Could trademark law curb artists who criticize Vancouver Olympics?

Artists in Vancouver are worried that legislation protecting trademarks for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver will interfere with their ability to create works critical of the games.

Last year the federal government passed the Olympic and Paralympics Marks Act which extends intellectual property protection to 58 trademarks, as well as a series of expressions such as "Games 2010," "Winter," "Gold," and "Silver."

Artists are worried the law won't leave them room to create paintings, sculptures or theatre that incorporates these Olympic marks or expressions.

A public meeting Tuesday between artists and the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee is intended to clear up that confusion.

"There's a grey area here, and we want to encourage artists to come out and discuss their work and have an opportunity for VANOC to perhaps be more attentive to these issues," said Martha Rans, the director of the Artists' Legal Outreach, which is sponsoring the workshop with VANOC.

"Maybe we'll open some areas of inquiry and even open up the possiblity that if an artist does have an issue they'll know that their expression is not unnecessarily restricted."

Copyright issue or no space?

Vancouver artist Kimberly Baker ran into trouble with the law to protect the Olympic logo in 2007, when she created a series of transit posters for the Emily Carr Grad Show.

"For example one of the posters is five shopping carts with a homeless person and a sleeping bag at the bottom of each one and they're positioned in the five circles representing the Olympics and underneath  it says Vancouver 2010," Baker said.

Baker was one of four Emily Carr grads profiled in a Vancouver Sun story on the show but her work wasn't reproduced in the newspaper.

Was it a copyright issue or was there no space for her work?  Baker never got an explanation, so she decided to research what her rights would be if she wanted to produce more work critical of the Vancouver games.

She went directly to the VANOC committee and was told they had no interest in stifling artistic expression.

"It really boiled down to this concept of ambush marketing, where for example a company wanted to come in and use the Olympic trademark for a profit and sell things," Baker said.

"So for example if I wanted to make up T-shirts and sell them, that wouldn't be all right, because that would be considered ambush marketing. So as long as I wasn't trying to make any profit from my artwork it would be completely fine with them, and they didn't have an issue because they were not interested in shutting down artists," Baker said.

The law is really meant to stop marketers from appropriating trademarks that aren't theirs, Rans agrees.

Little case law protecting artists

But in practice, there is very little case law to protect artists' use of those trademarks in their work, she said.

And there is a huge grey area around other profit-making media — including television or newspapers — reproducing the art.

The meeting Tuesday is meant to open up dialogue between Olympic organizers and artists, Rans said.

"I don't think anyone, including VANOC wants  be seen to be restraining people's artistic expression," Rans said. "I think where we get into some of the concerns is where we respond to whether or not the advice from clearly more conservative minded members of the [law] profession really is to avoid the possibility of controversy.rather than engage."

For the companies who have bought into Olympic sponsorships, millions of dollars are on the line and there is a risk they will create an atmosphere of libel chill around art that is critical of the games.

The free workship on artists and Olympic Trademark issues is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 21, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Grunt Gallery at 350 East Second Ave. in Vancouver.