the misadventures of weather boy

Humorous opinion

I urge everyone to go read Mattel v. MCA, 296 F.3d 894 (9th Cir. 2002). The innuendo is so humorous. Where else can you get the following:

• "If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong." (Id, at 898)
• "For example, Tylenol snowboards, Netscape sex shops and Harry Potter dry cleaners would all weaken the 'commercial magnetism' of these marks and diminish their ability to evoke their original associations." (Id, at 903)

• After Mattel filed suit, Mattel and MCA employees traded barbs in the press. When an MCA spokeswoman noted that each album included a disclaimer saying that Barbie Girl was a "social commentary [that was] not created or approved by the makers of the doll," a Mattel representative responded by saying, "That's unacceptable. ...It's akin to a bank robber handing a note of apology to a teller during a heist. [It ] neither diminishes the severity of the crime, nor does it make it legal." He later characterized the song as a "theft" of "another company's property."
  
  MCA filed a counterclaim for defamation based on the Mattel representative's use of the words "bank robber," "heist," "crime" and "theft." But all of these are variants of the invective most often hurled at accused infringers, namely "piracy." No one hearing this accusation understands intellectual property owners to be saying that infringers are nautical cutthroats with eyepatches and peg legs who board galleons to plunder cargo. In context, all these terms are nonactionable "rhetorical hyperbole," Gilbrook v. City of Westminster, 177 F.3d 839, 863 (9th Cir. 1999). The parties are advised to chill.

  Id., at 908 (emphasis supplied)

Labels: law

posted by weather boy @ 3:10 PM