Palefaces: Redskins' Name OK
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SMU_Sox said:
I think that's what makes PBD's point, though.
People supporting tort reform held that case up as their shining example of jury awards run amok, and (I imagine) made points that are logically identical to those Luis Taint is making: that the plaintiff's victory on this frivolous lawsuit will allow for countless similar lawsuits, and that the rest of us would suffer as plaintiffs lawyers and their clients got rich.
In fact (and as you point out) the McDonalds case rested on far more than a garden variety "spilled coffee", and had merit, so the threat of it opening the door to frivolous lawsuits was entirely unfounded.
Likewise, the case against the Redskins is meritorious, so saying that it will only serve to cause other, non-offensive, names to fall out of use is illogical.
EDIT: shit, he already covered this.
simplyeric said:
Right. But I wasn't responding to the guy you were responding to, I was responding to what you posted, specifically the last part.
This is why you get confused by other people in threads and they get frustrated with you. You need to follow the flow and accept new ideas, not fixate on what you think the conversation is about.
Awesome Fossum said:
I think their feelings are, pretty much, worthless in this instance.
They root for a money-making enterprise on their own volition. The only reason their feelings "matter" is the threat that they will stop buying gear and tickets if the name is changed. Native Americans can't up and decide to change their heritage or ancestry.
edit: removed. adds nothing to the conversation except taking a shot at an (IMO) ignorant poster.
Luis Taint said:
Honest question #1: do you not see the difference between "Braves", "Black Hawks", and "Seminoles" compared to "Redskins"?
Honest question #2: would it be permissible, in your opinion, to rename the 49ers the "Yellowskins" and have a Chinese person's profile as their logo? How about the Cleveland "Brownskins", with an African man's profile? When you went to work on Monday morning, would you feel comfortable talking to your white friends about "that great Brownskin game yesterday!" in front of a black colleague?
I am assuming this is aimed at me, seeing as how this thread is going. Leave it up I don't care. I am not a cry baby, I can take a shot as well as give it. That is the difference between the left and right.dbn said:
drleather2001 said:
Exactly. That's why it's hard to have an honest conversation with fans when this is the starting point. People see red (no pun intended) and dig in their heels. Maybe sports and fandoms shouldn't be that important to people, but they are.
Luis Taint said:
You do know that three judges who ruled in this case were Bush appointees, right?
Luis Taint said:
It was, and I didn't edit it with your feelings in mind. Rather, threads can downward-spiral when things get snippy, and I prefer not to contribute to that end. (Maybe that's another difference between the left and right?)
Luis Taint said:
Tell me about the Rosicrucians.
SumnerH said:
Neat find. Bracketing the empirical scalp issue, this ad clearly uses the term in the pejorative as, among other things, positing the unregenerate nature of their souls.
I propose Snyder rename the team the "Dirty Sinful Aborigines."
Seabass177 said:
Thank you for that. I wish I had better thought through my post, because I still feel like focusing on how the word was used post-origins and pre-1933 misses the point. It's the other side of the coin that supporters use when they say the name was meant to honor Indians. That's not true, but even if it were true, so what?
Like the Miami Tribe told Miami University in the 1990s, society changes. What matters is how it is affects people today.
Edit: 1933, not 1937
Dan Snyder paid a premium for the team, The Washington Redskins. His fans overwhelmingly are not offended. Also, not offended are a majority of the American people(70% Pew). What I don't particularly care for is that the PC police have now infringed on a legal businesses right to make money off of THEIR property. What the USPTO was bow down to activists and went against a legal business owner, who as far as I know, isn't under any civil rights investigation. If you don't like that property, you don't need to buy it, or support it in anyway shape or form. If you are so obliged you can protest also the NFL(see how that works out for you).dbn said:
i am not a Constitutional Lawyer, but how can the Patent Office ban Offensive Speech when the First Amendment protects it?
Luis Taint said:
Why did you quote my post before this? It asked two questions, neither of which you answered.
Indeed, SN, perhaps much of this discussion should be moved to V&N.
Luis Taint said:
I am actually interested in your opinions which you certainly have the right to (just as are those people who find the name offensive and want it changed), so I am disappointed that you will not answer those questions. I suspect I'll get over it, though.
Luis Taint said:
Who is looking out for the rights of Legal Business Owners?!?!
Question: if the opinions of the "activist" non fans doesn't matter, why does the opinion of the "majority of the American people" matter? Kind of having it both ways, aren't you?
They aren't banning anyone's speech, only their ability to prevent others from using the same speech, so the First Amendment has nothing to do with this. The First Amendment protects your right to say something, but not your right to make money off it.Lose Remerswaal said:
(In fact, it's the exact opposite! They are preventing the team from banning other uses of the word!)
This is from ESPN:
If the Redskins were to lose the rights to their trademarks, the question will be whether state and common laws would allow them to retain their exclusivity of use. "The law is really unclear on this," said Fordham law professor Sonia Katyal, who specializes in intellectual property. "We haven't really had something like this where you have a team and so many other interested parties involved, so we're treading new ground."
