Your Tax Dollars: Keeping Kansas City Safe From The Scourge Of Illegal Panties
Jenée Osterheldt writes in the KC Star that two baboons from Homeland Security confiscated underwear with a hand-drawn Royals logo on it that a woman, Peregrine Honig, made to sell in her underwear store.
I understand defending copyrights -- but is it really making our homeland more secure? Shouldn't this be matter for civil court, like it is if somebody starts publishing my column in their paper without paying for it?
The panties, with "Take the Crown" and "KC" across the bottom, were set to be sold in Honig's Birdies Panties shop Tuesday. But Homeland Security agents visited the Crossroads store and confiscated the few dozen pairs of underwear, printed in Kansas City by Lindquist Press."They came in and there were two guys" Honig said. "I asked one of them what size he needed and he showed me a badge and took me outside. They told me they were from Homeland Security and we were violating copyright laws."
She thought that since the underwear featured her hand-drawn design that she was safe. But the officers explained that by connecting the "K" and the "C," she infringed on major league baseball copyright. (The officials involved could not be immediately reached for comment.)
They placed the underwear in an official Homeland Security bag and had Honig sign a statement saying she wouldn't use the logo.
via @radleybalko
It should have been handled with a nastygram cease and desist letter from the corporate lawyers. It's a civil matter.
Or better still: in the letter, note that one may license the trademarks in question for a certain fee.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 24, 2014 8:57 AM
Police state. Imposed by sports teams. Amzing.
Andrew_M_Garland at October 24, 2014 8:58 AM
I smell a rat. Copyright infringement may be a federal criminal matter, but I don't see how by any stretch of the imagination it could be a proper matter for DHS officers to be enforcing.
No warrant, no process, no order, no nothing, they just walk in and proclaim a violation and start confiscating property?
While civil infringement is a strict-liability matter - doesn't matter what you thought - for criminal infringement, there has to be 'mens rea' - you have to have known that you were infringing a copyright, and done it anyway. Sounds like that would certainly be an issue here.
I don't doubt it happened, just as described. What I'm saying is that I don't see any possible way that it could be lawful, as described.
I think there is a second shoe.
llater,
llamas
llamas at October 24, 2014 9:22 AM
Huh? I'm with llamas - this isn't something that DHS can just arbitrarily decide to enforce. It isn't their jurisdiction (afaik), and anyway, they will certainly not have had a formal complaint requiring enforcement.
I'm betting that some DHS-agent-girlfriends just got a present.
a_random_guy at October 24, 2014 9:32 AM
Oh, also: If law enforcement legitimately takes your property, they leave a receipt. Wanna bet she didn't get a receipt? There's certainly no mention of one in the article...
a_random_guy at October 24, 2014 9:33 AM
I think we're all grateful that Homeland Security is keeping us safe from the scourge of Royal underwear.
Oh, and Go Giants!
Conan the Grammarian at October 24, 2014 11:52 AM
This is a case of bad reporting. There's no copyright infringement
involved. The logo is not copyrightable.
What's actually involved is trademark infringement. The govenment
routinely siezes counterfeit goods that use the trademark without
authorization. This was one of those cases.
Secondly, it wasn't Homeland Security that did this. It was
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They happen to fall
under Homeland Security, as does FEMA. When the feds come to help
out in a disaster, they're FEMA, not actual Homeland Security
agents.
Ron at October 24, 2014 4:34 PM
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