Thank you for your interest in Zazzle.com, and thank you for publishing products on Zazzle. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that many of your products are in violation of Zazzle’s Copyright policies. Specifically, your product contains a logo copyrighted by Obama for America.
I guess it was easier for the Army of O to be magnanimous when they thought they had this one in the bag...
32 comments:
So I guess the one mint condition CafePress sticker I have just shot up in value, eh? Sweet!
As I learned after dealing with zazzle, you can buy your own blank bumper sticker printer paper at the office supply store and print your own stickers on your computer printer. They can be bumper stickers, or you can cut them up however you like. There are aslo full sized sticker sheets if your graphic is larger than the width of a bumper sticker.
How is it violating copyright when you're using to spoof, parody or poke fun of Obama? That's perfectly legal. You should point that out to them.
Replace the "o" with his face and see if that is a violation as well. I think your bumper sticker is fantastic.
Dang, and here I was going to order me a couple soon, I guess I'll have to get a couple McCain/MILF '08 stickers instead!
fairlane,
That's VPILF, thank you very much.
Barry doesn't have much of a sense of humor. In her defense, Hillary could toss back a few whiskeys on the chartered campaign jet o' doom, not worry too much about the multi-million-dollar bar tab, and laugh.
Thats why I bought them plus a T-shirt when you first put them there. I figured this would happen. Hey...collector items!
Fairlane, please feel free to buy a McCain/MILF sticker!
Tam, I'm sporting my now illegal copyright infringement bumper sticker on my Wrangler, right below my NRA decal and across from my "Caution, I may or may not brake for Schrodinger's Cat" sticker.
Had I know Zazzle was going to wuss out, I'd have kept it pristine!
Y'know what irks me? I never even bought one of my own stickers. I kept meaning to, but one thing and another...
I'm glad mine is already on the bumper of my truck...
We should do a McCain/Palin Eclipse of the Obama Sun, changing the red to a soggy brown hue, the baby blue softly going gray and the overwhelming planetary object of the Republican Elephant grinning as the Obama oh! is snuffed.... yeah, I like it.
But like writing a novel, someone probably has already done it somewhere and the Dems' lawyers are on the hunt.
Funny, they haven't said anything about my anti-Obama sticker yet. Maybe it's too subtle for them: http://www.zazzle.com/dare_to_hope_bumpersticker-128892770656038212
A guy I bike with got a chuckle out of the one on my car (next to Tam's version). He's the type to vote for Obama, but he appreciates good satire.
Chris
Tam,
I could have sworn that satire was protected free speech.
You might want to point them to this article from the American Bar Association:
http://www.abanet.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf
From the first page:
"The fair use of copyrighted works for purposes such as criticism or comment is not an infringement of copyright."
Another thing someone could do is create a new account and immediately order 100 (or some other wholesale quantity) before they noticed. Then resell them privately.
Or just print them up yourself with the bumper sticker paper from the office supply store (as anonymous suggested) and sell them directly.
Mine came last week. Bought a couple of each style. I've got it taped to the *inside* of my back window to prevent easy vandalism. Of course, my truck will still probably be keyed, or my tires cut, but it'd be more difficult to break out my back window to steal the sticker than to peel it off the outside.
SWMBO hasn't put one on her vehicle as of yet primarily because she works on a campus with a thriving Wobblie chapter full of wannabe anarchists. I'd hate to find her vehicle buring in the parking lot, as I haven't hooked up the Claymore Anti-Vandal System (pat. pending) to it.
Regards,
Rabbit.
McCain: imPALINg democrats each and every day.
Get a P.O. Box for the bidness address, then print your own tees and stickers as people order them. Presto, you're an entrepreneur! Just get a TID# for in-state sales. If anyone has a problem, remind them that Saturday Night Live has been making parodies for nearly 40 years, and NBC has been profiting from it via commercial ad space. And Mad Magazine? What company had those Wacky Stickers? They sold those like hotcakes in the 70's. there's your defense in case some Obaminating lawyer wants to shake you down regarding copyright.
p.s.: In Indiana, the governor's campaign tag line was his first name with a ! at the end. This year, his opponent is doing the exact same thing. And I don't think it's parody. Lame.
This is a sad abuse of copyright law to suppress political speech.