If the Redskins were to lose the rights to their trademarks, the question will be whether state and common laws would allow them to retain their exclusivity of use. "The law is really unclear on this," said Fordham law professor Sonia Katyal, who specializes in intellectual property. "We haven't really had something like this where you have a team and so many other interested parties involved, so we're treading new ground."
Luis Taint said:
People need to learn the history of the term "PC" and stop whining about it--wikipedia offers a good start. The punchline is, it never fucking happened. It was a joke among people on the left to rein in people who might be going to far, i.e. it was a way that lefties ribbed other lefties about becoming too dogmatic. Then it got picked up by some humorless twits on the right who took it seriously as a concept and started going into paranoid rants about being imposed upon by a bunch of people with no authority and no power.
Nobody's telling anyone they have to be PC. Some people are telling others they should be stupid fucking assholes. To make this into some leftist conspiracy is just whining.
Luis Taint said:
Tell me about the contrails.
dynomite said:
True, they aren't banning the speech, but they are designating what speech you cannot profit off of, which seems to me to be overstepping their bounds. Who gave them the power to determine what is offensive speech?
Reverend said:
I'm not confused.
I'm disagreeing with your point.
Or specifically: O'Henry John Henry's point about money doesn't seem to me to be quite relevant to this situation. But this will become an economic discussion and this isn't really the place for it, I don't think.
edit: the following is more to my point
swiftaw said:
OttoC said:
Lose Remerswaal said:
Nothing in this ruling would make the Redskins lose the rights to their trademark, nor the right to profit off of their speech. It's all about whether the trademark is registered or not; this is the difference between (R) and TM, not the difference between TM and no TM.
From the ruling itself:
A lawyer can speak to exactly what that entails, but I believe (could be wrong) at a high level it means they'd have to sue in state courts (rather than federal courts) over trademark issues and would get actual damages (instead of treble damages) as compensation, but they can still prevent other people from using the trademark.
Luis Taint said:
You are entitled to your opinion that the name is not offensive and shouldn't be changed, but you are embarrassing yourself with the rest of this. Here is what Section 2(a) of the law says:
Now you obviously disagree that Section 2(a) should invalidate his trademark, and maybe ultimately an appeals court agrees with you. But on its face it isn't a ridiculous argument and doesn't require a conclusion that the USPTO bowed down to special interests groups to reach this decision.
What the majority of Americans think is irrelevant. And Dan Snyder isn't having anything taken away from him without due process of law, which is all that is required.
Edit: USPTO decision, not a court decision
Lose Remerswaal said:
In the context of deciding whether or nor a trademark can be registered, this is, like, their sole reason for existing (at least as it relates to trademarks and not patents).
SumnerH said:
Correct, it has no bearing on whether or not they can use the trademark. Even if the ruling stands, they can still make claim that they have common law ownership of the mark, rather than ownership of a registered mark. If some infringes your rights under a registered mark, you can get 3x your actual damages plus attorneys' fees.
Reverend said:
I know.
But then you posted about why he might give a shit.
Having money means you don't have to care...until it starts losing you money, and then it means you have to care. Well, you don't "have to".
But John Henry is talking about having enough money to be able to make a smart decision in spite of the idea that other people might hate it...let the haters hate, while his decision pays off.
Snyder is (supposedly) using his money to stick with a dumb decision. He probably has enough money to stick with it...unless/until his other money-making partners don't want to contribute to that dumb decision anymore (If it started affecting merchandise sales, or if the re-branding would result in additional new merch. sales).
Sterling didn't give a shit either. Someone else decided that he had to give a shit or get out. He didn't give a shit, and now he's out. Sure, he'll net a ton of money from the outcome, but so would Snyder, if he was smart about the marketing of how he changed the name. (obviously they aren't exactly the same situations)
Yeah, you're overthinking it and I didn't mean any of that.
Not giving a shit applies to both the ability to make smart and dumb decisions; that doesn't change anything qualitatively. The point is that he has the opportunity to not give a shit.
As others have pointed out, it's not clear the owners will lose money here, as the registered trademark issue is more about amount of damages that can be recouped in lawsuits. Frankly, seems like he could make more money if he came up with an awesome new logo and everyone buys new stuff which would probably, imo, be more than the number of people who would turn on the team.
BUT... he doesn't give a shit. Or rather, he gets to choose what he gives a shit about, which is being unmoved. And none of what you have now conveyed was conveyed in the Monty Python clip, nor is the notion that my point didn't address the poster you were responding to relevant.
Not giving a shit applies to both the ability to make smart and dumb decisions; that doesn't change anything qualitatively. The point is that he has the opportunity to not give a shit.
As others have pointed out, it's not clear the owners will lose money here, as the registered trademark issue is more about amount of damages that can be recouped in lawsuits. Frankly, seems like he could make more money if he came up with an awesome new logo and everyone buys new stuff which would probably, imo, be more than the number of people who would turn on the team.
