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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: Did I know windmills very much?

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Speaker 2: I've studied it better than anybody else.

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Speaker 1: You'll see these things all over the place.

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Speaker 2: They destroy everything.

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Speaker 3: They're horrible and the most expensive energy there is.

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Speaker 1: They ruin the environment, They kill the birds, they kill

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Speaker 1: the whales. Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on

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Speaker 1: television tonight, but the winds stop blowing and I can't watch.

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Speaker 1: There's no electricity in the house.

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Speaker 2: Darling.

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Speaker 1: You want to see a bird cemetery, go under a

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Speaker 1: windmill sometime you'll see the status.

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Speaker 4: President Donald Trump has been a vehement critic of wind

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Speaker 4: power for years, deriding wind turbines as bird killing eye

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Speaker 4: sores and falsely claiming that they're the most expensive form

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Speaker 4: of energy, cause cancer and drive whales crazy. And Trump

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Speaker 4: has aggressively. So I ought to cripple the wind power

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Speaker 4: industry in his second term. Within hours of returning to

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Speaker 4: the White House in twenty twenty five, he issued a

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Speaker 4: directive that froze new permitting for wind energy and ordered

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Speaker 4: officials to consider terminating existing leases.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to try and have a policy where

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Speaker 1: no windmills are being built, and.

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Speaker 4: So in December, the Department of the Interior ordered a

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Speaker 4: pause to five multi billion dollar wind farm projects under construction,

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Speaker 4: citing unspecified national security concerns. This Monday, for the fifth

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Speaker 4: time in three weeks, a federal judge granted a preliminary

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Speaker 4: injunction blocking the government's stop work order, saying the administration's

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Speaker 4: decision was likely arbitrary and capricious. Now all five of

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Speaker 4: the wind farms planned in federal waters have gotten the

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Speaker 4: go ahead from the courts, although the Trump administration says

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Speaker 4: it will keep fighting in court. My guest is an

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Speaker 4: expert in environmental law, Pat Parento, a professor at the

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Speaker 4: Vermont Law and Graduate School. Pat tell us what happened

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Speaker 4: when five different judges took a look at the Interior

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Speaker 4: Department stop work orders on these wind farm projects.

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Speaker 2: So Trump is oz for five basically in these cases.

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Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is these are a variety of judges.

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Speaker 2: Two of them were appointed by Trump and a third one,

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Speaker 2: Royce Lambert, who just issued the final nail in the

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Speaker 2: coffin for this stop work order. He was nominated by

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Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan. So you know, we're not talking about woke judges.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about conservative judges. All of them without exception,

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Speaker 2: have said that this order, this stop work order on

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Speaker 2: five offshore win projects, but which by the way, is

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Speaker 2: six gigawatts. Okay, it's designed to serve more than two

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Speaker 2: and half million homes and businesses all up and down

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Speaker 2: the East Coast. So you know, this is a really

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Speaker 2: really significant amount of electricity that this stop work order

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Speaker 2: has tried to halt. So there's a preliminary injunction against

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Speaker 2: all of the stop work orders at this point.

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Speaker 4: The Trump administration, the Interior Department, has said that they're

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Speaker 4: suspending these because of national security risks. It didn't disclose

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Speaker 4: the security risk, but it claimed that the Department of

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Speaker 4: Defense provided new classified information about advances and adversary technologies

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Speaker 4: that could raise national security issues with offshore wind projects.

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Speaker 4: I'm not sure what that means. And Judge Lamberth looked

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Speaker 4: at those confidential documents and said he didn't get it.

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Speaker 4: He didn't see the security risks right.

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Speaker 2: He said there was no proof of imminent threat to

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Speaker 2: national security at all. On the other hand, he said

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Speaker 2: that stopping the World Quarters was going to cost these

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Speaker 2: companies two million dollars a day. One of the projects.

