Council legal department threatens us
It appears that the Council has had enough. We've received an email from Russell Power, the head of Legal, demanding that we stop using a logo similar to the Council's and, bizarrely, the same font and colour. Apparently, the use of "a rectangle shape with three lines running through it" as well as using "the same colour" and "the same style of lettering and the same size of font" makes it look like the sites are linked.
Russell, bless him, has written to Blogger so no doubt we shall receive an email from them shortly. Apparently the primary concern is people might think there is a "link between the Council and [the] blog".
Clearly the last story about Chris Roberts getting shouted at by Ken Livingstone must have made Roberts so angry he got on the phone to Legal. We hope the IT department has enough monitors to cope!
We have taken what Mr Powers has said and acted accordingly though. You will see above that there is no longer a rectangle, you will of course also note that there are only two lines and they are NOT the same as the Council's. We've also changed the legend to ensure no one get's confused. We're not going to change our use of the font though as it's a standard font available everywhere, as for the colour, we quite like green.
We're glad the Council takes fair comment and freedom of speech so seriously.
Russell, bless him, has written to Blogger so no doubt we shall receive an email from them shortly. Apparently the primary concern is people might think there is a "link between the Council and [the] blog".
Clearly the last story about Chris Roberts getting shouted at by Ken Livingstone must have made Roberts so angry he got on the phone to Legal. We hope the IT department has enough monitors to cope!
We have taken what Mr Powers has said and acted accordingly though. You will see above that there is no longer a rectangle, you will of course also note that there are only two lines and they are NOT the same as the Council's. We've also changed the legend to ensure no one get's confused. We're not going to change our use of the font though as it's a standard font available everywhere, as for the colour, we quite like green.
We're glad the Council takes fair comment and freedom of speech so seriously.
Labels: blogs, legal department, logo
posted by greenwich.watch at 8:54 am
16 Comments:
Sounds like you need to run a logo competition!
Font face: long ago, best practice for web sites settled down in favour of sans-serif fonts, and Arial is a sort of global base-line. Greenwich Council is too late to trademark Arial.
Font size: again, evolving best practice and Accessibility guidelines mean that there are now one or two recommended sizes for fonts on web sites, and fashion dictates use of other sizes. Greenwich Council is not empowered to dictate what font sizes other people use.
Colour: I doubt that Greenwich Council has trademarked any Pantone colours in such a way that other people can't use them at all.
It doesn't sound as if Greenwich Council is taking legal advice from anyone with experience of law and the web.
Love the new motto.
Is this the same council that stoped the next council meeting. Yep your right they do take freedom of speech seriously.
the same style of lettering
Except it isn't. The default font on the Council web site is Verdana. The font on your blog is Arial.
The Council legal department should be worrying about important things, such as the fact that the Council web site is neither standards- or DDA-compliant. Ie it breaches current global standards and one signally important piece of UK legislation.
Pity your site isn’t linked to ours, we find your site much more interesting than that ‘Talk Greenwich’ rubbish we get.
I gather those high up have been debating how to prevent us corporate drones from accessing your website. But considering the state of the Council's IT system its a wonder we can access anything on the computer.
Council Worker, isn't that the IT system which is costing millions of pounds a year?
Glad to see Value for Money at work.
If it is hurting, it must be working.
Bravo
Your new strap line should more accurately read ...
"Scrutinisng Greenwich Councillors because they're Rubbish."
I also believe Greenwich Council hires it's lawyers from the local "University" - after 9 months they quit and go and get a proper job.
Go Greenwich!
What a bunch of iditos they are. For some reason Councils are getting the idea they run everything and everybody should do what they do.
I wonder how much this has cost the poor tax payers of Greenwich
Greenwich Council has areally crap logo. Why would anyone want to threaten anyone over it. I would be too embarassed and it merely draws attention to it.
Still, perhaps I should keep wuiet, they ight waste more money getting a new one designed.
By the way, talking of waste, I heard recently that Greenwich led a whole bunch of private sector builders up the garden path by getting them into a design competition for a new school on the peninsula that Greenwich had no intention of building. Apparently the private companies were furious they had wasted millions on design costs.
As someone else who has received a threatening communication from the Council's lawyers in the past, I sympathise. Don't be downhearted - democracy in Greenwich needs a free press. Speaking of Greenwich "democracy", the Conservative Group will be at the town hall tonight for our group meeting, in place of the full Council Meeting which the Labour leadership - sorry - the Mayor, cancelled.
Didn't Greenwich advertise for Croupier (sp?) jobs - I do believe its against some law to advertise for jobs that don't exist. The Council acted as an Agency - and therefore broke the law.
You may like to make a complaint to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) about them.
This should tell you everything you need to know.
http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/employment-agencies/index.html
If I tilt my head to the left and turn the monitor to greyscale your logo looks supiciously like the one for a mine a used to work at.
Don't worry though, I won't split on you: They were a bunch of nanas as well.
Like Guido says: When they call in the lawyers it means you're causing them pain.
Politicians should feel pain. Frequently. Keep up the good work.
Perhaps you could think about splitting the two line in their final upward motion to make a more of a V towards the end?
Any chance of reproducing the letter? Be nice to see what my council tax is funding. Keep up the sterling work.
What a negative site - no mention in reporting issues of interest to the community such as crime, housingm health etc. Oh no wonder it's run by the tories.
Oh yeah I remember the days of Funderholder GPs and being turned down at the hospital of my choice for a major operation as my GP then was not a funder holder. The only way to get a referral was to complain - nice when you're very ill.
Let's never go back to those negative days of living under the Tories again.
Oh I'm not actually praising this website - will it appear - I wonder?
Post a Comment
<< Home