Dilution recommended reading

Katya Assaf’s The Dilution of Culture and the Law of Trademarks, 49 IDEA 1 (2008), is too long but makes a number of nice points, including that trademark owners get to use emotional appeals as they wish, while protection against dilution means that opponents, or even just invokers, can’t: dilution means that trademark owners get to fight freestyle, while others have to play by Marquis of Queensbury rules. Related and equally interesting points are found in Laura Bradford’s new paper on trademarks and emotion, which I recommend highly even if she does disagree with me on the proper role of dilution. Best line from Assaf’s paper, discussing the extent to which we accept that consumers assume that all straight-up uses of a mark are licensed: “If we were told about a society where people believed that every poster bearing the name [or] likeness of their political leader must have been approved by him, we would probably assume that those people live under a strict dictatorship.” Shepard Fairey says: OBEY!