In 1649, to St. George’s Hill—
I was walking home from the sushi joint when it hit me, the full import of the passage Heidi MacDonald had quoted:
Not only did Groth re-use the piece—which is his right—but he took the opportunity to make another childish remark about me on the cover (apparently… I am advised). That, and the fact that he has not used the trademark registration of my name on the cover, thus exploiting a trademarked entity for his sole financial gain, with no smallest recompense to the trademark holder, puts him once again in my gunsights.
The trademark registration of his name on the cover?
I mean, I’d been skimming the post, hadn’t been paying that much attention; the fallout of the Fleisher suit and the resulting Ellison-Groth spat was about when I first started reading the Comics Journal, so I felt that much loyalty, I guess. Groth flipped somebody off yet again. Ellison’s taking umbrage for another walk about the block. Yeah yeah, sure sure. Aw, man, Seth Fisher died? —I wasn’t paying that much attention, is the point. Which is why it wasn’t until after the St. Helens plate and the green-tea cheesecake and the walk to the bus stop that it hit me, what he’d said.
—he has not used the trademark registration of my name on the cover—
So I went looking, and sure enough, you see it at the bottom of this piece, or that:
Harlan Ellison is a registered trademark of The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
And then you look at the byline and oh my God, there it is:
by Harlan Ellison®
And it’s not that those damn marcæ registradæ claw at the eyeball, snagging your attention as you pass it over the seething river of text that rushes past these days: unlettered interruptions in the abecederial flow that break the trance of reading, like “second”{-rate} post/moderne party tricks.™ It’s not just that (to my aggrieved eye, at least) ® and ™ and ℠ are signs that irrevocably signify pitches and propaganda, corporate greeting cards, snake oil in search of stooges; that they smear this implication over everything they touch. (Suddenly, I see in my mind’s eye a wall of Harlan Ellison® action figures—with kung fu grip!) —These are but matters of mere æsthetics, and wiser folk than I throw up their hands and cry “De gustibus!” Who am I to say otherwise?
Nor is it that when it comes to matters of name and fame and selling the words you write, I find Ellison’s stated reasons for looping this particular albatross about his neck to be hopelessly fusty:
We live in ever-more-complex technological times; the shapes of “emerging problems” are only beginning to loom large in the fog. And as Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” So I am extrapolating what scams and snafus MAY manifest themselves, and have moved to circumvent them before I get snookered and learn that some electronic poltroon has cobbled up a new way to screw the creator out of his/her creative rights. (Having employed this m.o. in re copyright registration years ago, has provided me the status to sue in my case against AOL.)
Sure, you can hold on tighter, gear up as David for one more one last fight against Goliath, best two out of three, but life is too short for Pyrrhic victories and depositions. (Thinking of those Harlan Ellison® action figures reminds me of that Robin Williams bit about seeing a dumpster full of discarded Mork® dolls. What has been commodified can be taken away.) —But what do I know? My name means almost nothing, and my words have only ever brought in beer money. Easy enough for me to pretend I could care less.
No, what concerns me about that brand seared into the collective unconscious after his name, after anyone’s name, is what happens, what could happen, when that brand is suddenly injected with a dose of HR 683.
- (c) Dilution by Blurring; Dilution by Tarnishment–
- ‘(1) INJUNCTIVE RELIEF- Subject to the principles of equity, the owner of a famous mark that is distinctive, inherently or through acquired distinctiveness, shall be entitled to an injunction against another person who, at any time after the owner’s mark has become famous, commences use of a mark or trade name in commerce that is likely to cause dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment of the famous mark, regardless of the presence or absence of actual or likely confusion, of competition, or of actual economic injury.
