Oh, but it can. If the satirical context is alarming, AND the Presidential Seal is used in such a way as to potentially cause confusion about its reality, then the entire Presidential Office has been misused to cause alarm. Publishing an article stating that the President will hire someone to do his job, even if believed by only a small number of people, CAN incite a panic.
Not by any common definition of "incite a panic." Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre can cause a panic because it tells people there's an immediate threat to their lives. They'll all get up and run for the door and trample each other to death.
But shouting "The President is hiring a replacement!" would not cause anything even remotely similar to that. Even if it might cause some individuals to panic (although there would be no physical danger), the overall potential for harm is so small that it does not outweigh The Onion's right to print such satire.
Confusion caused by the use of the Seal in a satirical context may cause confusion about the reality of a REAL emergency situation.
Possibly, if the satire is confusing. The Onion's satire is not confusing. If you take it out of context it might be, but the Onion can't be responsible for people taking their articles and reproducing them outside of the context of the (obviously satirical) web page. The Onion's satire has no potential to cause significant confusion.
In any event, 18 USC 731 doesn't say anything about confusion. You're trying to apply trademark laws to the situation, and they don't apply.
Isn't it? Your argument is that the use of an official government seal (one that is protected by law and requires extreme protection for the safety of the country) on a commercialized product is "Free Speech".
That's a nice straw man you built. Unfortunately, I never claimed that the use of the seal on a commercial product was always protected by the First Amendment. Only that its use in satire was overwhelmingly likely to be protected speech.
If you can so easily discount the protections afforded to such an important piece of media, what makes a Lord of the Rings DVD so special? After all, it's only covered by FCC regulations prohibiting such activities.
What the hell are you talking about? Charging admission to see Lord of the Rings would be violation of copyright law. It has nothing to do with the FCC. Copyright law has absolutely no application to the case at hand, since the Presidential seal is not (and cannot be) copyrighted, as a work of the U.S. government.
What the federal trademark dilution statute does (15 U.S.C. 1125(c)) is make parody and satire, especially in advertisements and commercials, a high risk endeavor. For example, where there's a negative or unwholesome connotation about a "famous" mark, courts are likely to enjoin use.
The Presidential seal is not covered by trademark. Therefore 15 USC 1125 does not apply. Which makes your next comment even more confusing:
Now if we're going to argue that the Supreme Court will apply trademark rules to a non-trademarked item, then we need to take this caselaw all the way. For example, from L.L. Bean, Inc. v. Drake Publishers, Inc.:
If you're going to try and prove that "the Supreme Court will apply trademark rules to a non-trademarked item," you probably shouldn't reference three cases (Bean, Jordache, and Mutual of Omaha) that are all about trademark infringement of actual trademarks. (And in the cases of Bean and Jordache, the ultimate decision was that the parodies were not infringing. In Mutual of Omaha, the parody was found to be infringing.)
So in other words, what the hell are you talking about? Can you demonstrate any actual incidents where the Supreme Court DID apply trademark rules to a non-trademark situation? Specifically to the use of the Presidential seal?
You do that, and we'll see how well your literal interpretation of the first amendment holds up.
My literal interpretation? Gosh, it's a good thing I share that interpretation with dozens of Supreme Court justices and the numerous decisions they've made that support the idea that satire is protected speech.
You're right, there are exceptions to the First Amendment. Some forms of speech are not protected by it. The Onion's satirical use of the Presidential seal, however, is quite protected.
Let me dispense with your irrelevant examples, one by one:
Oh, well in that case why don't you go into a theater and scream "FIRE!"
Falsely inciting a panic in a crowded place is a valid exception to the First Amendment. Using the Presidential seal in a satirical context does not qualify as inciting a panic.
When you're done there, you can spread the word that Gerber baby food has been poisoned to kill off babies.
Libel and slander are valid exceptions to the First Amendment. Using the Presidential seal in a satirical context does not qualify as libel or slander.
Then try going into an airport and joking about the "bomb" in your bag.
Threatening the public safety is a valid exception to the First Amendment. Using the Presidential seal in a satirical context does not qualify as threatening the public safety.
