FCC Mascot Accused of Copyright Infringement
FCC Mascot Accused of Copyright Infringement
FCC Mascot Accused of Copyright Infringement

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    As you may know, nearly all government agencies have their own kid's pages. The FCC's Kid's Zone is livened up by the blinking presence of Broadband the cat, your guide to the sometimes confusing realm of telecommunications law and policy.

    But does this happy mascot infringe on the copyright of anime character Doraemon? This is what has been reported in a few places (here, here, and here, for instance). I just learned about this today (in the Wikipedia article on the FCC– so of course it may be gone by the time you read this), but apparently this mini-controversy has been brewing since 2004 or so. Broadband probably has a thing or two to learn from Doraemon. Free Press reports that:

    U.S. consumers pay nearly twice as much as the Japanese for connections that
    are 20 times as slow. (Broadband Reality Check II, p. 4.)

    Cartoon characters may be copyrighted (see here and here). But whether Broadband, the FCC kitty, infringes on Doraemon is left an an exercise for the reader.

    See you at the Kid's Zone.