Washington Redskins Can Keep Calling Themselves That - "Disparaging" Names Completely Legal, Says Supreme Court

[TowinKarz]

The ruling was unanimous.

While this was brought to the USSC by a different case, the important part was striking down a provision in Federal Copyright Law that was used to yank the "Redskins" name back in 2014 on the grounds it was disparaging to Native Americans. Without that, it's hard to see exactly how Washington's legal appeal of that decision will not succeed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/...marks-redskins.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

 

[The Nothingness]

Good, now if only they can put together a championship-caliber team

 

[TowinKarz]

Ain't no court decision can help you with that, sadly. But look on the bright side, at least you aren't the Browns.

Also saw my first salty comment in response to the ruling, someone whining that the Justices "only considered the law and not if the name is actually harmful"

Well, duh, welcome to Jurisprudence 101 you idiot, and you failed it hard.

 

[AnOminous]

Ain't no court decision can help you with that, sadly. But look on the bright side, at least you aren't the Browns.

Also saw my first salty comment in response to the ruling, someone whining that the Justices "only considered the law and not if the name is actually harmful"

Well, duh, welcome to Jurisprudence 101 you idiot, and you failed it hard.

This is just the most recent smackdown of the Federal Circuit, which is generally the federal appeals court dealing with things like trademark and patents. The fact that it is unanimous is yet another rebuke to the lower court, which I think SCOTUS feels has gotten too big for its britches lately. Most of the overrulings have been in cases like this, where the Federal Circuit takes an excessively expansive view of the laws over which it has jurisdiction.

 

[TowinKarz]

I knew the instant the circuit sided with the SJWs that they were headed for a reversal up at the top, I just kinda shook my head and wondered how on Earth they thought they'd get away with it. Even the darn courts are starting to virtue-signal.

 

[Wallace]

I knew the instant the circuit sided with the SJWs that they were headed for a reversal up at the top, I just kinda shook my head and wondered how on Earth they thought they'd get away with it. Even the darn courts are starting to virtue-signal.

Social justice doesn't have a good track record against actual justice.

 

[Piss Clam]

Good, now if only they can put together a championship-caliber team

I miss the Joe Gibbs era. John Riggins for the win.

Riggins 43-yard touchdown run, Moseley kick good.

 

[AnOminous]

I knew the instant the circuit sided with the SJWs that they were headed for a reversal up at the top, I just kinda shook my head and wondered how on Earth they thought they'd get away with it. Even the darn courts are starting to virtue-signal.

The "disparaging" language is actually in the statute, and is the first phrase in the first paragraph of the statute.

"No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it—(a) Consists of or comprises immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute[.]" 15 U.S.C. § 1052.

It had previously repeatedly been applied, and the lower court had no particular reason to think any of the previous law was bad. The Supreme Court overruled previous precedents, which only it was in a position to do.

Also, the ruling would never have prevented the Washington Redskins from actually using the name. It would have denied it trademark protection.

 

[TowinKarz]

Yeah, at the end of the day, did anyone really think Dan Snyder was going to change the name? Even if they hadn't let him trademark it?

 

[Piss Clam]

Yeah, at the end of the day, did anyone really think Dan Snyder was going to change the name? Even if they hadn't let him trademark it?

Worst owner ever.

 

[AnOminous]

Yeah, at the end of the day, did anyone really think Dan Snyder was going to change the name? Even if they hadn't let him trademark it?

No. The only real financial consequences to them would have been there would probably be more cheap counterfeit merchandise shipped in from China, but they'd probably still be able to keep it out of anywhere who does business with the franchise by contract. So it would really only lead to marginally less income from merch. Also they wouldn't be able to stop websites critical of them from using their trademarked stuff.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Fun Fact: At this moment one of our Injun Tribes is trying to create Racial Laws similar to the One Drop rule so that only the Purest of the Injuns can get casino money (they kicked out 15% of their tribe using these Racial Laws) but they go after this again.

