THE SIDELINES : End of Copyright Sought on ‘Brooklyn Dodgers’
Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden, displaying the feistiness Brooklynites hold dear, said today he had asked the city to seek a court order declaring the name “Brooklyn Dodgers” to be in the public domain.
Golden asked the city corporation counsel to take the action to head off a lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Dodgers against two men who are using the name “Brooklyn Dodgers” on their two restaurants in the Bay Ridge and Kensington sections of the borough.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, claims the team that abandoned Brooklyn more than 30 years ago retains sole rights to the “Brooklyn Dodger” name.
Golden said that, if the name became part of the public domain, it could be used freely by anybody without the restriction of a copyright or trademark.
The Brooklyn Dodgers, who played in Ebbets Field, left for Los Angeles in 1957.
“The Dodger name was born in Brooklyn,” Golden said in a statement. “It grew to glory in Brooklyn and it is an instrinsic part of Brooklyn’s history. It is a basic part of what we are as Brooklynites, never-say-die underdogs, wait-til-next-year fighters.”
Spokesmen for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York City corporation counsel were not immediately available for comment.
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