Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

CafePress and Political Memorabilia Mocking the NSA

The best activist does not rely on private information to promote his or her campaign. This is especially the case when CafePress is used. However, humorous marketing can resolve such difficulties.

When dealing with CafePress, customers must keep in mind the obvious threat of being tracked by the NSA. The reason why is because CafePress allows easier access to media creation. Should too much infringement occur, a lawsuit is inevitable for the company. To avoid such consequences, all you have to do is create original logos. Doing otherwise results in what happened last November when the NSA discovered a logo altering the organization’s official seal was plagiarized.


The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Upon discovering this line of T-shirts, CafePress and its competitor Zazzle decided to take down the merchandise. Public Citizen later filed a lawsuit against the government. The plaintiff was Dan McCall, an honorable freelancer. His living depended on his unique line of shirts, coffee mugs and other political memorabilia mocking the NSA.

The government decided to take down the letters associated with their complaints. This should make marketing on CafePress an easier venture for political enthusiasts.

McCall has decided to fight back with another line for CafePress. The new slogan rips off of an original logo for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. What makes this problem obvious is how the same logo is used. The flag and font faces are the same as the PAC campaign.

Hillary and her team were not happy with CafePress and Zazzle’s moves. On June 1st, Hilary decided to send a series of letters requesting removal of the products. Both networks agreed. Public Citizen is now back to work. Paul Levy responded and as of Wednesday CafePress agreed to reinstate the artwork. Zazzle refused.

Levy also wrote letters to Hillary’s Ready campaign last week. What he wanted is for CafePress to rescind the original demand. According to him, action would result should a retraction not be made. His hope would be to receive a judgment for lost revenue and lawyer’s fees.
The attorney added how surprising such mistakes are. He feels really bad about the situation, but political enthusiasts have to learn how to create their own CafePress logos. He asserted how he did not want protected expression removed from the CafePress marketplace.

Success occurred during the midnight hour on Thursday. Ready decided it was going to retract its command requesting the removal of the items from the CafePress interface. Everything occurred on time as there was already a drafted complaint.

The Ready campaign did not comment upon our requests regarding the CafePress matter. However, the lesson of this experience should be clear: do not promote on CafePress unless you intend to create original logos. The template provided by the CafePress system can be used instead of extraneous art.

%d bloggers like this: