Monday, November 28, 2022

Humor Before the Bar


For John, BLUFI am worried that between the Progressives and Corporations, we will kill Free Speech in these United States.  Nothing to see here; just move along.




From The Hill, by Opinion Contributor Jonathan Turley, 26 November 2022, 10:30 AM ET.

Here is the lede plus one:

The court system often is where humor goes to die. For those seeking to use satire or parody of corporations, jokes often run into trademark or other lawsuits and result in a little more than “ha, ha, thump.”

The same bad audience could await the defendant in Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC.  The Supreme Court just accepted a case involving a tongue-in-cheek dog chew toy made to resemble a Jack Daniel’s whiskey bottle.  VIP prevailed in defending the toy as protected speech, but the distiller wants the Supreme Court to declare such parodies to be trademark violations.

If the Supreme Court quashes parody the reach of the First Amendment protection of Free Speech, and especially humor, will be severly surtailed.  Which would be bad.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

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Please be forthright, but please consider that this is not a barracks.