‘Lol, No’ Is The Perfect Response To LAPD’s Nonsense ‘IP’ Threat Letter Over ‘Fuck The LAPD’ Shirt
from the fuck-the-lapd dept
We’ve had plenty of posts discussing all manner of behavior from the Los Angeles Police Dept. and/or the LAPD union here at Techdirt. As you might imagine if you’re a regular reader here, the majority of those posts haven’t exactly involved fawning praise for these supposed crimefighters. In fact, if you went on a reading blitz of those posts, you might even come away thinking, “You know what? Fuck the LAPD!”
Well, if you wanted to display your sentiments while you went about your day, you might go over to the Cola Corporation’s website to buy one particular shirt it had on offer there before they completely sold out.
Now, it’s not uncommon for misguided entities to issue intellectual property threat letters over t-shirts and apparel, even when it is of the sort that is obviously fair use. Given that, you might have thought it would be the Los Angeles Lakers that sent a nastygram to Cola Corp. After all, the logo in question is clearly a parody of the LA Lakers logo.
Nope!
It was the Los Angeles Police Foundation via its IMG representatives. The LAPF is something of a shadow financier of the LAPD for equipment, including all manner of tech and gear. We have no idea how an entertainment agency like IMG got in bed with these assbags, but it was IMG sending the threat letter you can see below, chock full of all kinds of claims to rights that the LAPF absolutely does not and could not have.
If you can’t see that, it’s a letter sent by Andrew Schmidt, who represents himself as the Senior Counsel to IMG Worldwide, saying:
RE: Request to Remove Infringing Material From www.thecolacorporation.com
Dear Sir/Madam:I am writing on behalf of IMG Worldwide, LLC (“IMG”), IMG is the authorized representative of Los Angeles Police Foundation CLAPF) LAPF is one of two exclusive holders of intellectual property rights pertaining to trademarks, copyrights and other licensed indicia for (a) the Los Angeles Police Department Badge; (b) the Los Angeles Police Department Uniform; (c) the LAPD motto “To Protect and Serve”; and (d) the word “LAPD” as an acronym/abbreviation for the Los Angeles Police Department (collectively, the “LAPD IP”). Through extensive advertising, promotion and the substantial sale of a full range of licensed products embodying and pertaining to the LAPD IP, the LAPD IP has become famous throughout the world; and as such, carries immeasurable value to LAPF.
We are writing to you regarding an unauthorized use of the LAPD IP on products being sold on your website, www.thecolacorporation.com (the “Infringing Product”). The website URL and description for the Infringing Product is as follows:
https://www.thecolacorporation.com/products fack-the- lupd pos-1&sid=435934961&&variant=48461787234611 FUCK THE LAPD
For the avoidance of doubt, the aforementioned Infringing Product and the image associated therewith are in no way authorized or approved by LAPF or any of its duly authorized representatives.This letter hereby serves as a statement that:
- The aforementioned Infringing Product and the image associated therewith violate LAPF’s rights in the LAPD IP
- These exclusive rights in and to the LAPD IP are being violated by the sale of the Infringing Product on your website at the URL mentioned above;
- [Contact info omitted]
- On information and belief, the use of the LAPD IP on the Infringing Products is not authorized by LAPF, LAPF’s authorized agents or representatives or the law.
- Under penalty of perjury, I hereby state that the above information is accurate and I am duly authorized to act on on behalf of the rights holder of the intellectual. property at issue I hereby request that you remove or disable access the above-mentioned materials and their corresponding URL’s as they appear on your services in as expedient a manner as possible.
So, where to begin? For starters, note how the letter breezily asserts copyright, trademark, and “other licensed indicia” without ever going into detail as to what it thinks it actually holds the rights to? That’s an “indicia” of a legal threat that is bloviating, with nothing to back it up. If you know what rights you have, you clearly state them. This letter does not.
If it’s a copyright play that the LAPF is trying to make, it’s going to go absolutely nowhere. The use is made for the purposes of parody and political commentary. It’s clearly fair use, and there are plenty of precedents to back that up. Second, what exactly is the copyright claim here? It’s not the logo. Again, if anything, that would be the Lakers’ claim to make. The only thing possibly related to the LAPD would be those letters: LAPD. And, no, the LAPD does not get to copyright the letters LAPD.
If it’s a trademark play instead, well, that might actually work even less for the LAPF, for any number of reasons. Again, this is parody and political commentary: both First Amendment rights that trump trademarks. More importantly, in trademark you have the question of the likelihood of confusion. We’re fairly sure the LAPF doesn’t want to make the case that the public would be confused into thinking that the Los Angeles Police Foundation was an organization that is putting out a “Fuck the LAPD” t-shirt. Finally, for there to be a trademark, there has to be a use in commerce. Is the LAPF selling “Fuck the LAPD” t-shirts? Doubtful.
But that’s all sort of besides the point, because the LAPF doesn’t have the rights IMG asserted in its letter. Again, the only possible claim that the LAPF can make here is that it has ownership to the letters LAPD. And it does not. Beyond the fact that it had no “creative” input into LAPD, the LAPD is a city’s law enforcement agency and you cannot copyright or trademark such a thing. And, as we’ve discussed multiple times in the past, government agencies don’t get to claim IP on their agency names. The only restrictions they can present are on deceptive uses of logos/seals/etc.
But that is clearly not the case here. And we already have some examples from a decade ago of government agencies demanding the removal of parody logos and… it not ending very well for the government.
