This one was my favourite......
Legion burns cookies
Bakery told to nix poppy tribute
By JOE WARMINGTON
Last Updated: 6th November 2009, 5:33am
First it was the Highway of Heroes pins shunned and now the Royal Canadian Legion feels the baking of poppy cookies is violating the rules, too.
What was it John McCrae wrote in his 1915 poem In Flanders Fields?
"Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw, the torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die; We shall not sleep though poppies grow; In Flanders fields."
Somehow the Canadian doctor on the frontlines of the First World War who immortalized the poppy wasn't thinking this when he wrote of a "quarrel with the foe" and "the torch" be ours to hold high.
But sadly here we are 94 years later.
Imagine even the suggestion that a Cobourg bakery, fulfilling the order of some poppy cookies for the family of a fallen Canadian soldier from the Afghanistan conflict, would be breaking the copyright rules for the poppy?
"That would be a violation of the trademark," explains Royal Canadian Legion spokesman Bob Butt, adding the legion understands people are "well meaning" when they use the poppy and unaware of the rules.
But rules are rules.
"You would not believe the misuses of the poppy we have to investigate," Butt says.
Unaware of this copyright, the people at the Dutch Oven Bakery say that, now that they know, "we won't fulfil the order if asked again next year."
We are supposed to be at war with the Taliban, not each other. We have Canadians at bitter odds over who gets to use the poppy to raise money for victims of war.
Can't imagine our brave soldiers dying in battle for this.
And although the legion has taken a tough stand at the top end, not everybody agrees at the branch level.
"They have got to get their head out of their butts," says Wayne Powell, poppy chairman for Scarborough's Legion Branch 258 and a retired 54 Division copper.
"They are turning down an opportunity to raise a lot of money for veterans' families. These things will sell like hotcakes."
The part that irks him is that there seems to be selective fairness. He says the legion permits the use of the poppy for certain events and charities, while declining others.
And Powell can't understand why it's OK for a hockey team to use a poppy on its sweater to raffle off but not pins and cookies.
He feels it should be equal for everybody and he also wants a softer approach from legion brass, saying for them to go easier on the threatening lawyer letters.
However, Butt points out that the legion has the right to do with the poppy what it feels is in its best interest and that none of it has ever been for commercial use.
The money it raises, he says, is used very well.
Meanwhile, those baking cookies or who've made the pins certainly had no intention of breaking any rules and had the best of intentions of helping military families.
Butt says it has nothing to do with that. It isn't theirs to use. It's that simple. The fact is the legion "has the copyright" on the poppy.
"In the case of the Highway of Heroes pins, permission to use the poppy was not sought and permission was not granted."
He says those pins create direct competition for the poppy fund, which already generates $15 million a year.
"That money goes directly to the veterans," Butt says. "Does the money from the cookies?"
The Highway of Heroes pins have raised more than $8,000 for Afghanistan war veterans' families, but the legion says that isn't the point.
There's a principle here and there are guidelines being broken.
Meanwhile, Paul Hallas, the Ganaraska Credit Union CEO who donated $10,000 to make the pins to raise money and awareness for families, says: "What am I supposed to do with the 2,500 pins?"
"He can give them to us and we will destroy them," Butt says.
CORPORATE MENTALITY
It seems rigid. Cold. Corporate. Branch 258's Powell says give them to him and he'll raise $50,000 to help families who need help. Damn the protocol!
Both sides make points and there's a way to work this out without it further muddying the pristine image of the poppy, of which every Canadian living free has a piece of in their hearts.
There's enough poppy to go around for everybody if it means getting more help to the brave men and women who defend our nation.
In the middle of writing this, I re-read medic John McCrae's In Flanders Fields and couldn't find the words copyright infringement, exclusive or cease and desist anywhere.
What you'll find is a passage that reads:
"We are the dead. Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields."
Let's not forget that or them. In the name of those who died under our flag, what we need here is compromise.
JOE.WARMINGTON@SUNMEDIA.CA
Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act
I find it crass that they would use a lawyer to send the cease and desist. Why not try with asking directly. I mean, they were just putting it on a bike patch, not makeing products and selling it on ebay.
dileas
tess
