[Infowarrior] - Sanders' Campaign DMCAs Wikimedia For Hosting His Logos

[Richard Forno]

Bernie Sanders' Campaign DMCAs Wikimedia For Hosting His Logos

from the wrong-on-so-many-levels dept

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160114/15244433346/bernie-sanders-campaign-dmcas-wikimedia-hosting-his-logos.shtml

What is it with political campaigns issuing totally bogus takedown notices? It happens all too frequently, especially with presidential campaigns. But the latest example may be the stupidest one we've seen to date. The folks at the Lumen Database (formerly Chilling Effects) alert us to the ridiculous news that Bernie Sanders' campain issued a bogus DMCA notice to the Wikimedia Foundation, because Wikimedia Commons has hosted some Sanders' logos. 

You can read the full takedown letter here, sent by a redacted lawyer at Garvey Schubert Barer, a firm that claims to have expertise in intellectual property law. If that's true, they sure don't show it in this letter. First of all, they're sending a DMCA notice, which only applies to copyright, but posting campaign logos is hardly copyright infringement. When you're talking about logos, at best you're talking trademark, but that's not an issue here either. Whether it's trademark or copyright, Wikimedia hosting campaign logos is clearly fair use. If they're really arguing copyright, then it's an easy fair use call. If it's trademark, there's no "use in commerce" on the Wikimedia side, and no likelihood of confusion. Either one is simply stupid to argue. 

Separately, these are campaign logos which are advertising for the campaign. What kind of clueless lawyer thinks the right move is to demand such things get taken down? 

And, then of course, there's the inevitable backlash over this. Presidential campaigns trying to censor people -- or worse, a site like Wikipedia -- is always going to backfire. It makes the campaign look thin-skinned, foolish and short-sighted. 

I'm guessing that if this makes enough news, the Sanders campaign will back down on this, and say it was an overzealous lawyer or some other such thing, but there's no reason such takedowns should ever be sent in the first place.


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