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Speaker 2: Vineyard Win was ninety five percent complete, it's already sending

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Speaker 2: some electricity to the grid. And two of the other projects,

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Speaker 2: one of them was forty percent complete, the other one

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Speaker 2: sixty five percent complete. So you got to remember, these

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Speaker 2: are projects that have gone through an incredible amount of vetting,

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Speaker 2: including Department of Defense vetting, including clearance from the Department

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Speaker 2: of Defense. Of course, that was the Department of Defense

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Speaker 2: before Trump. Okay, so when Trump now comes up with

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Speaker 2: these secret classified documents demonstrating a threat to national security,

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Speaker 2: and as you point out, Jadge Lambert looked at them

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Speaker 2: and said, I don't see it, it does raise the

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Speaker 2: serious question is this all just a pretext for Trump's

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Speaker 2: you know, well known animosity, outright hostility to win power.

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Speaker 2: And it all comes from the fact that he owns

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Speaker 2: a golf course in Scotland and from his golf course

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Speaker 2: you can see wind farms off the coast of Scotland

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Speaker 2: generating all kinds of clean electricity. He doesn't like the

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Speaker 2: look of them. He's come up with all kinds of

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Speaker 2: reasons why they're bad. They cause cancer, No they don't.

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Speaker 2: They kill a disproportionate number of birds. No they don't.

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Speaker 2: They're unreliable. No they're not. They're too expensive. No they're not.

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Speaker 2: So that's where we are.

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Speaker 4: I think the whales too, Now.

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Speaker 2: Are the whales? Don't forget the whales. Yeah, and all

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Speaker 2: of this has been true. And you know, years and

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Speaker 2: years not only of vetting in the agencies, but the

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Speaker 2: whale issue in particular has been up and down the

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Speaker 2: courts in the first circuit and the second circuit repeatedly,

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Speaker 2: and none of the cases have found a serious threat

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Speaker 2: to the whales. Believe me, if there was a serious

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Speaker 2: threat to the whales, you'd be hearing about it from me.

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Speaker 4: Is it the look of the windmills? Or is it

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Speaker 4: that Trump wants to promote fossil fuels? And also, these

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Speaker 4: wind energy projects were favorites former President Biden.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, anything that Biden supported. He's going to kill every

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Speaker 2: single thing he can find that is connected to Biden.

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Speaker 2: You'll kill it. And you know, these arguments just fall apart.

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Speaker 2: The studies that have been done by banks, serious people, right,

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Speaker 2: all say that that wind and solar energy are the

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Speaker 2: cheapest forms of energy to bring online quickly, not that

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Speaker 2: they're going to solve all of our problems. They're not.

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Speaker 2: You need base load electricity. But when it comes to

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Speaker 2: really costing out, you know the life cycle costs of

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Speaker 2: these various energy transmission options, and you look at everything

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Speaker 2: from where do you get the materials, you know, whether

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Speaker 2: it's fuel or other things to build these systems, and

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Speaker 2: then how much does it cost to buy the fuel

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Speaker 2: for these systems. Just think about it. The wind is free,

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Speaker 2: the sun is free. Once you've installed these systems, these

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Speaker 2: wind turbines offshore, you don't suffer the fluctuations of gas prices.

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Speaker 2: You know, you don't have oil spills. You have whim spills,

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Speaker 2: but not oil spills. So the Sober Analysis of Renewables

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Speaker 2: is saying, to meet the growing demand for electricity, including

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Speaker 2: the huge one from AI data centers, you need more

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Speaker 2: wind and solar. You need all kinds of forms of energy,

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Speaker 2: but you in particular need projects that are almost complete

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Speaker 2: and ready to go.

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Speaker 4: The White House said they're going to continue fighting in court.

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Speaker 4: Do you think that appellate courts might have a different viewpoint?