And let's not forget going into a crowded restaurant and screaming your political views at the top of your lungs.
The First Amendment refers to what the government can do, not private individuals. If the proprietor of the restaurant doesn't mind you screaming your political views at the top of your lungs, then the government can do nothing. (They might be able to charge you with disturbing the peace if someone else complains.) If the proprietor wants you off his property, you have to leave his property. The First Amendment doesn't even have anything to do with this situation!
And how about converting your home into a movie theater and showing the Lord of the Rings DVD you just bought for $3.00 a head!
That's not a form of speech and hasn't got anything to do with the First Amendment.
You have yet to provide a single shred of evidence that shows why the Onion's satire should not be covered by the First Amendment. And because you'll probably claim that I haven't provided any evidence for my position, here's links to a few cases where satire was found to be protected by the First Amendment:
Considering that you admit you've never read the Onion, you're hardly in any position to judge whether their use of the seal tries to convey the administration's approval. Unless you're just going to take either side's word for it, instead of reading the Onion and judging for yourself.
There is no exception to this law other than obtaining permission from the Office of the President.
Oh, yes there is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There's no way in hell that the Onion using the Presidential seal as part of a satirical work wouldn't fall under the First Amendment, and the First Amendment quite definitely trumps 18 USC 173(b).
There's also the issue that, as far as I understand, an "article manufactured and sold" refers to physical goods. It's possible that the Onion's web page might fall under that category, since but it hardly matters, since the First Amendment still controls.
Alas, the White House is in the wrong here. 18 US 713:
Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
The Onion is clearly satirical and no one can reasonably claim that the Onion is trying to convey sponsorship or approval of the administration.
Alas, the White House is in the wrong here. 18 US 713:
Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. (Emphasis mine)
The Onion is clearly satirical and no one can reasonably claim that the Onion is trying to convey sponsorship or approval of the administration
Unfortunately, health care is a market failure. The main problem is that demand does not change as price goes up; people are willing to pay an infinite amount in order to receive certain kinds of health care, because the only alternative is death or intolerable suffering.
I don't block ads, because most ads aren't annoying, and I understand that they help support a lot of the otherwise free sites that I visit. But I have given myself the tools necessary to deal with the truly annoying ads:
1. I use Mozilla. Built-in popup/popunder blocking.
2. A Mozilla extension that prevents Flash applets from loading until I click on the box.
3. A Mozilla extension that lets me remove any element from the page, simply by right-clicking on it and selecting "Remove object" (or "Remove selection" if I have multiple things selected). If a really annoying, full-blinky animated GIF ad shows up, poof! I blow it away.
That's all I really need. I don't pay attention to ads (I'm mostly immune to advertising in general), but I let the page loads get counted because I know that the advertisers pay attention to it.
If you went out to write a really big and important piece of software, wouldn't you want people to use it?
Very few people set out to write a "big and important" piece of software. ALSA, like most FOSS projects, was written to scratch an itch. Because the authors appreciate what the GPL does, they released it under the GPL so that other people could use it and tinker with it. They're not selling it; there is little incentive to document things thoroughly.
Yes, I realize that if they documented it thoroughly, then people would be more willing to contribute to the project and improve it blah blah blah FOSS-cakes, but all FOSS projects start out small, and the amount of work to thoroughly document everything, at first, doesn't really seem worth the effort. And probably isn't.
Pirates will always defeat ninjas, and here's why:
1. Pirates drink rum. Ninjas are loser teetotalers. Drunk = awesome. 2. Pirates swear constantly. Ninjas are silent. Silent = boring. 3. Ninjas will never have their own holiday. What would it be, International Move Like a Ninja Day? *ghosts silently away*
which amounts to just a little over 70 percent of its surface, and much better than a 3:1 chance.
Uh, a 3:1 chance means that there's a 75% chance of the first thing happening, and a 25% chance of the second thing happening. If odds are given as A:B it means that the chance of A happening is (A/B) times as likely to happen as B. So if the odds of a meteor striking water are 3:1, that means a random meteor would hit water three times for each time it would hit land; that is, three out of four times. Or 75%. I got 75% from memory that Earth is 75% water, although I guess it's really 70%... but still, that would make 70:30 or 7:3 or 2.333:1 odds, which are even LESS overwhelming.
