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Friday
January 15, 2010 Obama Ad Removed From Times SquareFiled under: General This week we reported in Counselor PromoGram that the Weatherproof Garment Company, which supplies its apparel to the ad specialty market under the MV Sport (asi/68318) name, planned to remove a much-discussed Manhattan billboard following a request from the White House.
According to the company’s reps: “Although Weatherproof believes that it had sufficient legal basis for displaying the billboard, it will be replacing the billboard in order to cooperate with the request of the White House.” The image portays the president wearing one of Weatherproof’s jackets when he visited the Great Wall of China last November, and the company — like any company hoping to take advantage of publicity — seized the moment and used the picture in its ads. According to a lawyer quoted in the New York Times’ article, “The legal framework for re-use of an image of a president is somewhat unclear, falling between publicity rights and the First Amendment.” Anyway, this got me to thinking, is this really much ado about nothing? I really think Weatherproof could have fought this and won, but I digress. Take the following poll: |
