Dept of Homeland Security using trademark to silence critics. Cory Doctorow: Michael sez, "On August 1st, Boing Boing featured an article about the efforts of my summer intern, Emily Hesaltine, to improve on the Department of Homeland Security's website Ready.gov. Her website, launched by the Federation of American Scientists, is called reallyready.org. Now the Department of Homelnad Security is coming after us because they believe we have infringed on their 'intellectual property.' Specifically, they take issue with our use of a green check mark over the word Ready. I have posted their letter to us and our response. For the record, it cost them more money in lawyer time to write the letter then it did for us to create the entire website."

Federal agencies aren't allowed to assert a copyright in their works, but they are allowed to use trademark law. But silencing political criticism isn't what trademark law is for -- nor is it for censoring genuinely useful information about disaster-preparedness.

Link

(Thanks, Michael!)

[Boing Boing]
10:35:20 AM      comment []

Read a book on an iPod?. Want to read a book on your iPod? This cool site will convert a text into notes that can be read on an iPod. Here's my book Free Culture so converted. [Lessig Blog]
10:33:40 AM      comment []