I would think something like white paint (using the reflective properties to move the asteroid) would be more interesting.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have here a person who literally thinks that watching paint dry is more interesting than watching an explosion. Sir, I wish you good luck in finding a circus capable of handling your freakishness.
Murder is the intentional killing of a cognitive or potentially cognitive being who is not oneself and does not meet the definition of the not yet cognitive unborn, without their explicit and informed consent, and without direction from society as punishment or subject of war. Punishable by death.
...now, what won't that cover?
Well, what's the definition of "direction from society"? How does society direct us to kill people? I'm not sure which part of this covers self-defense, either. Or the case where person A is attempting to murder person B, and you, person C, are allowed to kill person A to stop them.
The fewer laws we have, and the clearer they are, and the less they depend on fine distinctions, the better off we will all be, in my estimation.
By extrapolation, we would be best off with no laws at all. That claim is clearly false. (If you really think we would be best off with no laws at all, then we should be having a different discussion. The rest of this post assumes that our society will be better off with some laws than with none.)
There are a lot of different areas of law. California state law alone is divided into 29 separate codes: Business and Professions Code, Code of Civil Procedure, Corporations Code, Elections Code, Family Code, Fish and Game Code, etc. Here's a full list. None of those Codes can be thrown out in its entirety; so we'd have to remove extraneous subsections from each code in order to reduce the number of laws.
Let's pick one: the Fish and Game Code. I didn't count them, but at a minimum it's got maybe a thousand sections. And that's just ONE code. A small one. There must be a hundred thousand specific subsections across all the codes. (That's not even taking Federal law into account.) Do we really need all those laws?
Probably not ALL of them. I imagine there's a nonzero number of codes in there that were put in at the behest of specific special interests, and do not serve the public interest as a whole. But probably the overwhelming majority of those laws are somewhere in the ballpark of "serving the public interest." Let's take a specific regulation, section 1124:
1124. It is unlawful to take any fish in any pond or reservoir belonging to or controlled by the department and used for propagating, protecting, or conserving fish.
Section 1124 refers to ponds and reservoirs owned by the Department of Fish and Game. Specifically, ponds and reservoirs used for the purposes listed above. Should this section exist? Probably; the DFG uses those ponds for, well, protecting certain species of fish for purposes of maintaining California's ecology.
You might then ask, should the DFG exist at all? Well, if it didn't, it's fairly obvious that the state's ecology would suffer greatly, since there is very little financial profit in preserving the environment, but a great deal of money could be made by abusing it until it's destroyed. (It's the tragedy of the commons.) It's clearly in our interest to have an entity like the DFG, assuming that entity is effective and not impotent, draconian, or corrupt. Does the DFG necessarily do everything the best way possible? Almost certainly not; it's run by humans, after all.;) But if it's going to exist, we need to detail exactly what powers and responsibilities that department has, and that has to be done in detail, lest some overzealous bureaucrat grab too much power simply because the law is ill-defined.
But... when a law is broad and general, it accounts for much more than a law that is nit-picky and has a large number of metrics to meet.
Laws that are too broad are useless. A law against (e.g.) "killing" would be not only useless but unjust; it would make killing in self-defense illegal. It's got to specify that only certain kinds of killing are unlawful... and it has to specify what kinds of actions constitute those kinds of killings... and what the penalties are for those actions. And it's got to use very precise wording. That's a lot of verbiage. California's section on the crime of murder (Penal Code sections 187-199) alone is ten thousand words. That's to cover ONE kind of act. (The entire Penal Code is about a million words.) You really think it's possible to have a just murder code that's a couple of sentences long? Or even a few paragraphs?
I didn't say anything about whether the inconvenience was justified. I merely refuted the original claim that nobody was inconvenienced by having to wait an extra five minutes on the tube.
