Friday, October 05, 2007

You're kidding, right?

"One Cent of the GST" would provide Toronto with approximately $400million per year, funding that would be dedicated to transportation, maintaining infrastructure and helping Toronto keep pace with the pressures for City services brought about by growth.

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 remaining $27,680 has been assessed against the City for the use of the image of the Canadian penny in printed materials such as pins and posters. (The Mint has come to this amount by taking the total number of materials printed divided by the approximate population of Toronto, and then using a percentage of that number to arrive at a dollar figure.)
So now we've got a federal crown corporation suing a municipal government for infringing copyright on the penny. Brilliant. Maybe Joachimsthal should sue the US Mint for use of the word "dollar", while we're at it. I suspect they could collect quite a bit more...

2 comments:

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

If this request isn't withdrawn or quashed by the Courts (the Mint thinks they hold the copyright or trademark on the word "cent"???), I hope the city pays in pennies.

And then, I hope the City charges the Mint for any use of the word "Toronto" (or better yet "city" in keeping with the "cent" stupidity) in their advertisements. Those Toronto Maple Leafs quarters? Money please. Making reference to Toronto in other coins featuring Toronto icons? Money please.

Canajun said...

LKO:
You may have just solved Toronto's fiscal probhlems with those suggestions. I hope their lawyers are busy beavering away (now there's a Canadian image) with a flurry of countersuits.
But really, even the Harper cons can't be dumb enough to let this one even get to court to be quashed.