A breastfeeding activist promotes, inter alia, t-shirts with the slogan “The other white milk.” This has the National Pork Board, with its slogan “The other white meat,” up in arms, and a Faegre & Benson attorney issued a ceast-and-desist letter. The shirt wasn’t a big seller (and CafePress quickly acceded to the threat), so it’s really not about the money, but Jennifer Laycock isn’t happy about the bullying (h/t W.C.).
Overzealous Trademark Enforcement Files: National Pork Board
A breastfeeding activist promotes, inter alia, t-shirts with the slogan “The other white milk.” This has the National Pork Board, with its slogan “The other white meat,” up in arms, and a Faegre & Benson attorney issued a ceast-and-desist letter. The shirt wasn’t a big seller (and CafePress quickly acceded to the threat), so it’s […]
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When you read the comments there it is quite funny.
Many claim to be unable to see any connection at all between the two phrases “the other white meat” and “the other white milk”.
Some are riding the “This is a parody of the “Got milk?” campaign.” bandwagon.
Several claim to never have seen or heard the “other white meat” slogan at all. (Sure it’s possible – granted I’ve heard it on radio, heard and seen it on TV and seen and read it in periodical and outdoor advertising media, but maybe they just pay attention to more important things)
Some rant about the over-reaction of the Board in ttrying to protect their trademark by asserting that they and their families will never eat pork products again and they will encourage others to join them in this eternal and complete boycott – the most severe economic sanction they can impose on an entity that has sought no economic sanction.
I know it is unfair, but I shake my head and think “Chicks.”
Jennifer Laycock: “Come on now, be honest…were you confused? Because I sort of thought I was comparing breastmilk (which just happens to be white) with the milk of a variety of other animals (cows? goats?) that happen to produce white milk (not kangaroos though, their milk is pink) and that often gets fed to infants INSTEAD of breast milk.”
Since any milk or milk substitute I’ve ever heard of being fed to human infants is white, I have to think that saying “the other white milk” instead of “the other milk” is an intentional parody of the pork motto.
OTOH, it’s a parody, used by a group that’s no commercial threat to the pork business, and that uses the small profits from selling T-shirts to support other ways of getting their non-commercial message out. If that’s not protected expression, what is?
“Overzealous Trademark Enforcement” or merely generating billable hours. You be the judge.
So I take it the Pork Council would not take it well if I tried to market condoms to white guys emblazoned with the phrase “The other white meat”?
Which is very strange. I response to their rather laughable and annoying ad campaign, my friend and myself have been calling it “Pork: the other grey meat” for years, now. I drop it into Google, and find at least one source of “grey meat” t-shirts and such, completely unmolested, as far as I could tell, by the Pork Council.
And they think “The other white milk” is less obvious parody? Is there some legal rule that it’s not parody unless it reaches a certain level of sarcasm and revulsion? Maybe THAT’s what the milk folks are doing wrong.