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But shouting "The President is hiring a replacement!" would not cause anything even remotely similar to that. Even if it might cause some individuals to panic (although there would be no physical danger), the overall potential for harm is so small that it does not outweigh The Onion's right to print such satire.
Possibly, if the satire is confusing. The Onion's satire is not confusing. If you take it out of context it might be, but the Onion can't be responsible for people taking their articles and reproducing them outside of the context of the (obviously satirical) web page. The Onion's satire has no potential to cause significant confusion.In any event, 18 USC 731 doesn't say anything about confusion. You're trying to apply trademark laws to the situation, and they don't apply.
That's a nice straw man you built. Unfortunately, I never claimed that the use of the seal on a commercial product was always protected by the First Amendment. Only that its use in satire was overwhelmingly likely to be protected speech. What the hell are you talking about? Charging admission to see Lord of the Rings would be violation of copyright law. It has nothing to do with the FCC. Copyright law has absolutely no application to the case at hand, since the Presidential seal is not (and cannot be) copyrighted, as a work of the U.S. government. The Presidential seal is not covered by trademark. Therefore 15 USC 1125 does not apply. Which makes your next comment even more confusing: If you're going to try and prove that "the Supreme Court will apply trademark rules to a non-trademarked item," you probably shouldn't reference three cases (Bean, Jordache, and Mutual of Omaha) that are all about trademark infringement of actual trademarks. (And in the cases of Bean and Jordache, the ultimate decision was that the parodies were not infringing. In Mutual of Omaha, the parody was found to be infringing.)So in other words, what the hell are you talking about? Can you demonstrate any actual incidents where the Supreme Court DID apply trademark rules to a non-trademark situation? Specifically to the use of the Presidential seal?
You're right, there are exceptions to the First Amendment. Some forms of speech are not protected by it. The Onion's satirical use of the Presidential seal, however, is quite protected.
Let me dispense with your irrelevant examples, one by one:
Falsely inciting a panic in a crowded place is a valid exception to the First Amendment. Using the Presidential seal in a satirical context does not qualify as inciting a panic. Libel and slander are valid exceptions to the First Amendment. Using the Presidential seal in a satirical context does not qualify as libel or slander. Threatening the public safety is a valid exception to the First Amendment. Using the Presidential seal in a satirical context does not qualify as threatening the public safety. The First Amendment refers to what the government can do, not private individuals. If the proprietor of the restaurant doesn't mind you screaming your political views at the top of your lungs, then the government can do nothing. (They might be able to charge you with disturbing the peace if someone else complains.) If the proprietor wants you off his property, you have to leave his property. The First Amendment doesn't even have anything to do with this situation! That's not a form of speech and hasn't got anything to do with the First Amendment.You have yet to provide a single shred of evidence that shows why the Onion's satire should not be covered by the First Amendment. And because you'll probably claim that I haven't provided any evidence for my position, here's links to a few cases where satire was found to be protected by the First Amendment:
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corporation
There's also the issue that, as far as I understand, an "article manufactured and sold" refers to physical goods. It's possible that the Onion's web page might fall under that category, since but it hardly matters, since the First Amendment still controls.
Unfortunately, health care is a market failure. The main problem is that demand does not change as price goes up; people are willing to pay an infinite amount in order to receive certain kinds of health care, because the only alternative is death or intolerable suffering.
I don't block ads, because most ads aren't annoying, and I understand that they help support a lot of the otherwise free sites that I visit. But I have given myself the tools necessary to deal with the truly annoying ads:
1. I use Mozilla. Built-in popup/popunder blocking.
2. A Mozilla extension that prevents Flash applets from loading until I click on the box.
3. A Mozilla extension that lets me remove any element from the page, simply by right-clicking on it and selecting "Remove object" (or "Remove selection" if I have multiple things selected). If a really annoying, full-blinky animated GIF ad shows up, poof! I blow it away.
That's all I really need. I don't pay attention to ads (I'm mostly immune to advertising in general), but I let the page loads get counted because I know that the advertisers pay attention to it.
I hope there's something in there about the making of Titanic. I loved that movie.
