Zazzle Sued Because Twilight Fans Like Making Their Own Merchandise

from the safe-harbors-anyone? dept

It looks like "print-on-demand/create your own t-shirt/mug/mouse pad store" company Zazzle has been sued for infringement by Summit Entertainment, who owns the licensing rights to the oh-so-popular Twilight movies. Apparently, all those excited tweens have been making their own Twilight merchandise. Now, basic common sense would tell you that Zazzle is the tool provider, and not the actual infringer here. But, Summit is claiming trademark violations, and (tragically and inexplicably) the official safe harbors cover things like copyright and defamation, but not trademark (hurray for legal loopholes). The only ones doing the actual infringement are the users, not Zazzle itself, but Zazzle has to hope that a court actually realizes this, and sometimes the courts get very, very confused on these sorts of things.

26 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Culture

by Mike Masnick

Mon, May 4th 2009 12:47pm

Another Bogus Copyright Takedown: Can't Protest A Viacom Movie With T-Shirts

from the where's-the-infringement? dept

Boing Boing points us to the news that someone who was trying to protest the fact that a new Viacom animated movie was hiring Caucasian actors to play Asian or Inuit characters found that the t-shirts she was selling via Zazzle were taken down due to a claim that they violated Viacom's intellectual property. It's difficult to see what the violation of intellectual property here is. The shirts don't use any imagery from the movie itself. The t-shirts were designed by the woman herself. The only thing they have is a mention of the name of the movie -- but that shouldn't be enough to force the content offline. On top of that, plenty of the shirts don't seem to name the movie at all, but do name one of the characters. Again, it's quite difficult to see how this is an intellectual property violation, in any way. The explanation that Zazzle gave isn't entirely clear -- as it might not be a case of Viacom complaining directly, but Zazzle taking the matter into its own hands (which is equally troubling). Whether it's Viacom or Zazzle, this appears to be an overly aggressive attempt to stop perfectly reasonable public speech by hiding behind intellectual property claims. Update: Someone from Viacom stopped by in the comments to let us know that it has no problem with the shirts. Zazzle just took the shirts down on their own, and Viacom has asked them to put the shirts back up. Nice to see Viacom respond in this manner.

28 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Search Techdirt

And now, a word from our Sponsors..

15% off discount for Techdirt Readers

Popular Posts

Poll

Add Techdirt RSS To Your Reader

Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Older Stuff

Tuesday
1:56pm:	Jury Says Fictional Character Can Be Libelous (28)
12:44pm:	Spam King Alan Ralsky Gets Four Years In Jail (26)
11:39am:	Publishers Getting The Wrong Message Over eBook Piracy (39)
10:28am:	Calling For An Independent Invention Defense In Patents (26)
9:12am:	Microsoft Tries To Silence Revelation Of Bing Cashback Flaws; Leads To Revelation Of Other Problems (41)
8:03am:	Don't Blame Facebook For Some Kids Beating Up Another Student (61)
6:46am:	Hulu Telling Sites To Stop Embedding So Much (44)
5:00am:	Once Again, If The Gov't Has Data, It Will Be Abused (42)
2:53am:	As Expected, Social Networking Generation Running For Office Face Their Permanent Record Online (31)
12:55am:	IMAX Sues Cinemark For Building Competing System... While Being An IMAX Customer (14)
Monday
10:26pm:	Filmmaker Allowed To Use The Name Rin Tin Tin To Describe Rin Tin Tin (6)
8:25pm:	Senators Begin Questioning ACTA Secrecy (32)
6:34pm:	Brazil E-Voting Machines Not Hacked... But Van Eck Phreaking Allowed Hacker To Record Votes (15)
5:08pm:	FCC Doesn't Think The Lack Of Competition Is A Major Barrier To Broadband? (36)
3:49pm:	Heads Of Major Movies Studios Claiming They Just Want To Help Poor Indie Films Harmed By Piracy (47)
2:38pm:	USPTO Convinced By Amazon That Online Gift Giving Patent Is Legit (19)
1:31pm:	Tiburon Approves Recording Every Car That Enters/Leaves... Despite More Evidence Of Traffic Camera Abuse In UK (88)
12:18pm:	Label Exec Arrested For Not Using Twitter To Disperse Crowd At Mall To See Singer (53)
11:01am:	Spanish Court Dismisses Complaint From Nintendo Against Counterfiet DS Cartridges, Since They Add Functionality (12)
9:55am:	Dear PR People: If Your Exec Has A Comment, Our Comments Are Open (25)
8:44am:	What Kind Of Mickey Mouse (And Donald Duck) Lawsuits Are These? (23)
7:30am:	Prosecutors Ending Lawsuit Against Lori Drew (13)
6:06am:	Dear Rupert: You Don't Succeed By Making Life More Difficult For Users (70)
4:20am:	ESPN Writer Suspended From Twitter (59)
2:10am:	School Can't Handle Critical Community Message Board; Sends Legal Nastygram (21)
Friday
7:39pm:	Liberian Laws Are A Secret Due To Copyright; Even The Gov't Doesn't Have Them (43)
6:56pm:	Lily Allen: It's Ok To Sell My Counterfeit CDs, Just Don't Give My Music For Free (97)
6:10pm:	EFF Looks To Bust Bogus Podcasting Patent; Needs Prior Art (34)
5:28pm:	Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up? (65)
4:44pm:	Entertainment Industry: Yes, Please Keep Negotiating Secret Copyright Treaty To Save Our Asses (43)

Quick Links

Current Insight Community Cases

Zazzle Sued Because Twilight Fans Like Making Their Own Merchandise

from the safe-harbors-anyone? dept

Another Bogus Copyright Takedown: Can't Protest A Viacom Movie With T-Shirts

from the where's-the-infringement? dept

Which Internet Concern Worries You The Most?

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Tuesday

Monday

Friday

More