some other symbol denoting their pontiff or leader? Using the same symbols would cause confusion and possibly give credibility to the Church the schismatics want to leave, right?

You do raise a good point, but I think this is more to prevent criticism of the Church ("you used the word 'Pope' in your article, and it's critical of the Church, so we're issuing a DMCA(*) takedown notice") and/or to make sure the clergy within the Church don't use the Pope's name, images, or symbols for their own agendas that the Church may disagree with. In the former case, it denotes a distinct lack of faith in God to defend his own Church, and in the latter it denotes a distinct lack of discipline within the church hierarchy.

(*): Assuming the article is correct and they are really trying to get an actual Copyright. I suspect they want to get Trademarks, which would require a different type of takedown notice.