Yes, I realize that if they documented it thoroughly, then people would be more willing to contribute to the project and improve it blah blah blah FOSS-cakes, but all FOSS projects start out small, and the amount of work to thoroughly document everything, at first, doesn't really seem worth the effort. And probably isn't.
"I have but one asterisk for my country." - Nathan Hale (sic)
Pirates will always defeat ninjas, and here's why:
1. Pirates drink rum. Ninjas are loser teetotalers. Drunk = awesome.
2. Pirates swear constantly. Ninjas are silent. Silent = boring.
3. Ninjas will never have their own holiday. What would it be, International Move Like a Ninja Day? *ghosts silently away*
It never occurred to me until now how similar their names are, in general terms:
Billy and Tommy, both sort of generic, normal, "kids'" names.
Dee and Lee, rhyming middle names.
Williams and Jones, also fairly generic last names.
But put 'em together and you get Lando Calrissian and a guy whose face looks like ten miles of bad road.
I like the idea, however, that there is something we could hit Pavarotti with that would make him an Earth-killer. Gamma radiation, perhaps?
"Pavarotti SMASH!!! "
Er... where do you think federal taxes come from?
Well, what's the definition of "direction from society"? How does society direct us to kill people? I'm not sure which part of this covers self-defense, either. Or the case where person A is attempting to murder person B, and you, person C, are allowed to kill person A to stop them.
By extrapolation, we would be best off with no laws at all. That claim is clearly false. (If you really think we would be best off with no laws at all, then we should be having a different discussion. The rest of this post assumes that our society will be better off with some laws than with none.)
There are a lot of different areas of law. California state law alone is divided into 29 separate codes: Business and Professions Code, Code of Civil Procedure, Corporations Code, Elections Code, Family Code, Fish and Game Code, etc. Here's a full list. None of those Codes can be thrown out in its entirety; so we'd have to remove extraneous subsections from each code in order to reduce the number of laws.
Let's pick one: the Fish and Game Code. I didn't count them, but at a minimum it's got maybe a thousand sections. And that's just ONE code. A small one. There must be a hundred thousand specific subsections across all the codes. (That's not even taking Federal law into account.) Do we really need all those laws?
Probably not ALL of them. I imagine there's a nonzero number of codes in there that were put in at the behest of specific special interests, and do not serve the public interest as a whole. But probably the overwhelming majority of those laws are somewhere in the ballpark of "serving the public interest." Let's take a specific regulation, section 1124:
Section 1124 refers to ponds and reservoirs owned by the Department of Fish and Game. Specifically, ponds and reservoirs used for the purposes listed above. Should this section exist? Probably; the DFG uses those ponds for, well, protecting certain species of fish for purposes of maintaining California's ecology.
You might then ask, should the DFG exist at all? Well, if it didn't, it's fairly obvious that the state's ecology would suffer greatly, since there is very little financial profit in preserving the environment, but a great deal of money could be made by abusing it until it's destroyed. (It's the tragedy of the commons.) It's clearly in our interest to have an entity like the DFG, assuming that entity is effective and not impotent, draconian, or corrupt. Does the DFG necessarily do everything the best way possible? Almost certainly not; it's run by humans, after all. ;) But if it's going to exist, we need to detail exactly what powers and responsibilities that department has, and that has to be done in detail, lest some overzealous bureaucrat grab too much power simply because the law is ill-defined.
Laws that are too broad are useless. A law against (e.g.) "killing" would be not only useless but unjust; it would make killing in self-defense illegal. It's got to specify that only certain kinds of killing are unlawful... and it has to specify what kinds of actions constitute those kinds of killings... and what the penalties are for those actions. And it's got to use very precise wording. That's a lot of verbiage. California's section on the crime of murder (Penal Code sections 187-199) alone is ten thousand words. That's to cover ONE kind of act. (The entire Penal Code is about a million words.) You really think it's possible to have a just murder code that's a couple of sentences long? Or even a few paragraphs?
I agree that we should try to el
I didn't say anything about whether the inconvenience was justified. I merely refuted the original claim that nobody was inconvenienced by having to wait an extra five minutes on the tube.