www.whyville.net Mar 27, 2004 Weekly Issue



Hand11
Guest Writer

The Right to Copy

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As a face-part maker, I find myself looking in the stores regularly, seeing the Elmos (tm) and Grovers (tm) and brand signs like Subway (tm), Noz (tm), and many more.

Well, I talked to my older brother recently about these trademarked items.  If you're wondering, he's 29, believe it or not, and he is a lawyer (graduating from college and working as an intern). I asked him one day about copyright laws and he told me all about them. The next day, I went to Whyville and got a y-mail from Akbar; noticing the subject didn't say "Good News," I was pretty sad. I opened the mail and saw that it said:

    "Sorry, your face part 'I luv Elmo' was not accepted because we no longer produce face parts with brand names in them."
Now that I believe I understand copyright and trademark laws, I could understand why my part was rejected, and I'm glad that they also didn't accept my 'PS2 4 U' sign.

In case you didn't know what copyrighting is, it means you can't make another one if you aren't the copyright-er, basically.  Of course, I don't make the real Elmo, or own the Sony company, so I can't make a part that has to do with Elmo or Playstation. So, if your face part gets declined because of copyright laws don't be sad -- if the company found out we were making new versions of their stuff, we might get sued! I'm not saying us the citizens, I mean Whyville itself! And we do not want Whyville to leave us forever!

I'm hand11 and I'm there you go, don't copy my article (who would, we are all good citizens!).  Signing off *click*

 

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