Trademark lawsuit - Laugh it Off

[neobyte]

It was illegal to caricature the Carling Black Label trademark for commercial gain, the Supreme Court of Appeal found on Thursday.

The court upheld an interdict against Laugh It Off Promotions, obtained by South African Breweries (SAB) in the Cape High Court

Laugh It Off had been selling T-shirts emblazoned with the trademark but substituting the words "Black Labour, White Guilt" for "Black Label, Carling".

This was detrimental to the value of the trademark, the court held.

This was detrimental to the value of the trademark
The court pointed out that <b>Laugh It Off was free to caricature the trademark non-commercially.</b> It was also free to proclaim its message "Black Labour: White Guilt" without using the trademark.

However, the company was <b>not entitled to gain financially out of a detrimental exploitation of the trademark.</b>

During the hearing Laugh It Off's counsel said there was no evidence that the T-shirt had caused detriment to the Black Label mark.

Evidence from the Freedom of Expression Institute had stated that "the essence of parody was that you borrow from someone else".

However, SAB's lawyers said parody was intended to "appear comical or ridiculous" and this would impact on the reputation of the brand. - Sapa


So, according to this court ruling, providing you are not gaining financially from using/dertrimenting a label, its okay? So, Hellkom, is pretty much in the green?
[:D]

[stoke]

I disagree with you neobyte -

The bottom line seems to be: "This was detrimental to the value of the trademark".

What Hellkom are doing could still be seen as "detrimental to the value of the trademark". Tough call though.

I wonder if a judge would be prepared to include an argument for "Justified Parody" in Hellkom's case ?

[loosecannon]

now if the logos were copylefted ie GNU they would be able to charge for the medium (T Shirt) but not the logo ... i would love to see the court deal with this dilema

[VQuest]

I very much doubt Telkom would win this one.


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United we stand!
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[donn]

I found another article on the marketingweb site entitled
SAB should laugh it off, says Muhlberg

<hr noshade size="1">

Here's an interesting twist to this whole debate (well for me anyway). [B)]

I run a "Privacy South Africa" web site, and I use a lot of other people's logos to illustrate the points being made, bith good and bad. Usually I just link directly to their web site so the graphic comes directly off the relevant company's web site. This hasn't been a problem <b>until now</b>.

Some smartass corporate bully at Metropolitan Life took exception to my comment that because his company sends me unsolicited junk mail (and is in a special arrangement with a marketing company to do this) that I was <b>infringing on his trademark</b> and <b>defaming</b> his company. Never mind the fact that he was invading my privacy.

At first I thought it was a joke but now it seems they want to sue, and they insist that I go and speak to a lawyer, "because the defamatory remarks have already been published".

<font color="red">Do I just laugh it off, ignore them, or what?</font id="red">

It seems to me that I will have to parody their original logo to avoid prosecution. This sounds bizarre. I guess it will serve them right for setting the legal hounds on me instead of just getting a PR/Marketing person to ask me to tone down the comments.

[MaD]

Donn - forget about them, it's in the public's interest to find these things out. I find your comments on the site quite amusing & informative, Metropolitan has no case I'm sure... contact Michalsons Attorneys, they know all about this kind of thing..

<font color="navy"><font size="1"><b>Where others have progress, we have Telkom.</b>
Hellkom website - www.hellkom.co.za</font id="size1"></font id="navy">

[LethalChicken]

Wouldn't Telkom have to prove that they were in fact not crap enough to be called hellkom in order to have a case [:)]

We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated

[Spamtheman]

That'd be an interesting twist on the case, force telkom to prove that it isn't criticism and is in fact defamatory. I'm not a lawyer but this actually strikes me as an amazing avenue to pursue if this thing ever makes it into a courtroom, force Telkom to prove that they are not in fact complete rubbish, I don't know how effective it would be legally but can you picture the PR? I would pay money to watch this show.

[Karnaugh]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by BlobNow</i>
<br />Wouldn't Telkom have to prove that they were in fact not crap enough to be called hellkom in order to have a case [:)]

We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

quite correct there.

- Colin Alston
colin@slipgate.za.net

"Getting traffic shaping right is easy and can be summed up in one word: Dont." -- George Barnett

[donn]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Donn - forget about them, it's in the public's interest to find these things out. I find your comments on the site quite amusing & informative, Metropolitan has no case I'm sure... contact Michalsons Attorneys, they know all about this kind of thing..
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Thanks for adding some perspective, MaD. Much appreciated. It seems that MetropoliSPAM is as blind to the effects of bad publicity via lawsuits as Telkom is. Sigh.

PS: for a really good laugh, visit the Muhlberg web site
http://muhlberg.co.za/
Their opening page is really brilliant. Their publications look interesting too.[^]