The Mint Owns "One Cent" by in 1889 / October 5th, 2007
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Boing Boing has a truly mind-blowing story about how the city of Toronto is being presented with a bill for over $47,000 because they used the image of a penny and the term “one cent” in marketing material for a campaign to give one cent of the GST to Toronto to build up infrastructure. Apparently the Mint owns (or thinks they own) the term “one cent”, and want to be paid for its use…
The Royal Canadian Mint, a corporation of the federal government, has now demanded that the City of Toronto pay $47,680 for the public education campaign. Included in this amount is a request for $10,000 for the use of the words “one cent” in the campaign website address (www.onecentnow.ca) and the campaign email address (onecentnow@toronto.ca), and an additional $10,000 for the use of the words “one cent” in the campaign phone number (416-ONECENT).
The mind boggles. How can anyone own a phrase like that? This is exactly the kind of thing that makes getting clearances on TV shows so hard. Some things should just be public domain… it’s just astounding that something like THIS isn’t…
Tags: stupid