Dude, Robb - where did you get the Schroedinger's Cat sticker? I want one, BAD.
Just stick a big ol' hammer 'n sickle on it.
That sucks.
Unfortunately, Zazzle did not have the magnetic bumper stickers offered by Cafe Press. Back in '04, I had a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on my car. I could definitely detect a difference in the way people around me drove once I applied it to my bumper. Back then, I had an old car, and didn't worry about possible vandalism as much. Now, however, I have a nice new car and would really like NOT to have it keyed by some otherwise completely peace-loving lib. Apparently, violence is NEVER the answer for libs, unless they are faced with the thoughtcrime of someone being for the other team.
The name of change is Sarah
What if we ALL open a zazzle account, and put Tam's design up? I wonder if they can catch all of us?
You should also be able to take "artistic privilege" with it by modifying it from the standard copyright. Suggestions like putting a hammer and sickle or adding a cursory graphic to it should be considered "artistic," and likely also satiric.
As an intellectual property attorney, but not YOUR attorney, I'll just clarify a couple of things, if I may.
The Fair Use defense to copyright infringement stemming from freedom of speech is an affirmative defense that the defendent has to prove at trial, and copyright infringment now carries criminal penalties. So expecting Zazzle to go along with your copyright infringment on the basis that you have the affirmative defense of fair use available is like expecting them to help you murder someone on the basis that it is self defense. And, even with such a defense available, people like Disey have shown they can sue you into the poorhouse, no matter how good your fair use defense.
Secondly, modifying the Obama graphic will not avoid infringement because it is a derivative work.
Long story short, you have to make them yourself, like I suggested above with the bumper sticker printer paper.
And don't forget, THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE.
Y'know, just in entering the keyword I came up with this:
Matching "0b4m4": displaying 1 - 15 of 44,923 designs
None of them seem to have been yanked (jerked?) off yet. I'd be raising 9 kinds of hell.
The 'official' site offers these logos, images, etc. for free use, with this disclaimer at the bottom of the main logo page:
"By downloading the 0b4m4 for America ("0FA") logo from this site, you agree that you will use the logo only for your personal, non-commercial use. You cannot market, promote, sell, or exchange anything that bears this logo. To avoid having to register with the FEC, you should limit your printed flyers, posters, or other materials for any event to 500 or fewer."
The TOS disclaimer says this:
"Your use of Information Contained on Website
The entire Website is copyrighted. Certain articles or materials within the Website also may be separately copyrighted by us or by others, as indicated. If you find these materials useful, you may download, copy, display, print out, or send a copy to others so long as each copy indicates the appropriate copyright notice, credits us as your source, and is used only for your personal use. You are expressly prohibited, however, from downloading, copying, displaying, printing out, or sending a copy to others for bulk or commercial uses, or for any defamatory or otherwise illegal purpose. You acknowledge that the permission granted in this section does not constitute an endorsement by us of you or your use of the information and content. Please contact us directly for special copyright permissions."
I'm damned sure nobody else on Zazzit or CP got permission in writing.
Obviously, you have a "special friend" who narc'ed you out. Dammit.
And no, IANAL, but I eat them on a frequent basis to keep the level of bile built up in my system.
Regards,
Rabbit...proudly displaying Keep The Change.
I was using zazzle to make beer bottle labels for some beer I brewed. I wanted to make some for that had the St Louis Cardinals logo on it and "world series champions" and they refused to print them for CR infringement. I think it just depends on the person that goes to put in the order and print them up, they might balk if they recognize the graphic. Maybe you could just submit another order and see if it goes through with a different person handling the order. Again, NOT legal advice.
Of course when John McCain has already received cease-and-desist letters from John Mellencamp, John Hall and Heart, and has been threatened with legal action from Mike Meyers and Jackson Browne, not to mention CBS News forcing YouTube to pull a McCain ad that improperly used clips of Katie Couric, it's not surprising that right-wingers have no comprehension of copyright.
It's their logo. They own the rights to it, not you. Try spending as much time and effort to do something constructive.
And another butt-hurt anonymous lef'tard loser is heard from.
Obama is going to tank harder than Dukakis ... and you know it.
Fookin' anonymous cowards.
Rabbit.
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