Sanders Campaign Accused of Trademark Bullying By Web Site (buzzfeed.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Buzzfeed is reporting that "An online merchant has accused the Bernie Sanders campaign of 'trademark bullying'. after a Bernie 2016, Inc. attorney sent him a cease and desist letter regarding t-shirts, mugs, and sweatshirts depicting the candidate with historic communist leaders..." The t-shirt's designer tells Buzzfeed "He didn't seem to be the type of candidate, the type of guy, who would do something like this... I would think Bernie, or one of his staff members will step in and put an end to it. It appears to be pretty silly."
In January Ars Technica reported that lawyers for the Sanders campaign had demanded their logo be removed from pages on Wikipedia -- before later withdrawing that DMCA notice.

Comments

Yawn.

[Ixokai]

I tried to argue this, but the site is so clearly full of douchbags and jerkoffs that I don't even care.

Guy does not think he is a communist (hint: "democratic socialist" is not the same thing) Neither is "socialist") Random website he knows fuck all about uses his name and image without endorsement or permission, and... TRADEMARK BULLYING.

Fuck, no.

The douchebag is strong here: and that's not with the Bernie campaign.

Either way its not a story.

Re:Yawn.

[Jumunquo]

Freedom of speech. You can make fun of political figures or sell products making fun of them. I mean, wouldn't it be scary if in this world, you cannot say anything that someone would be considered douche?

They know they have no legal ground but sue as a bullying tactic. Sad.

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, it may be tantamount to defamation in the US.

Fucking, please. They've been calling Trump a Racist Misogynist, despite him not saying anything racist or misogynistic. To support the left's libelous claims they use out of context sound bytes. I only know of this massive double-standard because some claims about Trump were so outrageous I had to look up the source to see what else he said... and then found the mis-representative "quote mining".

If insinuating that Bernie is a Communist is defamation, then the entire US media ought to be indited for libel. Actually, I think Trump did say something to this effect.

Re:Yawn.

[silentcoder]

>They've been calling Trump a Racist Misogynist, despite him not saying anything racist or misogynistic

He has done both, repeatedly. Those who claim otherwise try to use some weird-assed technicalities to make it seem like his flagrant bigotry isn't ACTUALLY the specific KIND of bigotry being discussed. It literally comes down to "it's not racism it's xenophobia and that's supposed to be less evil" (and that would have been trueish if any of the imigrants he has an issue with were white - treating your own race as special IS racism - hating on MANY races is not LESS racist than hating on one). The things he has said about and to women were flagrant misogyny too - like his recent declaration that women who seek abortions should be punished. No wonder be backtracked from that one later the same day - even the most backward of pro-lifers don't say THAT in public !
When you're more misogynistic than Todd Aiken, you're a fucking misogynist.

And even if none of this was true it wouldn't change the fact that calling him all those things is NOT comparable to calling Bernie a communist because none of those things are federal crimes. Accusing somebody of a crime without proof is slander, merely calling him names is not. It's legal to call a politician names, its NOT legal to slander ANYBODY - even a politician.

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

defending a trademark is not bullying.
in fact, its required, or else you lose trademark status.

Re:Yawn.

[mi]

He just can't sell them without Sanders' permission.

Bullshit. Parodies are protected speech, which would've covered this case even if the person's name were a trade-mark. No, we are seeing the good old legal intimidation — as in "I can pay my lawyers more, so I'll drive you out of business before we get to a judge".

After all, it's a federal crime to be a communist or show any support for communism-related organizations.

I wish this were true, but it is not. Che Guevara T-shirts and other paraphernalia remain all the rage — one can be found, in fact, by scratching any climate change alarmist. Seriously — please, cite the Federal Law you are referring to.

Bernie Sanders is a Communist — sue me.

Re:Yawn.

[ganjadude]

i will, hes wrong.

insulting meg kelly is not the same as being a woman hater

wanting to keep illegal immigrants out is not racist

wanting to keep muslims out until we can figure out a better solution to the refugee problem is not racist (or xenophobic)

Re:Yawn.

[ganjadude]

tried to ban Muslim companies from purchasing companies that have offices in the USA.

and? thats nationalism not racism

Multiple references to non-whites as "colored people"

and? so does the blacks (or afro american, or native africans or..... (insert whatever is politically correct today, but probably not tomorrow here) main group known as the NAACP. guess what the CP stands for????

Received funding and the support from the grandmaster of the kkk and never denounced it.

and??? really a non issue, for 1, he didnt court the KKK, 2 he cant control who gives him money, and this modern concept of shaming people into giving up money donated to them is utterly retarded. should we forget that the KKK in california is actually endorsing hillary? why no mention of that its never talked about in the media.

