Activity tagged "libraries"

Posted:

well that sucks. apparently the ALA/Freedom To Read Foundation have trademarks on the phrase "free people read freely", which i use in a lino print i made into stickers a few years ago.

Why we're reaching outFreedom To Read Foundation recently let us know that they believe some of your listings infringe their intellectual property (IP). In line with our Intellectual Property Policy, we've carefully reviewed their report and have removed these listings from our marketplace.
Review the full report from Freedom To Read Foundation Freedom To Read Foundation Representative's Information [redacted] Freedom To Read Foundation Intellectual Property FREE PEOPLE READ FREELY trademark Trademark registration number: 7446426  
A sticker made from a linocut print, which has the text “Free people read freely” in block capitals above a person in a dress reaching to take a book from a large bookshelf. The sticker is resting on a pile of old books.

i got the phrase from a 2023 speech by librarian and former ALA leader Tracie D. Hall. i didn't think to check if it was trademarked because, lol, what a wild thing to trademark. turns out the trademark had been granted two months before i made the print.

it's no big deal from a business perspective — i don't sell these stickers for much more than they cost, because i mostly just think it's an important message that i want to help people share. i've probably given away at least as many as i've sold, which i guess is now what i'll have to do with the rest.

anyway if you were wondering what happened to the stickers, now you know.

Read:
“School board member admits to banning books without reading them, faces lawsuit”.
Ellsworth Toohey in Boing Boing. Published .
"I don't like them. I wouldn't read them. I'll be honest I've read the reviews on some of them…" With these words at a public meeting, Tennessee's Rutherford County School Board member Stan Vaught admitted to banning books he hadn't read — a revelation that kicked off a federal lawsuit. According to the complaint, board members relied primarily on BookLooks.org, a website connected to the Hitler-quoting group Moms for Liberty, instead of reading the books themselves or considering their literary merit. The board repeatedly overruled their own librarians' recommendations to keep books like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, and Ernest Cline' Ready Player One because it has "characters discussing beliefs that heaven and god are not real."
Read:
“The ALA Sues Over the Scuppering of the IMLS”.
John Maher in Publishers Weekly. Published .
The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that the administration’s recent actions—which include firing most IMLS staff, terminating grant programs, and effectively shutting down the organization’s operations—are both illegal and, separately, unconstitutional.
Read:
“Librarians Are Mad As Hell At The Trump Administration. They Think You Should Be, Too.”
Brittany Wong in HuffPost. Published .
“Make no mistake about it, the elimination of funding for libraries is a political assault on First Amendment rights, access to information, and the freedom to read,” Schram told HuffPost. “It is a stark reminder of how easy it is for someone who has apparently never utilized the services that libraries provide, to deprive those who desperately need those services from accessing them,” she said.