Now, it’s not Harlan Ellison I’m worried about. He would never, say, attempt to demonstrate that convention stories told out of school by a couple of famous japesters like Tycho and Gabe, in the arguably commercial context of bragging on their branded message boards, could constitute “dilution by tarnishment” of his famous mark. Nor do I think Ellison would seek to shut down free and open access to his Wikipedia entry, on the grounds that allowing just any slob in a smelly T-shirt to alter the public perception of his mark would dilute it through blurring. —But Ellison’s hardly the only person in the world who uses their name to conduct interstate commerce regulable by the federal government. Any slob in a smelly T-shirt who does likewise could slap a ™ or ℠ after their own name, or pony up a few hundred bucks and shoot for the circle-R. And whereas under the current law, the slob in a smelly T-shirt would have to prove that someone else in using their mark (registered or, less easily, otherwise) intended to—
- a) use in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive; or
- (b) reproduce, counterfeit, copy or colorably imitate a registered mark and apply such reproduction, counterfeit, copy or colorable imitation to labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptacles or advertisements intended to be used in commerce upon or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive,
—that they might seek injunctive relief (solely in order to protect the consumer from knock-off goods [or services] whose fake slob -in-a-smelly-T-shirt mark might be confused with real slob-in-a-smelly-T-shirt goods [or services]), well, now, or rather, soon, when (if?) the Senate passes its version of HR 683, and the two are reconciled, well, then the mark (itself already something of a good, or service, or at least a thing that can be blurred and tarnished; diluted) becomes moreso: no longer a method of protecting consumers, goods, and commerce, it too must be protected, cherished, zealously guarded. —And while some might take some little comfort in pointing out the fair use safe harbor the House carved out—
- (3) EXCLUSIONS- The following shall not be actionable as dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment under this subsection:
- ‘(A) Fair use of a famous mark by another person in comparative commercial advertising or promotion to identify the competing goods or services of the owner of the famous mark.
- ‘(B) Fair use of a famous mark by another person, other than as a designation of source for the person’s goods or services, including for purposes of identifying and parodying, criticizing, or commenting upon the famous mark owner or the goods or services of the famous mark owner.
- ‘(C) All forms of news reporting and news commentary.
—others might sadly shake their heads, remembering in what contempt fair usage is held these days, and point to the ADDITIONAL REMEDY that might be sought—
- (ii) by reason of dilution by tarnishment, the person against whom the injunction is sought willfully intended to harm the reputation of the famous mark,
—and then it’s all scorched-earth he-said-she-said, as far as the eye can see. (And though Ellison himself would never push this particular button, what about when he’s no longer with us? When the executors and officers of the Kilimanjaro Corporation have a fiduciary duty to protect that mark and best realize its potential? They would have no choice but to zealously prevent its dilution with every means at their disposal. —Though they might best be advised to step carefully: Wikipedia®, after all, is itself a registered trademark, and it might well be found that the publication of diatribes against its very modes and methods of operation might well dilute the mark…)
O brave new world.
’Tis new to me? Perhaps. —It should therefore be made quite clear that I don’t care whether Ellison brands every iteration of his name in the public sphere (beyond the curmudgeonly æsthetic concerns noted above); that it wouldn’t matter a whit if I did. He is entitled under the law to protect his commerce and his consumers fans, and if I tease him, it’s only because the shock of seeing the brand after his name was sudden and unexpected.
But I do care that Congress is trying to fence off yet another acre of free speech; that they wish to empower this corporation or that to shut me up, or you, or him, because something we’ve said might somehow, somewhere divert a buck or two from their coffers. That they are trying to create another piece of property inside my mind and mouth and art that somehow isn’t mine, is someone else’s, must be rented, borrowed, carefully considered, stepped around. —Fuck that, says I, and you should, too.
Contact Sen. Arlen Specter, the head of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, here. Public Citizen’s Litigation Group is defending Don Stewart in an anticipatory test case; you can support them here. And write your own Senators, once more, again, as well. Go! Go!
The tragedy of monied bullies and criminal gatekeepers screwing the rest of us for the sake of a greasy buck.
A few weeks ago I referenced a proposed new trademark law formally entitled “HR 683 – the Trademark Dilution Revision Act.” It passed in the House of Representatives and is under consideration by the Judiciary Committee.
Now stay with me, don’t get bored. This is important.
The Act contains certain anti-speech aspects which will directly affect illustrators, photographers and others.
It will serve to eliminate the current protection for non-commercial speech currently contained in the Lanham Act. It will prevent businesses (artists)and consumers from invoking famous trademarks to explain or illustrate their discussion of public issues.
For example, using the phrase “Where’s the Beef” could be actionable. Although you might use it in a non-commercial way, the (very) famous Wendy’s slogan when used to comment might not be protected by the fair use exception.
