expression that everyone supports generally does not need protection in the first place, so laws that protect only expression that is as broad appeal or support are pointless.
protection of expression needs to be for things we dislike, despise or even find abhorrent, people that claim they support protection of expression but for only things they find value in are in reality declaring they do not support freedom of expression at all.
That’s “expression”. What I’m trying to do is come up with a hypothetical where you really would like there to be a test for what is and is not protected.
The Supreme Court called spending money on political campaigns “expression” in the Citizens United decision, do you support that?
You can call literally any act expression, the extreme of which is literally anarchy.
Yes... I do.
Why should Donald Trump be able to spend millions of his own money to create political speech, but I can not spend $1 along with 1 million of my friends to counter is. Contrary to what the common tag line is of "corporations are people now" the court recognized that corporations are made up of people, as such the people acting as a group ( corporation) are entitled to protections just as if they were acting alone as an individual.
>>So you’d be ok with someone using AI to generate an image of your self/spouse/child doing something unspeakably awful and putting it up on billboards around town with a suggestion that people take matters into their own hands?
Well that escalated quickly, that said in generally... I would probably consider that protected. The last part would be murky as I so recognize the "True Threat" doctrine, of course I am also a self defense absolutist along with a free expression absolutist, so if the hypothetical bill board expressed a true threat I believe it with in my ethical right to defend myself from that true threat.
Per the government's argument, "the government would have the power to ban books if those books contained even one sentence expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and were published or distributed by a corporation or labor union."
It wasn't some crazy hypothetical about violence being an act of personal expression, or something like that. It was about other people can organize to share verbal, written, and recorded political ideas.
As with many Supreme Court rulings, the political spin far eclipsed the actual decision and arguments.
Also, all this case establishes is that there is no exception for comedy/sarcasm when it comes to a trademark copying someone else's trademark.
It is actually very likely that the case will be won by Bad Spaniels on simpler grounds - that their trademark will not confuse anyone into thinking they are buying a Jack Daniels bottle. And that is the right thing that the courts should decide - but it was something that Bad Spaniels was trying to avoid.
Except that it would not happen. In a word without trademark protection, people would be like "what the heck is an iPhone, what does it do?" because the word iPhone would have no meaning. You would have to sell based on capabilities, rather than brand name. There would have to be sufficiently strong laws against false advertising and deceptive marketing, but I can see number of advantages over the current system.
I agree with the rest of your post. The whole case is increasingly looking like a successful publicity stunt by the two companies to me. I don't think I would know anything about Bad Spaniels otherwise, and while Jack Daniels is well known, the way addiction works I would not be surprised if a large number of people were hitting their local liqueur store after seeing this case on the news.
I am not aware of this ever having occurred across history. Instead, brands become personal. You don’t buy an iPhone, you buy master Tim Cook’s phone.
And the reason is also self-evident: it is very hard if not impossible to assess all of the relevant capabilities of a manufactured product just on an quick inspection. Even if you were able to do so for one category of product, you'll not be an expert in every category. As such, the only way to know the true quality of products you are buying is to rely on the reputation of the one crafting them, and the branding of the products is used to establish the chain of trust (this shoe has such-and-such craftsman's mark, so I know its a quality shoe because I've bought other shoes from them in the past and they lasted two decades).
Even if you had very strong laws to prevent false advertising of features, it's extremely cost-prohibitive to establish build quality objectively without relying on the reputation of the maker. How would that even look? What would you expect to see on a non-branded shirt to tell you whether it's a good quality weave or a poor one? Whether the color is strongly bonded to the fabric or it will wash off? Whether the seams are sturdy or prone to breaking?