Well I'm officially being legally attacked by Autism Speaks Now... you can view the first notice of it here:

http://www.aspieweb.net/aspieweb-being-b...sm-speaks/

I responded with the following:

http://www.aspieweb.net/aspieweb-vs-auti...-to-speak/

And they responded and confirmed Autism Speaks was directly responsible!

http://www.aspieweb.net/proof-that-autis...-advocacy/

PLEASE BLOG ABOUT THIS AND SHARE THIS - THE MORE PEOPLE WHO ARE AWARE, THE HARDER IT WILL BE FOR AUTISM SPEAKS TO CONTINUE TO DO THIS!

This is ridiculous, you would have thought they'd have learnt their lesson from last time.

i feel your pain it hurts to be pulled down everytime you accomplish something contact me i can help

i contacted spectrum publications so yay more publicity to us W00T!

Why should they friggin care if they don't feel threatened?

I could make that t-shirt myself.  Anyone could.  It could be done on a computer, inkject printer and t-shirt transfer iron-on.

They probably wouldn't care if they got a cut of the profits.

I'm posting about this on Autism Speaks groups on facebook because I bet the people who donate money to them have no idea what it's being spent on. Also i'm seeing the person who was filming at APD in London tomorrow, i'll tell her about this.

What was your point in posting the above?

I don't know what their attitude is. They think that they are the only "autism non-profit" out there, but they are not.

I really think their attitude is that Autistics are using outlets like the internet to say that they disagree with what society sees as the authority on Autism - and thats a threat to them.

The issues between, copyright, trademark and infringement are clear in writing but fuzzy in defending. Has autism speaks trademarked the two words autism speaks?  As usual the big money will scare the weaker (less-funded) - the little printer shop doesn't need the headache.  I wonder if the actual person in charge of autism speaks knows that one of their minions sent something in writing picking on a "little guy"? Something has to be done about these kinds of tactics!
Also, so long as you aren't selling and making money (like if it is for a not-for profit) that is so not infringement...

If anyone looks at a name, logo, or slogan, if it has the letters TM, it is a trademark registered by the state goverment, but if it has a R with a circle around it, then it is a registered trademark and registered with the federal goverment. Just look for one of them and see if it is registered and if it is, which goverment has the registration.

what, Again!?

they just dont friggin learn.

anyone here a Fark.com member? submit this, see if we can get frontpaged again.

And even if so, you can't criticize a company without using the company's name, most of the time (I mean, I'm sure there are ways you can if you're being clever, but not to communicate it effectively to people who don't already know about the issues).

I mean, really, the shirt didn't even have a puzzle piece on it, and Autism Speaks doesn't own that, just their specific logo. IT JUST HAD WORDS ON THE SHIRT, which is why it's even more absurd than their previous legal travesty.

Anyway, they're just making it SO obvious that they want us to shut up (unless we completely agree and acquiesce to whatever they think we should want), and while the irony is delicious, it's still disturbing, yet telling that they see opposing views as a threat.

While frustrating, and a pain, and clearly in violation of the ideal of freedom of speech, it goes to show how much progress has been made from years when an opposing view would've been unheard of in the general public and autism organizations.

That's my diagnosis, so here's my prescription for people who would have us silenced: sit back for the ride, cause we're HERE, we're WEIRD - get used to it!

Okay, I think it's a given that we all agree this isn't good - so lets take the next step and actually do something.

Legally there's nothing we can do, as Zazzle has a right to pull designs if they want (not that I don't think the reason is rubbish, just that we can't force them to put it back up via legal threats).

What we can do is organise a boycott, or swamp them with complaints.

Here's what I'm thinking for the former, pending Gareths okay:



To whom it may concern,

I would like to issue a formal complaint of behalf of the group Aspies for Freedom.

It has come our attention that you have decided to disallow T-shirts protesting against Autism Speaks - specifically the following design (http://www.aspieweb.net/aspieweb-being-b...sm-speaks/). The reason stated is that the shirt violates Zazzles copyright policies, despite the fact that no copyrighted material is displayed on the shirt design. Therefore, no legal reason exists for these designs to be removed.

As your company produces many other varieties of political T-shirts, we can only assume that you are specifically choosing to deny autistic people the right to protest against Autism Speaks. Either that, or your company has decided it would be easier to unfairly discriminate against one person than dealing with Autism Speaks.

Either way, we demand the immediate reinstatement of this T-shirt design.

Aspies For Freedom currently has over 10,000 members. Many of these members have popular blogs, links to other online forums, and other contacts. If the T-shirt design is not reinstated, we will be sending an email to all members asking that Zazzle be boycotted.



As far as swamping them with complaints goes, I'd encourage people to send their thoughts to: content_review@zazzle.com