<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/23/it-happened-again-child-in-uk-initially-denied-passport-over-copyright/>
"It happened again and it has to stop. Back in 2014, we talked about how a UK
woman had trouble getting her passport approved because her middle name was
“Skywalker” and the UK’s passport office for some reason thought that Disney
would have to give its permission to have the passport approved. There is
nothing about a passport that would bring copyright into play, of course, and
the passport office was simply wrong. But then it happened again a decade
later, this time to a woman who named her daughter Khaleesi, after the
Game of
Thrones character. In this case too the passport office initially informed the
woman that it couldn’t process a passport for her daughter without permission
from Warner Bros. After this all made news internationally, the passport office
reversed course and processed the passport application.
That was only a few weeks ago. And now it’s happened again, this time once
again over someone whose middle name is “Skywalker.”
Christian Mowbray, 48, is a serving soldier in The Corps of Royal Engineers
at the Rock Barracks in Sutton Heath, near Woodbridge. He and his wife
Becky, a former serving soldier, booked a holiday to the Dominican Republic
at the end of October, the family’s first since 2014 due to their demanding
work schedules and Becky’s struggles with Complex PTSD.
However, when they tried to secure a passport for their youngest child, Loki
Skywalker Mowbray, the Home Office refused it on copyright grounds, telling
the family to either change his name or get permission from the copyright
owner, Disney.
Once again, this is nonsense. There is nothing about copyright law in the UK
that somehow gives naming rights and restrictions for the children of private
citizens to companies like Disney. And if someone really couldn’t get a
passport because of a their given name, that’s exactly what would be occurring.
And the idea that two soldiers, one retired, would have to put up with this
nonsense from their own government is a shame.
Now, as you’d expect, the Home Office eventually corrected itself and began
processing the passport. But once again, just as we said the last time this
happened, that agency needs to educate its workforce to keep this from
happening again. If for no other reason than it must be really embarrassing for
them."
A lot of people now perceive that corporations are our new feudal overlords and
try to curry favour with them, or at least avoid angering them. And they fear
the
Wizard of Id Rule (those with the gold make the rules) more than the laws
on the books.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