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Speaker 2: They might, You know, you always have to leave open

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Speaker 2: the possibility that a different panel of judges would reach

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Speaker 2: a different conclusion. But the point is that the evidence

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Speaker 2: here of a national security threat consists of a document

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Speaker 2: or documents, right, and so you don't have witnesses. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean some other judge might look at these documents

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Speaker 2: and reach a different conclusion than Judge Lamberts did. But

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Speaker 2: the rule is the trial court's decision to issue an

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Speaker 2: injunction if it's reasonable, right, if it's based on an

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Speaker 2: analysis of whether the government's stated reason for these stopwork

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Speaker 2: orders passes muster. I don't think the courts of appeal

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Speaker 2: are going to overturn these preliminary injunctions. The cases are

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Speaker 2: preceding the proponents of these projects, primarily or Sted, the

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Speaker 2: Denmark firm. They're bounded determined to work with the Trump

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Speaker 2: administration to resolve whatever their questions are. The real question

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Speaker 2: is with the signals coming from these wind turbines to

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Speaker 2: the grid, would they interfere with military radar readings. That's

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Speaker 2: what it comes down to. And the companies are saying, hey, look,

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Speaker 2: if you need more safeguards and more mitigation of whatever

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Speaker 2: risks you think there are, we're all about addressing that

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Speaker 2: and fixing that. We have decades of experience with building

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Speaker 2: these systems, running these systems in every country in which

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Speaker 2: they're operating. They have the same set of radar and

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Speaker 2: military needs and national security needs, and if there are

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Speaker 2: issues out there, they can be dealt with.

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Speaker 4: Pat So, despite the fact that the Trump administration is

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Speaker 4: losing in court court battle after court battle over the

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Speaker 4: wind farms, the shift in policy under Trump, for example,

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Speaker 4: the so called One Big Beautiful Bill sped up the

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Speaker 4: phase out of federal tax credits for offshore wind has

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Speaker 4: this all escalated the risk of investing in offshore wind

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Speaker 4: projects so that it's unlikely that you'll have new projects.

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Speaker 4: The ones that are ongoing now they'll fight to keep,

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Speaker 4: but new projects, I mean, I think the government's not

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Speaker 4: even going to approve new projects.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, that is the bigger threat here, that they're

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Speaker 2: going to discourage investment. And when you think about it,

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Speaker 2: this is foreign investment. This isn't costing US companies or

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Speaker 2: US taxpayers and nickel okay to build these things. This

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Speaker 2: is free money that we're getting, and it's billions and

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Speaker 2: billions of dollars. And oh, by the way, if you

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Speaker 2: think about it, just simply delaying these five projects at

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Speaker 2: two million dollars a day, who do you think is

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Speaker 2: ultimately going to pay for that? The consumers of electricity,

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Speaker 2: and so there are studies out there saying an extended

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Speaker 2: delay like this could cost consumers billions of dollars because

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Speaker 2: of the amount of electricity that these would generate. So

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Speaker 2: the chilling effect on investment is the goal of this administration.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they don't really care if they lose in court.

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Speaker 2: They'll just keep appealing if they can, all the way

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Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court if they can. But their real

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Speaker 2: goal is to stifle renewable energy and particularly win and

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Speaker 2: I hate to say, but they're succeeding in that. You know,

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Speaker 2: that's not in the national interest. It's not in the

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Speaker 2: national security interest to cripple a major source of electricity

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Speaker 2: at a time when we're seeing escalating demands for it.

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Speaker 2: How does that make any sense at all?

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Speaker 4: Thanks so much, Pat. That's Professor Pat Parento of the

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Speaker 4: Vermont Law and Graduate School. Coming up next on the

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Speaker 4: Bloomberg Law Show. Those mischievous minions will be taking the

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Speaker 4: Olympic ice after all, and how the US Olympic Committee

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Speaker 4: jealously guards its intellectual property. I'm June Grasso. When you're

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Speaker 4: listening to Bloomberg, it was in doubt, but it now

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Speaker 4: appears that those mischievous Minions will be taking the Olympic ice.

