Freedom of speech
Update: I have an idea: Canonrumors
should start collecting donations. Once he gets enough to get himself a
nice Nikon set, he should publicly destroy all his Canon equipment -
with a hammer and broadcast it on the Internet. I would pay
to see that!
Our friends at canonrumors.com
got a letter from Canon USA legal department that they cannot legally use the name “Canon” in their domain name. I am not a lawyer, but this sounds ridiculous! After all, this blog was created to promote Canon products and serve the Canon community.
Some of you will say that this type of rumor sites provides classified information to the competition (that would be us). Non-sense! A leak about a camera one week before its official release does not provide
any competitive advantage to anyone. All it does is free publicity and Internet buzz. Who can argue that this is bad for Canon?
I understand that the word Canon is a registered trademark, but the domain name is used in connection with a bona fide offering of goods and services (yes, I did take a law class in college):
If you want to say that ‘Gap sucks’ that’s your First Amendment right, and just because Gap has a registered trademark doesn’t necessarily mean
that they have a right to stop people from saying ‘Gap sucks,’” Gross said. “You’re not violating the trademark because there is no consumer confusion if the consumer is well aware that it’s a criticism site.”Like trademarks, a copyright does not grant authors or companies absolute
ownership over their copyrighted materials. The concept of fair use allows the public to make limited uses of otherwise copyrighted works.
“Just because somebody has a copyright doesn’t mean that they can control every use of that material,” Gross said.
My
guess is that someone at Canon is looking for a quick promotion and did not check with the marketing department before acting. My request is to any reader that has a website, blog, forum – write about it! Spread the word! This is not right!
“Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Maybe we should create a small logo “keep canonrumors alive” and post it everywhere. Any good graphic designers?
And finally I would like to remind our readers what happened to Apple when they tried to shut down a rumor site:
After all – another reason to switch to Nikon
Pre-Photokina