Those are just three examples of the racism.

no, those are 3 eaxamples of why you dont like a guy that you are trying to make others believe to be racist. I dont even like trump but posts like yours and everyone else making shit up is really whats pushing me to want to vote for him out of spite.

Re:Yawn.

[youngatheart]

Thanks. I was battling with myself over whether to make those exact points. I dislike the man, but the popular accusations are almost always made in ignorance.

"My dream is to live in a nation where we can hate someone, not based on the color of their skin or which party they are associated with, but based on their words and actions." - intentionally misquoting a better man

Re:Yawn.

[cyberchondriac]

Exactly. This is getting to be part and parcel of the neoprogressive movement, it's a growing trend. It's funny to them when they rake the opposition over the coals, and call them various insults or stereotypical sweeping labels: morons, idiots, stupid, bigots, inbreds, homophobes, islamophobes, racists, sexists, etc.., and that's just "free speech"; but it's clearly offensive when anyone lobbies a criticism at the progressives, they label that as "hate speech" and there's a strong push to shut it down and silence it.
That sure sounds like democracy in action to me. (/sar)

Re:Yawn.

[ganjadude]

as a country its our right to let whoever in for whatever reason (and vice versa)

it doesnt make it racist. just because YOU spin in some bullshit doesnt make it so

Re: This isn't even a story.

[silentcoder]

Nobody has called Trump "literally Hitler" - since that would be physically impossible. Identical speeches ? Also echoed in the speeches of the only NAZIs to every actually run a country for an extended period of time WITHOUT being at war (notably Verwoerd, Botha and Vorster's) speeches. Identical proposals and policies to not-yet-in-power Hitler ?
Entire speeches that could have been quoted from Mein Kampf ?

Literally Hitler ? No.
As close as makes no fucking difference ? Only somebody who is utterly ignorant of history could fail to see it.

But then - ALL NATIONALISM is Nazism, the NAZIs abandoned the socialist part of their name long before they ever even got in power - hell during their failed coup attempt in 1921 they killed all the socialists in parliament before being thrown out. The very first thing they did after president Hitler declared himself Fuhrer was to kill every socialist in parliament (again) - 400 people executed in a single night.
But the nationalism - they clung to that. All nationalism is 100% absolutely and utterly inexcusable evil. And it's an evil no less prevalent in the United States than it was in Germany.
Those who love their country, and associate that love with a specific nation - are doomed to repeat ALL the worst evils humanity have visited on one another because with zero exceptions it was ALWAYS nationalism that drove it. It was Nationalism that drove appartheid (hell the party doing it was even called the "National Party"). It was Nationalism that drove the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Nationalism that exploded in the genocide in Serbia under Milosovich.

There is no version of Nationalism, especially ethno-Nationalism that has ever or could ever fail to lead to atrocity. All nationalists are Hitler WANABES. Nearly none of them know it. They seem to only ever figure that out AFTER they did something fucking terrible.

Re: US election

[CronoCloud]

Pretty much everybody but the very top brass

So basically all the Gomer Pyle's then.

That's how we got this whole "women in combat" and "gay integration" thing. Needless to say it will go away instantly with a Republican president.

Didn't go away with the second Bush, considering women have been piloting combat aircraft since 1993.

And Women flying AH64 Apaches who kill from above with 30mm cannons and Hellfires.

And gay people have been fighting for this country ever since this country was founded.

Re: This isn't even a story.

[silentcoder]

Can never be slander: "Jack wants to kill his wife"
Can be slander: "Jack is killing his wife".

Calling Trump Hitler is not accusing him of a crime. Ergo it cannot be slander. It is, at most, saying his speeches advocate policies that would be criminal but thats still free speech.
Calling Sanders a Marxist is a crime because you are accusing him falsely of engaging in criminal behaviour.

Even so there is no evidence to suggest Sanders would sue or prosecute you for doing so. He has not sued Fox which did that a few times.
However if you want to do it its okay for him to say 'but you cannot use my own trademarks to do it'. Parody is not protected if its also slanderous.
And there is not even any evidence he has done that. All you have is a lawyer who did that without consulting him.

Fighting back against bullying is "bulllying" now?

[T.E.D.]

I may not be a huge Sanders fan, but Sanders frankly is comedy gold. So if you are going for funny, it ain't that hard. But placing pictures of him next to Stalin like they were buddies isn't even the slightest bit funny. Even if you're trying to poke fun at your own ignorance for not being able to tell the difference between anybody to the left of you and a Communist, that's just sad, not funny. So clearly, humor was not the goal here.

This isn't comedy; its straight up character assassination. If his lawyers don't try to go after it while he's running for high office, they aren't doing their jobs.