The Act would give companies considerable leverage in preventing artists and photographers from employing their marks in images by claiming the mark is being “diluted”. The bigger the company, the more famous the trademark, the easier it will be to prevent you guys from using it. National companies with highly recognizable marks would have more leverage than any single creator or small business and would easily outspend any of you to prevent your using their mark.
Exceptions for fair use, non-commercial use, reportage, commentary, etc. currently existing could disappear and would be no defense to claims of infringement of a registered or unregistered mark.
The net treats censorship as damage and routes around it.
Once more, it never was “the tragedy of the commons.” It’s always been “the tragedy of monied bullies and criminal gatekeepers screwing the rest of us for the sake of a greasy buck.”
The son of the shirt.
Some facts about Cindy Sheehan’s arrest last night:
- It wasn’t a protest.
I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; “Protester.” He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs…. I was never told that I couldn’t wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things…I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later.
- Even if it were a protest, it wasn’t illegal.
As the Bynum court explained: “Believing that the Capitol Police needed guidance in determining what behavior constitutes a ‘demonstration,’ the United States Capitol Police Board issued a regulation that interprets ‘demonstration activity’,” and that regulation specifically provides that it “does not include merely wearing Tee shirts, buttons or other similar articles of apparel that convey a message. Traffic Regulations for the Capitol Grounds, §158” (emphasis added).
- Nor is it fair they’re doing it to Republicans, too. (And everyone else, it seems.)
Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom.”
She was sitting about six rows from first lady Laura Bush and asked to leave. She argued with police in the hallway outside the House chamber.
“They said I was protesting,” she told the St. Petersburg Times. “I said, “Read my shirt, it is not a protest.’ They said, ‘We consider that a protest.’ I said, ‘Then you are an idiot.’”
You might want to counter the crazy-ass email Rep. Lynn Woolsey is doubtless getting as a result of all this. Were you so inclined.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Plying her needle and thread,—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
Do as I say, don’t do as I do.
This one pretty much speaks for itself.
On January 27, 2006, the Lowell Sun of Massachusetts published an article entitled “Rewriting history under the dome.” This story unveiled the editing by Congressional staff members of Congressman Marty Meehan’s Wikipedia entry.
Further investigation by Wikipedia members discovered well over a thousand edits by IP addresses allocated to the US House of Representatives and Senate. These edits had, among others, added libelous statements, removed content with malice, added childish insults, and violated Wikipedia Policy. This has resulted in the blocking of at least one of the IP addresses and the opening of a request for comments page.
The next time a politician or a pundit starts sniffing about the Wild West coarsening of our fine political discourse that’s engendered by those nasty, nasty bloggers, well, you know what to do. —Via the incomparable Majikthise.
This isn’t a joke. We are the domestic anti-terrorism task force.
In the summer of 2004 I had made the decision to go to Iraq with Circus2Iraq.org, an NGO that does circus performances for children in many areas inside Iraq. I planned to go in the late spring of 2005. I received notice that September that Action Medical, and travel a great deal inside the United States to medic at protests and actions. I intended to travel to the G8 in Scotland to medic after my trip to Iraq, but as I couldn’t go to Iraq I had failed to solidify my plans for going to G8. In fact at the time the interview was happening I hadn’t even applied for a passport.
All of which of course means Tabitha Chase has to go downtown under threat of arrest for a 2-hour interview with Special Agents Omar Molina, Dante Jackson, and a third to be named later. Our ostensible threat is doing just fine after five years of dead-or-alive, but it’s okay; Homeland Security is all over the Wobbly strippers.
It was ever thus. —Smile pretty and watch your back. (Thanks, McP.)
The Gang of 25.
So I’m standing here covered in website dust as I try to plug all the leaks and I’m not paying too much attention to the events of the day and I was tempted, sorely tempted, to make a crème brûlée joke, and then I read Digby and I felt better.
The last time we had a serious outpouring from the grassroots was the Iraq War resolution. My Senator DiFi commented at the time that she had never seen anything like the depth of passion coming from her constituents. But she voted for the war anyway. So did Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Kerry and Reid. The entire leadership of the party. Every one of them went the other way this time. I know that some of you are cynical about these people (and, well, they are politicans, so don’t get all Claude Rains about it) but that means something. Every one of those people were running in one way or another in 2002 and they went the other way. The tide is shifting. There is something to be gained by doing the right thing.