So, what is actually happening here is that the LAPF/LAPD (via IMG) is pretending it has the right to screw with private citizens in ways it absolutely does not, and is using those false rights to harass those private persons with threatening behavior to intimidate them into doing what the LAPF wants. Which, if I’m being totally honest here, is certainly on brand as roughly the most police-y thing it could do in response to a simple t-shirt that is no longer even for sale.
Now, you might imagine that the Cola Corporation’s own legal team would reply to the silly threat letter outlining all of the above, crafting a careful and articulate narrative responding to all the points raised by the LAPF, and ensuring that their full legal skills were on display.
Instead, the company brought on former Techdirt podcast guest, lawyer Mike Dunford, who crafted something that is ultimately even better.
If you can’t read that, you’re not missing much. It says:
Andrew,
Lol, no.
Sincerely,
Mike Dunford
Perfect. No notes. May it go down in history alongside Arkell v. Pressdam, or the infamous Cleveland Browns response to a fan complaining about paper airplanes, as the perfect way to respond to absolutely ridiculous legal threat letters.
For what it’s worth, Dunford’s boss, Akiva Cohen, noted that this letter was “a fun one to edit.” We can only imagine.
This was a fun one to edit
— AkivaMCohen (@akivamcohen.bsky.social) Apr 18, 2024 at 2:47 PM
Filed Under: copyright, intellectual property, lapd, lol, lol no, mike dunford, police, threats, trademark
Companies: cola corporation, img, la lakers, lapf
Comments on “‘Lol, No’ Is The Perfect Response To LAPD’s Nonsense ‘IP’ Threat Letter Over ‘Fuck The LAPD’ Shirt”
Were there a chef’s kiss emoji, I would post it here.
Re:
👨🍳😚 is the closest I can get until there is one.
Re: Re:
😚🤌
Into the annals of Techdirt history!
This response should go down in the Techdirt history books alongside:
-“Call it The Streisand Effect”
-“Protocols, Not Platforms”
-“Hello! You’ve been directed here because you’re wrong about §230!”
-“Elon’s Content Moderation Speed-running curve”
and more I can’t name…
After reading this response letter and the other response letters you linked to, it got me thinking: The past brief humorous responses were perfectly summed up in this newest one. But, is there a way to sum it up so it’s even shorter?
I think the answer to this question can be best summed up with the wise words of Mike Dunford:
Re:
I mean just “No” would be shorter.
(And also happens to hold the record for shortest movie review; it’s Leonard Maltin’s review of the 1948 film Isn’t It Romantic?)
Re:
Or what about, “What IP?* You know, the LAPD being a government agency and all?
hell yeah!
The sooner major American cities like LA (and NYC and Chicago, SF, Seattle…etc) get rid of their rights-oppressing police departments the better!
There will never be restorative justice or equity as long as productive taxpayers’ earnings go to support those militarized thugs!!
IP can do anything!!!
As long as your target doesn’t have a lawyer willing to respond to idiotic claims how they should be answered to.
Hmm, alright, but what about The Offspring’s 1992 song “L.A.P.D.”?: “Beat all the niggers / Beat whoever you see / Don’t need a reason / L.A.P.D.”
I mean, there must have been some serious confusion about whether that was an officially endorsed statement, given how closely it seemed to match the L.A.P.D.’s actions and how the officers were defending those actions. But it doesn’t appear that anyone was sued over the song.
Re: Trade secret?
Maybe the LAPD has a trade secret case against Offspring.
“the LAPD motto “To Protect and Serve” ”
I guess the next t-shirt needs to say, “Protest and Swerve!”
Maybe they’ll get lucky and get another comical letter…
Re:
Or “To Protect and Sever”—although that might upset Fox, as The Simpsons Already Did It (AABF01, 11:48).
Re: That sounds familiar
Considering one of the top two involuntary retirement packages consists of single vehicle 💥 collisions I doubt they know how to swerve.
probably too late
It may be too late to protect this one. Many other police departments use this same claim.
Needs more t-shirts.
Image of an LAPD officer shooting an innocent man holding a baby (in the back) from a distance.
“LAPD – Once you shoot blacks, you never go back”
etc
LAPD would then claim IP on shooting of completely innocent people as “thats our business model”
what the hell does this have to do with the Lakers?
So this is an example of someone using the logo of one group to insult another group. What if group A is on good terms with group B or just doesn’t want to be dragged into it?
The t-shirt maker would be on firmer ground to forget about the Lakers logo. What does that have to do with anything, you think a bunch of millionaire basketball players have any beef with the cops? they’re both part of the power structure.
Just come up with your own logo/lettering/coloring. To use the Lakers logo is very clueless about the realities of the sports industry. You might as well use the Microsoft logo.
Re:
Considering the demographics of the players and the interactions some have had on the past with this particular organization, my speculation is that administration is staying well away from this like a ODT a Bouncing Betty.
Re:
Group A can steer clear of the situation by either refusing to say anything or privately assuring Group B that the parody logo was not produced or endorsed by Group A. And that assumes Group B believes Group A had a role in making the parody logo.
Re:
Lakers are just part of LA culture. Rich men don’t have to own everything. Cope.
"Besides the point"?
It’s not “besides the point”; it’s “beside the point.” This is just basic English, and the fact that a lot of people use it incorrectly isn’t an excuse to do so in a reputable publication.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/beside-the-point
A British Response
This would require reference to Arkell v Pressdram which is similarly brief and to the point.
Dilution
You don’t address dilution by tarnishment, which sadly under the Court’s recent cases makes this a colorable claim.
https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-137/jack-daniels-properties-inc-v-vip-products-llc/