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Speaker 4: After all, those cheeky characters have been causing a musical

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Speaker 4: nightmare for Spanish figure skater Thomas Jurin's Guarino Sabte. He's

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Speaker 4: been using a medley from the animated comedy film Minions

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Speaker 4: while dressed in their iconic blue overalls and yellow T shirt,

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Speaker 4: and his performances all sees it believing he'd gone through

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Speaker 4: the proper protocols to obtain the necessary permissions. But then

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Speaker 4: on Friday, NBC Universal told him he didn't have the

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Speaker 4: clearance to use the music, So just days before the

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Speaker 4: Olympics are to begin, he was scrambling to come up

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Speaker 4: with a whole new show until Universal changed its mind.

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Speaker 4: My guest is intellectual property litigator Terence Ross, a partner

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Speaker 4: catin Yuchen Rosenmann. So Terry, this skater has been using

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Speaker 4: the Minions music during the whole season, and all of

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Speaker 4: a sudden before the Olympics, NBC Universal tells him, No,

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Speaker 4: you don't have permission, you can't use it. It seems

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Speaker 4: like having the Minions music in the Olympics would be

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Speaker 4: a plus for the franchise and Universal.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I agree with that completely. Apparently he had flown

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Speaker 1: under the radar of the copyright folks at Universal for

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Speaker 1: most of the season. But now that he's in the Olympics,

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Speaker 1: and I guess NBC has got the coverage rights to

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Speaker 1: the Olympics and they're owned by Universal. Probably somebody in

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Speaker 1: the NBC Sports broadcasting called it to the attention to Universal,

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Speaker 1: this guy's using the Minions music. Did you approve it?

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Speaker 1: And Universal had not. The Spanish skater had never obtained

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Speaker 1: advance approval. The music is copyrighted, as was the film,

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Speaker 1: as all music is copyrighted. And to mindset, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's the Olympics aren't taking place in the United States.

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Speaker 1: They are taking place in Italy. And I says, come on, guy,

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Speaker 1: in the modern world, we have international treaties where almost

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Speaker 1: all the countries sign up to and allow enforcement of

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Speaker 1: their copyrights in other countries through the simplicity of filing

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Speaker 1: a couple pieces of paper with an international organization. So

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Speaker 1: that's not going to excuse this guy. And at some

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Speaker 1: point during the last week or so, it seemed like

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Speaker 1: he was really not going to be able to perform

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Speaker 1: his music.

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Speaker 4: Well, this got a lot of attention, a lot of

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Speaker 4: negative attention, I think for NBC Universal people were calling

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Speaker 4: it Minion Gate, and there was a lot of sympathy

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Speaker 4: on social media for the ice skater who now was

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Speaker 4: faced with the prospect of changing his whole routine at

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Speaker 4: the last minute. So perhaps Universal saw which way the

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Speaker 4: wind was blowing and did a turnaround, allowing him to

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Speaker 4: use the music after all.

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Speaker 1: Ultimately, that's what the Spanish skater said. He thanked the

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Speaker 1: Universal for letting him do it. He thanked all his

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Speaker 1: fans for calling out the problem and getting Universal pay

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Speaker 1: attention to it. You know, it just comes back to

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Speaker 1: the point you made at the beginning. Why would you

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Speaker 1: not want your music being used in a setting like

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Speaker 1: that and getting all the international exposure. I guess Universal

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Speaker 1: was taking the position that Minions and the various Minions

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Speaker 1: movies are so well known that they don't need any

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Speaker 1: more exposure from some ice skater in Spain, and what

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Speaker 1: happens if he falls down jerd the music And you know,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't see that kind of conversation going on within,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Universal legal department, and so they sent

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Speaker 1: out a cease and desist letter and thankfully Sanity prevailed

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Speaker 1: and he's been authorized to use it. I was dying

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Speaker 1: to see if he got some sort of written license agreement,

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Speaker 1: but that hasn't shown up at the press. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: he gets to use it now.