I know you’re tired. So am I. Chop wood. Carry water. Repeat.
This is what they have made of us. This is what we have become.
There’s this inch—
An inch. It’s small and it’s fragile and it’s the only thing in the world that’s worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I don’t know who you are, or whether you’re a man or woman. I may never see you. I will never hug you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you.
—and it’s a really lovely thing to think about but ultimately, you know what? That inch is nothing.
They take it as easily as they take the mile and what do you do when it’s done?
Joe Sacco talked to a couple of men we picked up off the street in Iraq and tortured and interrogated and then let go without ever explaining why, and he sees just how easy it is to take that inch away. —Via the Beat.
Our liberal media at work.
Who can forget your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he “made a mistake” after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?
I mean he sounds like an over-the-top Ann Coulter here, if not an Ann Coulter.
We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honor, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication [and] homosexuality…
Asked whether bin Laden had expressed “almost the same” sentiments that [Sen. Rick] Santorum did during an appearance on [Bob] Schieffer’s Face the Nation broadcast, the CBS anchorman told WABC Radio’s Mark Simone: “Well, he did. That’s exactly right.”
Ha ha! Had you going there, didn’t I. Just kidding! —You can slag on Matthews for his inept dissection of rhetoric here, and I’d send you here to snarl at Schieffer, only they yanked the software that processes your comment sometime yesterday after Think Progress posted the link, and haven’t gotten around to fixing it, yet.
(Damn. All these fine, first-world, top-flight media organizations that can’t keep their commenting software in fighting trim. —Programmers! I smell job opportunities!)
“Not comfortable.”
The Democrats have chosen Tim Kaine, the newly elected Democratic governor of Virgina, to rebut President Bush’s State of the Union address. Presumably, selecting a Marine who’s tough enough to tell his Swift Boaters where to shove it would demonstrate the Democrats are weak on national security; Kaine, after all, unlike a solid majority of America, supports the war in Iraq.
Tim Kaine is also against same-sex marriage. He’s even against civil unions. Unlike a majority of America.
Virginia’s House of Delegates just passed House Joint Resolution No. 41 by a margin of 73 to 22. House Joint Resolution No. 41 proposes to amend Article I of the commonwealth’s constitution, its Bill of Rights, by adding Section 15-A. Section 15-A would read as follows:
Section 15-A. Marriage.
That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.
This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.
Governor Kaine has stated he’s “not comfortable” with the breadth of this amendment’s language. He’ll sign it, should Virginia’s Senate approve likewise, turning it over to a commonwealth-wide referendum on whether it should be pasted into the constitution. But he won’t be comfortable when he does it.
One should, perhaps, ask him—and the commonwealth’s Senate—how comfortable they are with the idea that this amendment could strip unmarried couples throughout the state of basic domestic violence protections. Ohio’s similar amendment has been causing confusion on just that score.
One should, perhaps, ask him—and the strutting 73 members of the House who ignored their colleague’s stirring denunciation—how comfortable they are with the idea that this amendment will strip property from people like Sam Beaumont because of a legal technicality.
One should ask him, and the commonwealth’s voters, how comfortable they are with the idea that this amendment will ensure that people like Laurel Hester will never see justice in Virginia.
Look: I have some appreciation of the political realities. Tim Kaine isn’t in a comfortable place right now. His legislature’s in the hands of power-mad, scapegoat-hungry radicals. Shooting down a resolution that passed with a 73 – 22 margin is suicidally stupid for a rookie governor who just barely won a hard-fought campaign, and Democrats everywhere owe him for a breath of hope this past November. And there’s many a slip yet betwixt this poisonous cup and lip: the Senate could be compelled by vociferous national outrage to reject its cameral compadre’s bigotry. If it ends up as a referendum, that vociferous national outrage, along with some very public boycotts, might could motivate enough decent human beings (and shame enough bigots) to shoot it down before it’s scribbled permanently in the margins. Kaine could even step in to water it down to a less horribly divisive and discriminatory measure, though what a weak thing that would be to call victory. —So, yes: there’s no reason to believe his refusal to sign would do any good, and enough to believe it would actively harm, to allow as how one might sympathize with how not comfortable he is.
Doesn’t mean we have to be comfortable with him speaking for us this year. Doesn’t mean we have to be comfortable with the folks that think we should.
