Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Sure, what if no-one had any rights over Mickey Mouse? Everyone would be free to use him however they liked. (There are specific issues when you do that with land, but as far as I can tell none of them apply to copyright.)


I agree. I shouldn't be able to sell rusty vans with the Mickey Mouse logo on them claiming that they are made by Disney. Or claim that my shitty b-grade movies were made by DisNEY (TRADEMARK)


Trademark law is largely good law that we should retain. Copyright law is largely not. Talk of "intellectual property" obfuscates the distinction.


Trademark has much more substantial free speech issues than copyright.


Personally, the only part of trademark I care about is impersonation. It should be illegal to claim that Google was involved in building my shitty products.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: