this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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    The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

    99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

    When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

    When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

    When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

    Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

    The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

    All this is a path to a police state.

    In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

    Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

    That's the solution.

♦ ♦ ♦

Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.

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ALLIES

[email protected]

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r/ACAB

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Randy Balko

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INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

Killings by law enforcement in Canada

Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom

Killings by law enforcement in the United States

Know your rights: Filming the police

Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)

Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.

Police lie under oath, a lot

Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street

Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

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The creator of a “FUCK the LAPD” shirt sold out not only his entire stock of that shirt but also sold out many of his other designs after the Los Angeles Police Department Foundation made an intellectual property threat against them that claimed they owned the letters ‘LAPD.’

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Here’s the thing about Trademarks though:

Trademarks exist to protect consumers from confusion in the market, NOT primarily to protect the owner of the trademark.

So, like, a restaurant calling themselves McDonald’s could reasonably be assumed to be operated by the McDonald’s Corporation.

This makes trademarks distinct from both patents and copyright.

Do you honestly believe a rational consumer would mistake this design for one originating from the LAPD?

https://academic.oup.com/book/41769/chapter-abstract/354401357?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

‘’’

European Trade Mark Law Kur Annette and Martin Senftleben Contents Contents Search in this book CHAPTER 3 Rationales of Trade Mark Protection Get access Arrow Kur Annette, Martin Senftleben https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199680443.003.0002 Pages 1–26 Published: March 2017 Annotate icon Annotate Cite Icon Cite Permissions Icon Permissions Share Icon Share Abstract Although trade mark law is generally regarded as forming part of the larger body of intellectual property, the protection mechanism underlying its functioning is distinct from other intellectual property rights. Patents, copyright, or design rights award creative or innovative achievements with a limited period of market exclusivity thus creating artificial scarcity of the respective commodities. This grants the proprietor of such rights the possibility to raise prices above the marginal costs so as to recoup the investments made. Whether and to what extent that strategy is successful and even allows gaining a premium is determined by the market. Trade mark law coincides with that scheme insofar as it also engages market forces to determine commercial gains or losses. However, instead of creating artificial exclusivity of the goods or services offered, it provides a communication channel for entrepreneurs, so as to identify the goods or services originating from their business, distinguish them from competing goods, and transport product-related messages they want to convey to their customers. This, by reflex, provides information to the market, guiding consumer choice towards goods satisfying their demands, and helping to avoid those they do not want, at minimal search costs (see paragraph 1.08 et seq.). Thus, instead of restricting competition on the production level, trade marks are designed as an enabling tool without which competition in today’s mass markets would not function at all. ‘’’

[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 months ago (3 children)

This, and the dumbass lawyer representing the LAPF sent a DMCA takedown, explicitly calling it copyright infringement, which is most certainly is not

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/14/when-lol-no-is-not-enough-lawyer-explains-why-bogus-takedown-over-fuck-the-lapd-shirt-should-result-in-paying-legal-fees/

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Great read, thanks for sharing.

FYI there's a link in that article that goes to the initial, and much more brief, walkthrough of the original letter, and it's comically short response.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

That was a great read. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

DMCA is only copyright so it had to be a copyright claim. You could probably argue that this claim was in bad faith, but that's a lot of work to actually prove.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No seriously, read it, it's fucking hilarious.

I'm almost afraid to ask you to explain how you might have formed such a belief, but feel free to take a shot at it.

In a footnote on page 3

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Mike Dunford, Cola's lawyer, is fantastic. He has a Twitch channel (questauthority) if you want to hear more from him.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why wasn't this good enough to protect The South Butt? Or was it just a legal might makes right kind of thing

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Can explain why you think its different? They both seem like they are obvious parodies and should fall under similar rulings/precedents.