The best source for following pending legislation in the U.S. Congress
usually is
http://thomas.loc.gov/. In addition
to the bill text, you can get status and committee reports.
Congresspeople are political animals, so they usually give greater
attention to communications from those who votes they will be seeking. By
all means, write to Senator Hatch, and perhaps Senator Specter. But also
consider your own senator, especially if he or she is a member of the
Judciary Committee.
Frank - have you thought about doing a scruffy, pointy-eared, hobo-style mouse called Muckey Mouse? On second thought, perhaps that has been done, and Disney is behind the new law. ;-)
Actually, I've seen a couple of reports on similarity of trademarks and company names coming out of China which might be the motivation for this bill. Hard to tell.
Anyway, it might be worth a few letters to Senators to see if some fineart protections could be added.
Why don't the regressives just repeal the First Amendment and be done with it?
Too late. Done already -- but the papers weren't allowed to publish the story.
If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D
"Frank - have you thought about doing a scruffy, pointy-eared, hobo-style mouse called Muckey Mouse? On second thought, perhaps that has been done, and Disney is behind the new law. ;-) "
Wasn't such a mouse in Berkeley Breathed's Outland? He was a surly, stubbly, chain-smoking mouse who wore two-button shorts and had an unexplained bite taken out of one ear, named Mortimer Mouse.
Anyone remember this story from last summer?
jbhogan
In response to many comments, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
apparently have agreed to restore the exemption for all noncommercial use
of a mark to the section on trademark dilution. The only mention of this I
can find is on the ASMP web site at
http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2006/HR683.php, although the Thomas web
site, http://thomas.loc.gov, does
indicate that an amendment has been agreed to.
Sometimes it does pay to contact elected representatives. U.S. residents
might want to consider doing so concerning the proposed Orphan Works
copyright legislation, which would appear to be far more serious than the
revision to the Trademark Dilution Act.
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