Salon story featuring a shocking array of Obama memorabilia. The lead is the best: the
Obama dildo. The site, which uses a logo that's not much more different from Obama's than the new Pepsi campaign logo, calls it "the official Obama pleasure toy" and features (fake) endorsements from McCain, Palin, Bush, Cheney, and Joe the Plumber (expect the latter's lawsuit any moment now). Which just goes to show: sometimes even "official" wouldn't mislead a reasonable consumer.
Re Right of Publicity of the new president: At some point the unauthorized user's political use argument "Express your support for Barry O with each use" becomes absurd. It should clearly raise a defense with his name and image on coffee cups and watch faces, but underwear and dildos? What if his identity is used merely to draw attention to ads for things like furniture retailers and car repair shops? But I’m sure that his personal attorneys have much weightier things to do. But when Ty uses his daughters’ identities as dolls, I think that the line has been crossed. His attorney should write Ty a stern cease and desist letter.
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