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Speaker 3: And you know it's because if you're making a movie,

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Speaker 3: if you're making a television show, there's literally a person

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Speaker 3: who gets credit on the screen who's called the music supervisor,

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Speaker 3: and they're not the people who make the.

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Speaker 1: Music or write the score. Music supervisor references the person

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Speaker 1: who's responsible for getting all the licenses for the music,

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Speaker 1: and so it's literally a job in the movies and television,

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Speaker 1: but apparently in ice dancing they haven't gotten that for yet.

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Speaker 4: Copyright problems are pretty new in figure skating because for

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Speaker 4: years music using lyrics wasn't allowed, and so classical music

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Speaker 4: and other standard music that's part of the public domain

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Speaker 4: was used by the skaters in their routines, and it

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Speaker 4: was only in twenty fourteen that the International Skating Union

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Speaker 4: relaxed its rules to allow words in music, and that

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Speaker 4: leads to modern music being used and copyright problems. Three

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Speaker 4: times US Champion Amber Glenn called her experience in getting

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Speaker 4: music approved pure chaos, and as you said, it's so

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Speaker 4: complicated because one piece of music can involve getting how

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Speaker 4: many authorizations.

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Speaker 1: You know, I feel sorry for them. We've had this

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Speaker 1: discussion before in the context of documentaries, where a documentary

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Speaker 1: filmmaker wants to use a short piece of music, they

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Speaker 1: just want to be cautious. Arguably they could claim fair use,

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Speaker 1: but they want to be cautious, so they ask for

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Speaker 1: advanced approval. And you know, filmmakers are typically not lawyers,

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Speaker 1: just as ice skaters typically aren't lawyers, and the bureaucratic

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Speaker 1: process of trying to get it is very challenging. And

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Speaker 1: then there's the problem at the other end. You jump

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Speaker 1: through all the hoops, you ask for permission and they go,

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Speaker 1: what you're not paying us for this? And then they

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Speaker 1: try to collect, you know, a couple bucks out of you.

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Speaker 1: And it's a challenging process. And I feel sorry for

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Speaker 1: these ice dancers who put a beautiful performances quite frankly,

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Speaker 1: and it's a really engaging sort of transformation of the

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Speaker 1: music by combining it with ice dancing. They're not boyers.

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Speaker 1: Got the Olympic video or somebody should figure out a

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Speaker 1: way to get these guys some help.

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Speaker 4: Well, apparently they've been trying but not succeeding because the

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Speaker 4: International Skating Union and national governing bodies have apparently been

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Speaker 4: spending the past four years trying to develop systems to

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Speaker 4: help skaters obtain permission to use music. Sabat, for example,

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Speaker 4: said he followed the prescribed procedure forgetting his music approved

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Speaker 4: through a system called click Clear in August before the

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Speaker 4: figure skating season began, So obviously there's a lot more

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Speaker 4: work to be done there. Coming up next on the

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Speaker 4: Bloomberg Last Show, I'll continue this conversation with intellectual property

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Speaker 4: litigator Terrence Ross. No, you can't use onion rings to

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Speaker 4: create your own version of the Olympic trademark, and what's

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Speaker 4: called ambush marketing is also a no no. Swimmer Michael

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Speaker 4: Phelps and Subway accused of that. I'm June Grosso and

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Speaker 4: you're listening to Bloomberg. The twenty twenty six Winter Olympics,

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Speaker 4: known as Milano Cortina twenty twenty six, begins on Friday

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Speaker 4: in Italy, and the Olympic Committee will be on the

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Speaker 4: lookout for the unauthorized commercial use of the many, many

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Speaker 4: trademarks that it holds the exclusive rights to. We're talking

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Speaker 4: about symbols like the five interlocking rings, the Olympic flame

