DSM 5 Censorship Fails
Support From Professionals and Patients Saves Free Speech

“Last week I described the plight of Suzy Chapman, a well respected UK patient advocate forced to change the domain name of her website by the heavy handed tactics of the publishing arm of the American Psychiatric Association. The spurious legal excuse was commercial protection of the ‘DSM 5′ trademark; the probable intent was to stifle one of the internet’s best sources of DSM and ICD information. This bullying could not have come at a worse time – just as final decisions are being made on highly controversial DSM 5 proposals and with the third and final draft due for release this spring. This is precisely when a ragged and reckless DSM 5 can most benefit from the widest and most open discussion…”

Read on here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201201/dsm-5-censorship-fails

http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/IP

Creative Commons License: Any and all original material on the EFF website may be freely distributed at will under the Creative Commons Attribution License, unless otherwise noted.

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Questions About Trademark

I want to complain about a company. Can I use their name and logo?

Yes. While trademark law prevents you from using someone else’s trademark to sell your competing products (you can’t make and sell your own “Rolex” watches or name your blog “Newsweek”), it doesn’t stop you from using the trademark to refer to the trademark owner or its products (offering repair services for Rolex watches or criticizing Newsweek’s editorial decisions).

That kind of use, known as “nominative fair use,” is permitted if using the trademark is necessary to identify the products, services, or company you’re talking about, and you don’t use the mark to suggest the company endorses you. In general, this means you can use the company name in your review so people know which company or product you’re complaining about. You can even use the trademark in a domain name (like walmartsucks.com), so long as it’s clear that you’re not claiming to be or speak for the company.

Since trademark law is designed to protect against consumer confusion, non-commercial uses are even more likely to be fair. Be aware that advertising may give a “commercial” character to your site, and some courts have even gone so far as to say that links to commercial sites makes a site commercial. (See PETA v. Doughney)

Can I use a trademark in my blog’s name or in the title of a blog post?

Yes, if it is relevant to the subject of your discussion and does not confuse people into thinking the trademark holder endorses your content. Courts have found that non-misleading use of trademarks in URLs and domain names of critical websites is fair. (Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, URL http://www.compupix.com/ballysucks; Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, domain name http://www.bosleymedical.com).

Companies can get particularly annoyed about these uses because they may make your post appear in search results relating to the company, but that doesn’t give them a right to stop you.

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PS I agree, “Garland” WP theme isn’t a visually sophisticated template but it has the merit of being full screen width, three columns and a wide, variable width central posting area which better suits the type of content I post, which is often lengthy, includes wide screenshots, images from documents and videos of meeting proceedings. Many of the better looking templates with dropdown tabs have narrow posting areas and aren’t suitable for my purposes.

“It was an expression of a state of affairs in the States, in which the DSM, as a system, as a diagnostic philosophy, is the new holy cow. It is the successor of psychoanalysis. You cannot and should not question its fundamentals…”

It is sad and ironic that Van Praag’s words were so prophetic.

NB: although the book was published in 1996, the interview took place in July 1994.

Or the Licensing and Permissions department could simply have clicked on the “Disclaimer” tab which states:

“This site has no connection with and is not endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., World Health Organisation (WHO) or any other organisation, institution, corporation or company.

“This site has no affiliations with any commercial or not-for-profit organisation. The site operates independently of any patient or advocacy organisation or group.

“This site does not accept advertising, sponsorship, funding or donations and has no commercial links with any organisation, institution, corporation, company or individual…”

The second letter received demanded I “cease and desist” immediately the unauthorised use of the “DSM 5 mark” from three additional sites – a website and two social media platforms.

I do not own or have any responsibility for any of these three additional platforms.

Licensing and Permissions, or whoever authorized the issuing of these letters, failed to establish the rightful owners of these three sites before issuing threats of legal action.

We have a saying here in the UK – I wouldn’t trust this bunch to manage a whelk stall.

Thanks for the write-up.

Suzy Chapman
Dx Revision Watch

I work with an open source framework, and I recently hit upon an idea to man an Android app to browse the docs. I decided to announce it at a conference, but, fortunately, thought to talk to the framework’s lawyer first.

Over coffee, we had a fascinating discussion regarding IP. IP is about protecting a brand, since it costs a lot of money, time, and luck to build a brand with a positive image. Even though our project is open source, they were active in defending the brand the project had gained. They didn’t want just any chump writing a book about it, nor did they want someone else to put up a framework with the same name.

I was allowed to do the app, but under conditions that they agreed upon (no charging, no ads, and I couldn’t use their logo, since they paid for that font, and had to give money to the original holder whenever it was used officially).