 

[TowinKarz]

As predicted, the Redskins have won the challenge.

DOJ officially dropped the case today and directed the lower court to find in their favor.

And another ill-advised attempt to make the matter of getting offended a legal issue instead of a personal one fails, gloriously.

 

[LulzKiller]

Not to revive a really dead thread but this also equally applies to the Cleveland Indians per MLB

 

[TowinKarz]

Strangely, I don't recall any effort to shame them into changing it, though they did change their logo to just a "C" a while ago to probably keep a low profile. But baseball is already a racist white guy sport according to SJWs, because reasons, so I guess they just stopped the dissection there.

 

[LulzKiller]

Strangely, I don't recall any effort to shame them into changing it, though they did change their logo to just a "C" a while ago to probably keep a low profile. But baseball is already a racist white guy sport according to SJWs, because reasons, so I guess they just stopped the dissection there.

they still have chief wahoo, it's just a secondary logo now; but there is a movement that also hates the name

 

[AnOminous]

As predicted, the Redskins have won the challenge.

DOJ officially dropped the case today and directed the lower court to find in their favor.

And another ill-advised attempt to make the matter of getting offended a legal issue instead of a personal one fails, gloriously.

This follows a recent trend of the Supreme Court overruling the Federal Circuit on silly shit they have done lately to try to expand their jurisdiction by interpreting trademark and patent law in increasingly overreaching ways. Trademark law is not an all purpose remedy for social justice or policymaking.

(ETA: the actual appeal was from a Fourth Circuit case but the general principle is still the same and much of the "disparaging" trademark crap was Federal Circuit law.)

Not to revive a really dead thread but this also equally applies to the Cleveland Indians per MLB

"Indians" or, for that matter, "Braves" is not inherently insulting in the way "Redskins" is. I actually don't in general like names like this.

Still, they actually did a poll of actual Native Americans and asked them about this and the vast majority simply did not give a single fuck, so it's yet another of these "white people tell PoCs what they should be offended by" nontroversies.

ETA: the actual poll.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...a11cfa-161a-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html

90% didn't give a shit.

 

[Lipitor]

90% didn't give a shit.

Well you still have 9% that ARE offended, so the question still remains, is it okay to offend them or to not care if you offend them if they're a minority?

Also let's be real about part of the issue, the Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, has historically done a terrible job at damage control on this issue. Had he handled the issue from the get go with some PR tact, instead of chimping and encouraging the fanbase to personal army chimp too, maybe this wouldn't still be an issue.

 

[AnOminous]

Well you still have 9% that ARE offended, so the question still remains, is it okay to offend them or to not care if you offend them if they're a minority?

That's 9% of the actual minority that's supposed to be offended, though.

Not to cite an SJW-ism too hard, but I don't think white people should talk over the vast majority of the population that is actually affected and basically says they couldn't give two shits. At that point, I think fine, I'll STFU and let them hash it out amongst themselves. It is not my position to tell them what they should be offended by when they overwhelmingly say they aren't.

 

[Lipitor]

That's 9% of the actual minority that's supposed to be offended, though.

Not to cite an SJW-ism too hard, but I don't think white people should talk over the vast majority of the population that is actually affected and basically says they couldn't give two shits. At that point, I think fine, I'll STFU and let them hash it out amongst themselves. It is not my position to tell them what they should be offended by when they overwhelmingly say they aren't.

I mean we agree that they don't have a homogeneous opinion on the matter, but the majority don't care. You still have a small subpopulation that IS offended, and I'm asking is it ok to offend them, just because most of them don't give a shit. It's more comparable to how nudity/swears are censored on TV, 90% of americans probably wouldn't give too much of a shit, but we have 10% who just can't handle it. I don't think you can use the argument, 90% don't care, so I don't have to care. While that may be true, you're still actively offending some of them, and my question is whether that's acceptable.