{"id":17599,"date":"2013-09-01T19:37:02","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T02:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=17599"},"modified":"2013-09-01T19:37:02","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T02:37:02","slug":"failed-censorship-of-nsa-parody-shirt-either-the-nsa-or-zazzle-is-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=17599","title":{"rendered":"Failed Censorship of NSA Parody Shirt: Either the NSA or Zazzle Is Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So this is a disturbing story<\/a>: A t-shirt producer who made an NSA parody T-Shirt (“The only part of government that actually listens”) incorporating the NSA logo was told by Zazzle that s\/he couldn’t sell the shirt because the NSA had made a copyright claim. Zazzle sent the t-shirt creator this message:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it appears that your product, “the nsa”, does not meet Zazzle Acceptable Content Guidelines. Specifically, your product contained content which infringes upon the intellectual property rights of National Security Agency.<\/p>\n

We have been contacted by legal representatives from the National Security Agency, and at their request, have removed the product from the Zazzle Marketplace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To me, that’s a pretty clear attempt to use intellectual property law for censorship purposes.<\/p>\n

However, an update at the Daily Dot says:<\/p>\n

NSA has not sent a cease and desist letter to Zazzle since March 2011 regarding a mug they were selling using the NSA Seal. At any time that NSA is made aware that the NSA Seal is being used without our permission, we will take appropriate actions. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1) I want to know what the mug looked like.<\/p>\n

2) It seems that either Zazzle or the NSA is lying. I honestly don’t know which, although if I had to bet I’d bet on Zazzle, simply because it would be so incredibly stupid for the NSA to claim not to have sent a cease and desist letter if they actually had, since such a lie would be easily disproven. But who knows?<\/p>\n

3) If the NSA is telling the truth, then did Zazzle pre-emptively take down the shirt to avoid the potential <\/em>of an NSA cease and desist letter? That would be appalling, if so.<\/p>\n

4) Given how clearly unconstitutional a takedown request from the NSA would be, even if the NSA did issue a takedown request, it’s appalling that Zazzle rolled over for it so easily. So Zazzle is appalling either way. (Note: I have some “leftycartoons” merchandise for sale on Zazzle. I chose Zazzle because they have t-shirts up to size 6x.)<\/p>\n

5) I suppose both sides could be telling the lawyerly truth if the NSA sent some sort of takedown communication that was not, technically speaking, a “cease and desist” letter.<\/p>\n

The NSA shirts are now available at Cafepress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More on the legal details at Volokh<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this is a disturbing story: A t-shirt producer who made an NSA parody T-Shirt (“The only part of government that actually listens”) incorporating the NSA logo was told by Zazzle that s\/he couldn’t sell the shirt because the NSA … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17601,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17599\/revisions\/17601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}