Rantings of a Queer Pagan

TWU Ads

The TWU has recently been ordered to stop sabotaging the Smellus ad campaign with its parodies and been told to remove the ads from its website. While I agree the ads were in bad taste and a waste of $500,000 from the TWU benevolent fund, I disagree with the order to censor the TWU's right to free speech.

So let me make this clear. I have not been asked or requested to host these ads. I do not do so in anyway to favour or in spite of either the Company or the Union. I do this as a means of protest against the TWU's willful disregard of its membership, of which I am a member. As a private citizen however, I retain my right to free speech and will leave the ads up. In fact, by the end of the night I'll have a better quality version of the pig ad up. Smellus claimed the ads infringed on their trademarks, I disagree. You can't trademark the concept of talking animals, and if Smellus thinks they can, it would be obvious they don't understand the concept of prior art. Regardless, a parody is a parody and they are in no way libelous, but merely an expression of the TWU's opinion.

I'm glad the ads are off the air, I'm just sad that it wasn't the TWU that pulled them off because of the damage they were doing to its membership.

posted by Kasper @ 10:18