BUT... he doesn't give a shit. Or rather, he gets to choose what he gives a shit about, which is being unmoved. And none of what you have now conveyed was conveyed in the Monty Python clip, nor is the notion that my point didn't address the poster you were responding to relevant.
Lose Remerswaal said:
The patent office doesn't ban anything.
In any case, I think that if Snyder loses the appeal (I imagine he will since the team won the appeal only on the technicality that the plaintiffs were elders of the tribe and didn't raise a stink as soon as they heard about the redskin name. The new suit is being put forward by younger plaintiffs.) then he will truly be forced by the rest of the owners to change the name. Check the fine print at the bottom of NFL.com
I don't know where one would search for it but the NFL, as part of the conditions of owning a team, presumably requires each team owner to own the above as registered trademarks for merchandising purposes. I would love the NFL to make a statement clarifying this.
Reverend said:
Right...I know you didn't mean any of that.
But I did.
And not really overthinking it: it's all been covered in the thread already.
In short: what are the chances that the name gets changed?
I think the chances are quite high.
So, Mr. Snyder, get on with it and stop wasting everyone's time.
That particular movie quote seemed to miss the mark while at the same time being somewhere between tangential and a non-sequitur.
Anyway...so the recent trademark decisions doesn't really change much, apart from adding to some pressure. If he wants to not give a shit, he'll continue to not give a shit.
The potential for money loss of not giving shits (loss of sponsors, or loss of merch. sales) or money gain by giving at least one shit (positive marketing, sponsors, merch. sales) is what will likely force his hand.
(edit: missed a "not" in there)
They aren't banning it, they are simply not protecting it from trademark infringement any longer, right?Lose Remerswaal said:
Orange Julia said:
Isn't is almost the opposite of banning free speech?
They went from "the federal government will help enforce that nobody except this particular named group can say this particular thing"
to "hey say it if you want, we're not really involved".
The Native American lobby obviously isn't very strong or else this racist name would have disappeared long ago. Hopefully this ruling begins that path in forcing Snyder to end this insult to 5,000,000+ people who live in the U.S.
One of the press statements released today sums it up well: this case is about a private business drawing on taxpayer resources to protect its ability to profit from the use of a racial slur.
I'm curious how the club could use common law to protect its exclusive right to use the name. Is this federal common law, or would the club have to enforce its rights state by state? The latter would be cumbersome, plus with the growing institutional support the plaintiffs enjoy, some states would likely pass laws denying protection to racist marks. (Maybe 79% of the public supports the name, but how many of them beyond the D.C. area truly care? The energy level of opponents of the name would carry the day in most cases.)
I'm curious how the club could use common law to protect its exclusive right to use the name. Is this federal common law, or would the club have to enforce its rights state by state? The latter would be cumbersome, plus with the growing institutional support the plaintiffs enjoy, some states would likely pass laws denying protection to racist marks. (Maybe 79% of the public supports the name, but how many of them beyond the D.C. area truly care? The energy level of opponents of the name would carry the day in most cases.)
maufman, if you're using a mark in interstate commerce, you can draw on federal common law protection as well as state TM laws (state TM rights are usually only used if necessary, i.e., absence of interstate use, for the reasons you pointed out).
Under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125 gives the common law cause of action, and 15 U.S.C. 114 contains the cause of action for registered marks
Under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125 gives the common law cause of action, and 15 U.S.C. 114 contains the cause of action for registered marks
of course this is still a protected trademark while the appeal is in process and that could take years (it took 4 years last time).
so this USPTO ruling as far as I can tell is all a big nothingburger that won't change anything for at least several years.
But, has anyone thought about the unintended consequences? Simple rule of supply/demand economics is when you make something cheaper more of it gets produced & bought. If all of a sudden Redskins merchandise became 90% cheaper b/c anybody could print their own logo without paying the NFL's outrageously inflated prices, I'd predict 10x as many fans would be wearing this logo around. I guess the only "victory" for the anti-redskins crowd is that Snyder / the NFL would see Redskins merchandise profits decimated by the ruling.
so this USPTO ruling as far as I can tell is all a big nothingburger that won't change anything for at least several years.
But, has anyone thought about the unintended consequences? Simple rule of supply/demand economics is when you make something cheaper more of it gets produced & bought. If all of a sudden Redskins merchandise became 90% cheaper b/c anybody could print their own logo without paying the NFL's outrageously inflated prices, I'd predict 10x as many fans would be wearing this logo around. I guess the only "victory" for the anti-redskins crowd is that Snyder / the NFL would see Redskins merchandise profits decimated by the ruling.
Thank you. I wish I had posted the question on SoSH before I spent 30 minutes on Google.epraz said:
Sounds like this is a less significant decision than the press coverage would lead you to believe, unless (a) a court would find that the restrictions on USPTO registrations also apply to Lanham Act claims (seems unlikely), or (b) the absence of registration would violate contracts between the club and the NFL or otherwise give the league leverage to force Snyder's hand.
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