Thursday, June 12, 2008

Stephen Colbert on the perils of IP overenforcement

On May 28, the Word featured Major League Baseball's attempts to bar Little League teams from using team names that emulate major-league teams without paying for more expensive, licensed uniforms. Colbert suggested that the appropriate response might be to stop referring to any MLB trademarks at all, and just talk about basketball and soccer. Like the Girl Scouts, Little Leaguers are not great targets. (And if teams wearing unlicensed jerseys are likely to cause confusion over source or sponsorship, but MLB-licensed jerseys can be purchased by anyone with the right amount of cash in hand, doesn't that mean that MLB is engaged in naked licensing and has lost its rights?)

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