Geek Squad Sends Cease-and-Desist Letter To God Squad 357
An anonymous reader writes "A Wisconsin priest has God on his car but Best Buy's lawyers on his back. Father Luke Strand at the Holy Family Parish in Fond Du Lac says he has received a cease-and-desist letter from the electronics retailer. From the article: 'At issue is Strand's black Volkswagen Beetle with door stickers bearing the name "God Squad" in a logo similar to that of Best Buy's Geek Squad, a group of electronics troubleshooters. Strand told the Fond du Lac Reporter that the car is a creative way to spur discussion and bring his faith to others. Best Buy Co. tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it appreciates what Strand is trying to do, but it's bad precedent to let groups violate its trademarks.'"
Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod Squad (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh for crying out loud. It's more a play on the "MOD" squad than the cretins at best buy. Damn parasites.
Srsly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This just proves (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple solution for these cases (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that legally companies have to enforce trademarks or risk losing them. However, for a case like this where there is no actual damage to their business and no real risk of confusion, the best solution from a PR perspective would be to offer a royalty-free license to the trademark and its variant to the person in question.
You know, instead of the traditional "cease-and-desist" letter, you could send a "we notice you borrowed from our logo - we are required to contact you by trademark law, and we will offer you a royalty-free license for this use, in a limited context, if you get in touch with us".
That would completely avoid the nasty press these companies for doing this, and keep the trademark lawyers happily occupied.
Why can't we live in the kind of more civil society where we look for positive solutions to problems in this way instead of simply defaulting to the negative?
Re:Simple solution for these cases (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory, maybe that would be a good idea, but in practice it's walking into dangerous territory. First off, it could be seen as endorsement of this guys message, and corporations generally try to avoid religious endorsements since it puts them at odds with all other religions. This gets especially tricky if then other religions start to ask for the same treatment. What if an Islamist group wants to do the same thing? If Best Buy says no, they piss off 1.4 billion Muslims, and also look discriminatory. If they say yes, they piss off a nation full of fear mongerers and bigots who accuse them of terrorism. There's a million other ways that could go poorly, Best Buy really has no choice but to put a stop to this.
Re:Obviously overzealous (Score:3, Insightful)
Trademarks aren't enforced on a word-by-word basis. The issue would be the similarity of the logo as a whole.
The trademark claim may be invalid since the priest is not selling electronics or technical support, and presumably isn't using it in a commercial context at all. On the other hand, I'm not sure you could rule out a claim of dillution.
Re:Simple solution for these cases (Score:5, Insightful)
If it were only one time it might be ok, but religious groups seem to think themselves exempt from trademark and copyright law.
There are lots of stories of religious groups copying whatever they like to put religious propaganda on them. I remember when the lord of the rings came out, one group took the movie poster, replaced "Ring" with "King" and replaced Gandalph with Jesus. Now you may say that's just parody, but I don't really buy it when the point is to promote a religious message, not poking fun of the original.
Re:Logo (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Best Buy isn't mad eup of Satanists. They appreciate what he's trying to do.
Best Buy Co. tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it appreciates what Strand is trying to do, but it's bad precedent to let groups violate its trademarks.
That just gives me yet another reason to not shop at Best Buy. Never mind they annoying and idiotic employees, they appreciate evangelists!
Re:Logo (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe there is also an exception to a different line of business. It would be quite a stretch to say this religious man is any way trying to claim to work on breaking computers. Just as Apple Records was unable to win out against Apple Computers because Apple Computers was not in the music business, Best Buy is in the overcharging and breaking computers business, and this guy is in the religious business. Unless Best Buy is looking at expanding into religion...God help us all...
Re:Parody? (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL, but AFAIK parody requires the work to be a commentary on the original work. God Squad would have to be about Geek Squad in a substantial way. Also, they would have to use a minimal amount of protected material, and certain other thresholds.
Satire does not require a work to be a commentary on the original work. God Squad could be about anything, and be re-appropriating Geek Squad material for humorous effect. But Satire is not protected in this country in the same way that Parody is.
Re:Logo (Score:2, Insightful)
If this were to be used for parody purposes only, I'd agree, but this isn't a simple parody situation used to make a joke. This is a group that is explicitly trying to perform a service that uses this logo and vehicle (also "trademarked") to perform a service.... although this is a service that is in a completely different "industry" that does make the trademark claim weaker.
