Legion clamps down on use of poppy symbol on Reddit

The Royal Canadian Legion has once again enforced its trademark over the poppy symbol, asking a moderator on the website Reddit to remove the image or ask formal permission to post a poppy display picture for Remembrance Day.

A thread posted to Reddit entitled "Why the poppy is gone from the header of r/canada" says a legion representative sent an email reminding the moderator the poppy is a trademarked symbol, and that it's a legal violation to post it without permission.

The post quotes the email, which ends with contact information for requesting permission to use the poppy and suggests using the slogan "We Will Remember Them" along with the image:

The Legion's poppy design has been a protected, registered trademark since 1948. It also holds a newer registered trademark for the symbol with the colours red and black, and a trademark on the word "poppy" itself.

[ Related: Prison guards concerned that inmates will be making Remembrance Day poppies ]

While some comments on the Reddit thread, including one from the moderator who started it, suggest the legion's emails were "reasonable," the poppy trademark has caused controversy in the past.

In 2004, Cory Doctorow published a post at his blog Boing Boing about his friend in British Columbia, who was told to remove the word "poppy" from the name of a custom hat she had crafted to sell.

More recently, the Royal Canadian Legion has threatened to sue anti-war groups offering white poppies during Remembrance Day season in Prince Edward Island and Ontario. In 2010, a spokesperson told CTV the groups should hand out doves instead, to stay away from copyright infringement.

Last year, the legion refused to support a group in Fredericton that was raising money with knitted poppies, pointing to its trademark ownership of the symbol, according to CTV. However, the issue was likely complicated — and the legion's response perhaps muted — because the group said it planned to hand its donations to the legion.