UK Woman Denied Passport Because Her Name Might Infringe On Disney's Copyright

Thu, 02 Oct 2014 02:26:53 +1000

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140731/07200328068/uk-woman-denied-passport-because-her-name-might-infringe-disneys-copyright.shtml>

"Seeing as copyright and trademark law has nothing to do with security
and/or a person's ability to travel, it's a bit odd that the passport
office would be so concerned about George Lucas' intellectual property
— a stock farmboy character transplanted to a stock good v. evil
storyline set in a futuristic past. After all, as Laura Skywalker points
out, no other government agency has expressed a concern about her
legally-changed name."

When the government is afraid of global megacorporations and denies
fundamental rights to its citizens just to avoid any chance of upsetting
the corporations, something is out of whack.  It looks like we could use
a few more brave people legally taking on the names of Disney
characters, which after all are part of our culture now.

Cheers,
        *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net                   Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/             Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/                Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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