Friday, January 13, 2006

Don't read


So, apparently the American Library Association sent a cease and desist letter alleging that Audible.com's Don't Read campaign "violates" the trademark of the ALA's "Read" campaign. Oh, ALA, how you have betrayed me! You're so good on copyright; wherefore are you making such a silly trademark claim?

Yesterday, as I was saving the Audible "Don't Read" posters, which were available from the website in PDF form, that feature was disabled, so I only got a few. I guess that change, which eliminates the version of the ads most like the ALA's poster-based campaign, was made in response to the threat letter, but I continue to see the "Don't Read" ads pop up on sites I visit.

I think the Don't Read campaign is icky, but that doesn't make it infringing. I do wonder about the use of a .org domain as the website, which seems a teeny bit misleading.

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