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Lucas Sends Stevens Cease and Desist Letter

Sun, 10/22/2006 - 09:11 — xerexes
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Diesel Sweeties creator Rich Stevens posted a letter he received from LucasFilm Ltd requesting that he cease and desist (magic lawyer words) from selling several t-shirts that play off of Star Wars references (or at least might play off of Star Wars references). (Fleen posted a short comment on it.) Assuming arguendo (another favorite lawyer word) that Stevens is riffing off of Star Wars references in these t-shirts, so what? The questions are going to be about trademark, copyright and defenses such as fair use (including parody).

Unfortunately the reality is also that unless Stevens gets some pro bono (laywerly way of saying "free") assistance it's unlikely he's going to want to even get near the tar pit that would be litigation with a big corporation. I'm not sure what groups would be interested: CBLDF? EFF? Others? A good place to start might be The Chilling Effects website which is a useful guide to understanding your rights and the law related to these types of cease and desist letters.


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Sun, 10/22/2006 - 17:36 — Iain
Iain's picture

Wow

I totally want to buy a tee shirt with the cease and desist letter from LucasFilm on it.
Mon, 10/23/2006 - 12:31 — Gordon McAlpin
Gordon McAlpin's picture

Unfortunately, it's got the

Unfortunately, it's got the Lucasfilm logo on it, which is trademarked. :)

Eagerly awaiting my own cease and desists...

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Multiplex is a twice weekly humor comic about the staff of the Multiplex 10 Cinemas and the movies that play there.
Mon, 10/23/2006 - 07:01 — pclips
pclips's picture

A case like this

Kieron Dwyer and the CBLDF already took a case like this all the way and lost. I would comply with the cease and desist letter. :(

http://kierondwyer.com/LCD/GREED.htm

Mon, 10/23/2006 - 13:09 — The William G
The William G's picture

I dont know why theres a

I dont know why theres a debate over this. Rich was profiting from someone else's intellectual property.

He had a good run before getting caught. At least it's not a summons. And really, it's not worth bankrupting himself over fighting for the right to continue to profit off of other people's ideas.

Drop the shirts, Rich.

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Mon, 10/23/2006 - 23:12 — Scarybug
Scarybug's picture

He probably doesn't have a

He probably doesn't have a legal leg to stand on, but that doesn't mean we can't change broken copyright law in the future.

As my friend Alan wrote:

Corporations are all too eager to convince the public that copyright is nearly infinitely powerful. As they convince people that copyright is more and more powerful, they convince Congress to pass laws to match that perception. We've lost too many rights in the last 10 years. Copyright was extended to ensure Disney can make more money. You can legally use a short clip of a movie in a review, but you're forbidden from getting technology that will let you pull that clip from a DVD. The next generation TVs will have additional hardware that costs more money, but is designed to make your television harder to use...

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