Lay down the mony upon the nail, and the business is done.
Oh, even-the-liberal-Kevin-Drum.
First, at the very least, trust but verify; it’s a long way from “ABC News has learned that Pakistani officials now believe” to the blithe assertion that “we did get one of al Qæda’s big fish in the attack on Damadola last week.” Remember: never assume, for if you do, you make an ass out of you and me.
But.
Even if one were to grant the shockingly naïve assumptions available, each in their particulars, you’ve got the question wrong, all wrong: it is not up to us to tell you whether the death of a 52-year-old master bomb-maker and the disruption of an “apparent terror summit” are worth the deaths of 18 genuinely innocent bystanders. The question on the table is and always has been: how many genuinely innocent bystanders must die before you say enough? Would twenty make you uncomfortable? How about fifty? Maybe if they weren’t “genuinely” innocent? If ironclad proof of each of those assumptions were, somehow, available, would you go as high as a hundred bystanders, wedding guests, in-laws, kids? Were it possible to claim on the nightly news that Midhat Mursi and Khalid Habib and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi would convene no more terror summits, and Ayman al-Zawahiri now slept with “his eyes wide open,” “wondering who handed him up,” would it be worth your death?
War is wrong. It may sometimes be necessary, or at best unavoidable, but it is wrong. It makes monsters of us: soldiers, pundits, commenteers all.
Give it up for the last honest libertarian.
Thanks to Jim Henley, you’ll never have to hear another ticking time-bomb scenario ever ever again.
Still a uniter, not a divider.
You learn a lot whenever you visit wood s lot; today, I learned I agree with the John Birch Society.
NORRIS: Generals Edwin Walker and Clyde Watts both attacked MAD; calling it Communistic. FACT magazine made it out that you counter-attacked the John Birch Society, in the article “MAD Interviews A ‘John Birch Society’ Policeman” from MAD #97, September 1965, because of the Generals’ statements. Was this true?
FELDSTEIN: No! Anti-Communist panic… Red-baiting… and the Cold War with Russia was going on at that time, reaching a peak… and like every other era, including today!... contained serious, frightening reactionary organizations and movements in support of those causes that were beginning to infringe upon our basic Constitutional Liberties and Freedoms. The John Birch Society was one of the more infamous and outstanding of those organizations… and invited, no, begged for a biting, critical, MAD satirical treatment… hence the article, “MAD Interviews a ‘John Birch Society Policeman’”... an extreme point of departure that stressed how the “John Birch Society” thinking… in the hands of a Law Enforcement Officer… could be devastating and dangerous to our Civil Liberties, etc.
Don’t waste good iron for nails, or good men for soldiers.
Ten thousand years of human history was as nothing to us when taking the steps to safeguard it might have interfered with the safety of our troops, or inconvenienced our operational parameters.
But embarrass a Republican donor, like David H. Brooks? Whose DHB Industries manufactures Point Blank Armor? Which is insufficiently supplied to our troops through a 500 million dollar contract? Whose product failures are at the heart of a leaked, top-secret study that found 80% of our dead troops might have survived with adequate armor? Whose main competitor, Dragon Skin, is favored by nine of the generals currently serving in Afghanistan? Embarrass the likes of a man who can hire and fire the likes of Aerosmith and 50 Cent for his daughter’s bat mitzvah by working with your parents to scrape together the $6,000 you need for the safer, better, non-issue stuff?
Well. Fuck you, soldier. The order has come down from on high: drop the non-issue armor, or your family will lose your death benefits. Fuck your safety; fuck your people; fuck the op. Some things in this world are more important than your brief life, rounded by a sleep.
Why does America hate America?
On the one hand, 52% of America supports impeachment of the president, assuming he wiretapped American citizens without judicial approval (which he did, has been doing since he took office, and intends to keep right on doing, dammit); on the other, Jonah Goldberg and his ilk see no problem at all with a complete abrogation of constitutional rights—assuming the abrogatee is a drug dealer, or a terrorist, or related to a drug dealer, or a terrorist, or could conceivably have dealt drugs or terror at some point, or, y’know, looks like they might have, or is just, heck, evil, because we all know evil when we see it, so long as it isn’t him, or anyone he gives a fuck about, he’s cool, so what the hell is your problem, you liberal no-goodnik?
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