[pp.int.general] pirate logo copyright

[Gregory Engels]

On 10.06.2013, at 16:07, "Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet)" <rick.falkvinge at piratpartiet.se> wrote:

> > The french pirates have apparently registered a trademark for their
> > logo like the german pirates have done with their logo.
> 
> This would appear even more puzzling on first sight, as trademarks
> apply to commercial operations (of a specified class) and not at all
> to politicla parties. What am I missing?

Actually, not much - you have already pointed out the facts, it is just
to connect the dots to see the whole picture. 
The PP-FR has registered a protection of its logo for the Nizza classes
16, 35 and 41 (the German Pirate Party has registered the protection 
for the same classes and in addition for the 25 and 38)

(you can look up the exact contains of that classes here:
http://web2.wipo.int/nicepub/edition-20130101/taxonomy )

By doing so, they protect their logo from being used on printed materials (16), 
political advertisement (35) and political education events (41), just
to name a few applications that fall under the named Nizza classes.

To give you an realistic example: now, they can protect themselves from 
a situation, where a fascistic ultra-right political group put out flyers with
a call to something haste (like expel all moslems) that would contain a 
logo of the Parti Pirate. (such case happened in Germany). 

The German PP has also protection for the use of their logo on 
websites (38), which allowed us successfully to go after some 
disgusting kiddy-porn sites that tried to advocate for the legalization 
of pedophilia (untruthfully claiming that the PP-DE was their ally, 
as we also have attacked the net blocking law, that claimed to protect
the child abuse victims) 

Trademark may be not the only tool that is available to protect 
a pirate party from harmful usage of their logo, but can 
significantly contribute to it. 



Gregory Engels
International Coordinator
Pirate Party of Germany

mobile: +49 172 853 44 91
skype:gregory.engels
jabber:dichter at jabber.piratenpartei.de
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