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Speaker 4: and torch, the Olympic flag, the motto, the anthem, the

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Speaker 4: words Olympic, olympiad Team USA, OH for the gold Milano

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty six, and on and on and on. I've

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Speaker 4: been talking to intellectual property litigator Terrence Ross, a partner

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Speaker 4: at Katain Muchen Rosenman. Terry, Let's turn now to the

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Speaker 4: US Olympic Committee and the way it so carefully guards

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Speaker 4: its intellectual property. So the use of Olympic trademarks, logos,

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Speaker 4: images and symbols is prohibited without permission from the US

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Speaker 4: Olympic Committee. I think it's easier to ask you whether

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Speaker 4: anything related to the Olympics is not protected than to

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Speaker 4: ask you what is protected.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's a great legal question, and every couple of years,

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Speaker 1: when we either have the Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics,

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Speaker 1: the Olympic Committee literally sends out notices about six months

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Speaker 1: ahead of time warning people, and they post things on

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Speaker 1: their website and they are very aggressive in enforcing their

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Speaker 1: intellectual property rights. But it's a completely different regime than

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Speaker 1: what we usually talk about June. It's not under the

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Speaker 1: Lanham Act, which is the name of the United States

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Speaker 1: Trademark Laws. A number of years ago, Congress passed a

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Speaker 1: law entitled the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.

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Speaker 1: Now you may remember Ted Stevens was the longtime center

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Speaker 1: from Alaska who got indicted for taking a bribe, was convicted,

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Speaker 1: and he resigned from the Senate, and his conviction was

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Speaker 1: overturned because the Department of Justice had committed a series

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Speaker 1: of ethical blaxes had not provided him with exculptory information.

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Speaker 1: So the poor guy had all that bad press and

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Speaker 1: had to get out of the Senate because the deal

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Speaker 1: James screwed up. But he got this piece of legislation

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Speaker 1: named after him, and it is very unique. It's thirty

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Speaker 1: six US Code, Section twenty two oh five oh six,

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Speaker 1: and what it does is set up a special intellectual

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Speaker 1: property rights regime for the United States Olympic Committee. And

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Speaker 1: it says that at the five rings, you know, the

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Speaker 1: international symbol of Olympics, the five rings, also the Pan

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Speaker 1: American sports symbol, which I'm less familiar with the words Olympic, Olympiad, Paralympic, Paralympiad,

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Speaker 1: pan American, parapan American, all those words are all exclusively

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Speaker 1: within the use of the United States Olympic Committee and

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the trademark laws. The Congress

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Speaker 1: has simply taken this group of words and symbols and

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Speaker 1: given them to the United States Olympic Committee. Incredibly unusual.

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Speaker 1: It's the only ball like that I know of in

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Speaker 1: the United States.

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Speaker 4: I was looking at the guidelines that they have on

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Speaker 4: a website entitled Commercial and Brand Usage Guidelines, and I

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Speaker 4: found some of the trademarks really surprising. For example, they've

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Speaker 4: trademarked the phrase let the Games begin. I mean that

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Speaker 4: seems so generic. Let the Games begin is used in

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Speaker 4: a lot of different contexts, not just in the Olympic realm.

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Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, now, there is one distinction within the law.

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Speaker 1: Specific words are set aside and you just can't use

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Speaker 1: them period. Now there's a couple exceptions to that. If

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Speaker 1: you're in that part of the state of Washington where

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Speaker 1: the town of Olympia is, and I guess there's a

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Speaker 1: set of mountains there, Cascades mountains, and you do business there,

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Speaker 1: you can use the word Olympic or Olympia, and you

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Speaker 1: can also use the word Olympics Olympia for a sportscaster

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Speaker 1: talking about the Games in a non commercial context. So

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Speaker 1: that's one part of the regime. The other part of

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Speaker 1: the regime is there's this very broad provision that says,

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Speaker 1: I'll just read it here. Any trademark, trade name, sign, symbol,