If these guys were using the logo for repairing computers and other consumer electronics devices, it certainly would be a stronger case. Using this logo to "save souls" is something that is harder to justify as a trademark violation. One famous example I knew about was the "French's" logo, used on bottles of mustard and other condiments also had another company with a similar name and even trademark that had the logo used for hauling concrete. It had another bump on the "flag", but the outside of the trucks were painted yellow and a standard joke was that they were hauling around mustard instead of concrete. If you lived in the Los Angeles area, you'd be quite familiar with these trucks. I don't know if they still are around, but I do remember another reference to these trucks here on Slashdot.
As a parody example, perhaps the best parody I can think of is the TV series "Chuck" that has the "Nerd Herd" as a part of the company "Buy-More", which also has vehicles that drive around (well supposedly in the context of the show) and do electronics service calls in a fashion very similar to the "Geek Squad" for Best-Buy. This is pure parody at its finest and something that would generally be protected even if the similarities to real services can be made.
The thing that stinks about trademark law is that you need to make every effort to defend trademark usage even if perhaps that usage is legal, where the legal burden is upon the trademark owner to force the courts to say that such usage is legal. There is also, unfortunately, nothing in trademark law that penalizes a company from defending itself in even parody situations other than having its lawyers spin their wheels and charge the company for their time in defending the trademark. In other words, even if a company loses a trademark case, they still "win" as they can demonstrate in subsequent legal challenges that they have made good-faith efforts to defend their trademark.
Re:Obviously overzealous (Score:3, Insightful)
The lawyers are just being overzealous in this case.
God and Geek are not easily confused.
Squad is generic.
Trademarks must be considered in their entirety. The fact that "squad" is generic is irrelevant, because the entire mark and the entire alleged infringing use must be compared. The "Geek Squad" trademark is most certainly not generic.
Furthermore, the fact that two words are different is not dispositive for confusion. Instead, the question is the likelihood of confusion of the source. Might a consumer think "God Squad" is a subsidiary of "Geek Squad" or otherwise related? Maybe "God Squad" is the team of senior associates while "Geek Squad" is the regular crew, like paramedics vs. EMTs. Or the Geeks are for homes and small businesses, while the Gods are for enterprise IT consulting. If a consumer may think any of those or others, then it's irrelevant that "God" and "Geek" are different - instead, there's a likelihood of confusion of the source.
That said, the priest was almost certainly a non-commercial user, so the Lanham Act wouldn't apply and a Federal court would lack jurisdiction. But there may still be state law claims.
And the story, is inappropriately tagged with copyright when this is a trademark issue.
That's true.
Re:Logo (Score:2, Insightful)
To be infringing a trademark, there has to be a chance that it would be confusing; that someone would confuse the priest's product with best buy's. They have to be in the same line of business.
To be diluting a trademark, the mark is famous, the holder has exclusive use, the counterparty's use has to detract from or devalue the mark, and it can't be a protected use. (For example: a Journalist is allowed to discuss indicate, criticize, or publish 'unwanted' material and refer to the relevant trademarks when doing so. Coca Cola's trademark of the name Coke cannot be used to prevent journalists from discussing a problem or health risk found with Coke, according to someone's study, or prevent people from identifying their product in literature, or even satire/parody.)
Best Buy doesn't have exclusive use of the name "Squad", or of the colors black and Orange with the use of the word Squad. So there's no exclusive use that's being taken away.
Unless Best Buy also plans to send cease and decist letters to Oregon State [oregonstate.edu] next, over their Orange and Black "Cheerleading squad"
And others.....
Re:Logo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution for these cases (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you should reread the GP again. He referred to "a nation full of fear mongerers and bigots who accuse them of terrorism". He did not claim that all Christians were fear mongers and bigots he said the nation was.
And after the all the crontroversy over the planned Islamic information centre (not a mosque as the media portrays) near ground zero it's a fair assessment. Especially since there are other Islamic information centres in the area that pre-date the completion of the first World Trade Center building.
But hey, when did fear mongers and bigots let silly things like facts get in the way.
Re:Logo (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah! Just like we hope that Santa or the Easter Bunny doesn't notice us.
Re:Logo (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure they are- its just that all the profit goes to the priests instead of to shareholders. Have you seen how fucking rich some of those evangelical preachers are? Or the Vatican for that matter?
Re:Except that burying the issue will (Score:2, Insightful)