Sorry Ms. Jackson… (original) (raw)

Janet Jackson is a fine recording artist, but seems to have employed some overly aggressive lawyers, bent on removing or controlling all references to her name on WordPress.com. Here are a couple of examples of the improper takedown demands we’ve received:

• Trademark infringement: The mention of Janet Jackson in a post about dinner conversation topic “What would your WWE Smackdown name be?”

“Picture Sacha Baron Cohen in, what else? his movie The Dictator. Elaborate General’s outfit, hat, etc. He walks in flanked by half a dozen sexy female soldiers inspired by the Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation video.”

(Here’s what our user thinks.)

• Copyright infringement: An image of Ms. Jackson used in a Tim Howard meme:

We rejected both of these complaints on the grounds of obvious fair use. Though we rejected their demands, we wanted to make sure they got at least a little promotion for their client, so we tried to use as many Janet Jackson song titles as possible (hopefully this doesn’t draw another takedown demand from them…) in our response:

“It seems like you believe the use of the trademark “Janet Jackson” is reserved all for you, but we were hoping you’d be open to some feedback because your attempt to control every use of the mark is pretty nasty. If you read up on nominative use, you’ll discover that it doesn’t really matter that “Janet Jackson” is used on this site. If you believe there are any other alleged infringements, would you mind submitting a notice again via our trademark form?

http://automattic.com/trademark-policy/

So excited to work with you going forward.”