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Speaker 1: or insignia falsely representing association with their authorization by the

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Speaker 1: International Olympics Committee also violates the law. Now that's a

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Speaker 1: little bit different, different from using the word Olympics or

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Speaker 1: pan Olympics or para Olympics in those cases like you

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Speaker 1: gave the example, let the Games begin, that's not one

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Speaker 1: of the words exclusively consigned to the Olympic Committee. But

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Speaker 1: they can still come after you under this other provision

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Speaker 1: in that it suggests an association with the Olympics that

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Speaker 1: is not true. It's harder to prove that.

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Speaker 4: Though, Jarry, I've been reading about what the Olympic Committee

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Speaker 4: characterized as ambush marketing. When there was a subway commercial

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Speaker 4: with swimmer Michael Phelps swimming to quote where action is

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Speaker 4: this winter Subway was not an Olympic sponsor. The Olympic

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Speaker 4: Committee said it was an attempt to falsely associate subway

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Speaker 4: with the Olympics, as a sponsor.

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Speaker 1: And you remember in the run up to the Rio Games,

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Speaker 1: the Summer Olympics that year, there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: billboard advertising that sort of did the same sort of

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Speaker 1: thing down in Rio, and the Olympic Committee went crazy

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Speaker 1: over that. There was a case in the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: that considered this statute number of years ago, and the

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Speaker 1: statute was challenged as being the violation the First Amendment

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Speaker 1: and being unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court said, no, it's

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Speaker 1: not as long as it has to do with commercial use.

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Speaker 1: And you know, Michael Phelps doing a subway commercial would

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Speaker 1: be a commercial use. They have an absolute right to

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Speaker 1: these words. And the Supreme Court was, you know, looked

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Speaker 1: at the legislative history and said, look, the whole reason

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Speaker 1: we have this law is so that sponsors will pay

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Speaker 1: money to the Olympic Committee to use these marks, and

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Speaker 1: that will pay for our athletes to compete in a

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Speaker 1: competitive manner abroad. And when other companies undercut that, you're

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Speaker 1: really undercutting the United States Olympic effort, Supreme Court came

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Speaker 1: right out and said that that particular suggestion let the

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Speaker 1: Games begins would have to be tested under some sort

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Speaker 1: of confusion standard. Now the Supreme Court in the same

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Speaker 1: case called San Francisco Arts and Athletics versus the US

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Speaker 1: Olympic Committee. The Supreme Court said, you got to look

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Speaker 1: at the statue broadly because Congress had a broad protection

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Speaker 1: and oh, by the way, we don't apply the traditional

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Speaker 1: Lanham Act evaluation standard, which is likelihood of confusion. Now

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Speaker 1: you sometimes see that still being argued, but I don't

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Speaker 1: know how else do you evaluate. That's a great example

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Speaker 1: you gave, and that would be very challenging. The Olympic

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Speaker 1: Committee would probably go after somebody for that, but I

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Speaker 1: think they might have trouble convincing a judge depending on

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Speaker 1: the usage.

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Speaker 4: So one of my favorite parts of the commercial use

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Speaker 4: guidelines was please do not create your own version of

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Speaker 4: any USOPC trademarks. For example, the Olympic symbol should not

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Speaker 4: be simulated using pizzas, onion rings, tires, beverages, basketball, snowflakes,

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Speaker 4: triangle smiley faces, fruits and vegetables, et cetera. I had

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Speaker 4: to laugh that they actually put all that in their

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Speaker 4: commercial guidelines on the website.

