Fresh off their valiant battle against the Cape Cod League, Major League Baseball has scored another trademark victory by shutting down a site selling baseball-inspired Barack Obama shirts.
THE SMOKING GUN shoots over news of MLB ceasing & desisting Morris Levin from selling any more of his Obama-themed clothing.
Levin’s Obama of Dreams site offered tees of the presidential candidate’s name shown in fonts similar to major league teams, like the White Sox, Red Sox, Padres and many others.
However, MLB lawyers believe the shirts were violating copyright, going on the online market without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball:
Baseball officials have aggressively used legal threats to dissuade such reinterpretations of its logos, and apparently did not consider the Obama shirts as protected political speech or as transformative of its trademarks.
So, MLB has now gone after a collegiate summer league and an internet t-shirt vendor. I saw a kindergarten kid wearing a Dodgers backpack on only one shoulder. Why not sue him next for not properly representing league property?
11:32 pm on March 18th, 2008
I saw a kid at work today who was wearing a Sammy Sosa jersey. Two problems here…. one, he was clearly NOT Sammy Sosa as he was seven years old and white. Two, he was most obviously not using steroids or any sort of amphetamines. What kind of a message does this kid think he is sending?
Unbelievable.