[Lnc-business] protecting party assets

[Joshua Katz]

I am skeptical on IP.  Nonetheless, I believe that this board is not an
ideological sounding chamber, but a governing board, and takes its
fiduciary responsibilities in the real world, not our ideology.  I do not
think we're fulfilling our responsibilities if we acquire IP and then fail
to defend it.  In the case of purchased IP such as our logo, that amounts
to giving away money.

Regarding pre-nomination candidates: Sure, we want to see our logo being
made visible far and wide.  So does, say, Cabot Cheeses.  But it doesn't
follow that Cabot will be thankful if some other cheese company throws
their logo onto their product.  The logo doesn't exist just to be seen, but
to function as a form of imprimatur.  To allow pre-nomination candidates to
use it (other than when the state affiliate has said they can, which I am
fine with) is to allow people to represent themselves as being approved by
us, with absolutely no process.

The same holds for groups.  It is was mentioned somewhere in this thread
that, well, people can do research and see if the group actually speaks for
this party.  I disagree entirely.  No good advertisement rests on the
viewer doing further research, and people who are offended by the group
seeming to speak for us (such as the Augustus Invictus / Hoppe Caucus) are
not going to do further research - they're just going to conclude they
don't like us, and tell all their friends the same thing.

RE:  Oregon:  Suffice it to say I disagree with just about everything
that's been said on the topic on this thread, but I'm also not sure it's
relevant anyway.  The fight in Oregon is over who the leadership is of the
affiliate, not who the affiliate is, and therefore I think it's a bit off
the point to refer to the PAC as relevant here.  The point remains, though
- whoever the leadership is, presumably they will decide to whom they grant
permission to use our IP.  All sides should agree, I would think, that
whoever is not the leadership (I am sure I know who that is, but seem to
have failed to convince this board) should not be able to give out
permission to use our IP.  I don't think the Oregon question, therefore,
has anything at all to do with how this matter should be decided.

Joshua A. Katz


On Sun, Aug 6, 2017 at 3:13 AM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oliver Hall's attention is requested for this email:
>
> LP Bylaws, Article 5.1, "No person, group or organization may use the
> name "Libertarian Party" or any confusingly similar designation except the
> Party or an organization to which the Party grants affiliate party status
> or as otherwise provided in these bylaws."
>
> This provides a very narrow scope for use of our party name.  Yet one only
> has to search on Facebook for the name "Libertarian Party", and you will
> find many groups that are not the national party, and are not an affiliate
> of the national party, but they use our party name to increase their
> profile in search results, build their own following, and use the group for
> their own purposes.
>
> One such example can be found here:  (fair warning - this page contains
> varying degrees of nudity)
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/233590827023815/
>
> We also have a trademark on the name "Libertarian Party".  My
> understanding of intellectual property law is that we need to actively
> defend our right to the name or else over time we diminish our ability to
> successfully defend it.
>
> Our bylaws don't mention the logo, but am I correct to presume that we
> have also staked out a legal claim to our past and present logos?
>
> I also see other groups (not our affiliates) using our logo in their
> memes, incorporated into their own logos, etc.
>
> Some of these could potentially be rectified by merely asking the groups
> to cease using our name and/or logo.  Others might need to receive
> cease-and-desist letters from our attorney.
>
> I'd like to discuss this at our upcoming LNC meeting.  Perhaps it makes
> sense to just make it part of the Special Counsel agenda item, since we'll
> likely want to chat with Mr. Hall about it.
>
> -Alicia
>
>
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>
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