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Speaker 1: It's just testament to the ingenuity of the American pop

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Speaker 1: and their ability to circumvent the US laws. Arguably, the

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Speaker 1: Olympic Committee is correct there because they have an absolute

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Speaker 1: right to that five rings symbol and it's not constrained

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Speaker 1: in any way by likelihood, confusion or anything else if

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Speaker 1: it's being used in some sort of commercial A couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago, there as a guide in Minnesota who

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Speaker 1: started using hashtag and then various Olympic marks and claimed

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Speaker 1: that the hashtag wasn't in the statute. You know that

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Speaker 1: the statute it protects Olympics, it protects Olympiad. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: protect hashtag Olympic, which I thought was very creative. Americans

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Speaker 1: are just very ingenious when it comes to getting around laws.

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Speaker 4: What about social media? These prohibitions are all about commercial uses.

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00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 4: So is it only businesses and corporations that have to worry?

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00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 4: I mean, what about these social media influencers? Do they

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00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 4: have to worry as well?

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00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 1: Absolutely? I mean, if they're doing it for a commercial purpose,

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00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: they're in troup and they don't have a lot to

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00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: stand up. And we've talked about influencers a lot over

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00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 1: the years, and as you know, June, I still don't

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00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:08,439
Speaker 1: quite get.

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00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 4: It, don't.

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00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,360
Speaker 1: But I'm not a teenage girl. And that could explain

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00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: why but it seems to me from a distance that

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00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: the core thing these influencer are doing is trying to

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00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 1: commercialize their own personal brand and to sell things and

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00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: to make money. So I don't see how an influencer

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00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: can simply say, oh, I'm not doing it for commercial purpose.

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00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 1: Oh heck, yes they are.

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00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 4: Also, there could be another problem because the individual athletes

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00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 4: have rights to their name, image, and likeness. So could

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00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 4: you run into a problem there even if you're sort

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00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 4: of congratulating them on their success.

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00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: That gets very tricky. And I think in general, given

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Speaker 1: the way the law is moving in what we call nil,

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00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: I think you just are better off not saying it

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00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: if it's in connection again with a commercial purpose. If

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00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: all you want to do is throw out, you know,

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00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: hashtag Lindsay Vaughn may be a bad choice now, But

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00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: let's say before her injury, you wanted to say, hashtag

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00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: Lindsay Vaughn, you know, congratulate her on winning. I think

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00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: that would be perfectly fine. It's not for commercial purpose

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00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: if you did that. And I hear she's still going

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00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: to ski anyway, which is amazing. She's got it. I

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00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: guess a stretched aco and I can't imagine a sport

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00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: that would put more pressure on it then downhill I'm skiing,

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00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: And I mean, who knows to her she wasn't a

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00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: metal the most amazing thing of all time in Olympic history.

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00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 4: We'll see. So, Terry, I wanted to ask you one

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00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 4: thing I was wondering about. They do send out cease

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00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 4: and desist letters, right, So does that give you time

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00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 4: to correct your error if you've been using a trademark

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00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 4: and so then you won't be sued by the Olympic Committee.

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00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: First, let me agree that the Olympic Committee is perhaps

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00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: the most aggressive trademark owner I've ever run across. I

477
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: had a case about fifteen years ago where a local

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00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: here DCE mortgage company was using the name Olympus Mortgage.

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00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: They got a cease and desist letter and I told them, look,

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00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: there's absolutely nothing you can do about this. Whatsoever. You

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00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: write them back, apologize and say we'll change it, and

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00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: you know they won't do anything more. They will want

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00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: to see the change. They'll insist that you send them

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00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: some evidence that you've changed. But it is very intimidating

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00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: when your client gets a letter like that out of

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00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: the blue, because nobody knows that this special law exists

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00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: protecting the Olympic Committee.

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Speaker 4: There's certainly been a lot of litigation in this area.

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Speaker 4: Thanks so much, Terry. That's intellectual property litigator Terrence Ross

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00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 4: of Catain Neuchen Rosenman. And that's it for this edition

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00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 4: of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get

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00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 4: the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You

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00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 4: can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www

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00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 4: dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law, And remember

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00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 4: to tune into Bloomberg our Glass Show every weeknight at

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00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 4: ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're

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