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September 15, 2005
Oh, the irony
Humorist Garrison Keillor, who knows a few things about making fun of people and idols, had his lawyer send a cease-and-desist letter to a Minnesota blogger for creating a t-shirt that parodies Keillor's radio show.
Keillor is a man of immense talent who, at least on the radio, displays all manner of anti-corporate folksiness. That's his (non-legal) trademark. Sending a lawyer after a humorist blogger is, in itself, a strike against it.
Plus, the word of mouth has already reached Wikipedia.
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Isn't that kind of cease and desist order a legal formality necessary to insure the continued copyright protection of a trademark?
For example: suppose Keillor (or anyone) lets a parody of a trademark go unchallenged, and then decides to go after someone with a less benign future trademark violation.
That person could argue that because the parody was unchallenged, then the second violation should be disregarded as well.
I think it's pretty clear that the blogger's work falls under the fair use/parody protections afforded by the First Amendment.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/arts/topic.aspx?topic=parody_satire
