Fair Use!
(If you got to this page by accident, and want to see the problem (and play “Is it Fair Use?”), click here.
The court held that the use of the logo wasn’t really commercial (because no one bought a ticket to a game to see the logo), the use was “transformative” (because the logo serves a new, historical or documentary purpose) and the Ravens had no choice but to use the whole logo (you can’t use half a logo). The court was nevertheless willing to consider market displacement, which puzzles me.
Next time, we’ll take a look at another use of the old logo, this time in a “throwback” computer football game.
Thanks for reading!
