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Comment by r3bl | Hacker News Reader

Author here.

As I have said in an other comment on this thread, the idea is that the city's name is easily discoverable.

You can discover it by highlighting the text, clicking at the button at the bottom of the article, and by following the Wikipedia links in the first paragraph.

I highly doubt that this decision could be upheld in the court. If they want to sue me, I'm ready to "pay for the damage caused" and face legal consequences. Casual Facebook users that are administering Facebook's pages are probably not ready to face the same consequences.

And, since this is my blog, the only third party that could remove the mentions of the name without my consent is my hosting provider (arguably better protection than Facebook offers), but if they do so, I will put on a server on the Raspberry Pi and continue with the distribution.

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I am not a lawyer, but I think you are the missing point of Decision about the usage of the emblem, name and the flag of the City of Sarajevo. Article 7 states that "... legal persons may be granted to use the name Sarajevo in a business (company) name or product name, provided their business activity doesn't harm and helps affirm its reputation." You using the name Sarajevo in a blog post or its title clearly doesn't violate this rule. That said, it's beyond me why someone from the city government would decide to enforce this rule on a FB page, unless it's being heavily monetized.

The only time he mentions article 7 is that "every derivation of the name is implied, including every abbreviation of the word Sarajevo." So okay, article 7 doesn't apply to a non-monetised blog post. The other articles in "Komisija za Statut I akte" still do, right?

But okay, so implicitly you're suggesting OP has widened the scope, because it seems like a FB page being monetised could be considered a "product name", and therefore article 7 does apply, and this is the basis of the legal threat. That being so, where does the demand for money come in? Is that the cost of being granted to use the name? And what exactly is stopping the city from going after things not covered by article 7?

Any law is that vague and wide-reaching has the potential to be abused, and this is no different. Better to clarify it sooner rather than later.

Article 4 defines that usage of coat of arms of Sarajevo in the stamp may be granted to private businesses, public companies, public institutions and other legal entities. Article 5 defines that usage of coat of arms of Sarajevo on public transportation vehicles, fleet vehicles, billboards, brochures and other advertising materials may be granted to the said group of legal entities. Article 6 defines that the usage of coat of arms on logos and decorations may be granted to the said group of legal entities. The annual fees for legal entities using the name and/or coat of arms of Sarajevo depend on the entity size and are defined in Article 17 (50-2400 Euros).

This Decision fails to define any terms of usage of coat of arms and name for natural persons. Natural persons are only mentioned in Articles 21 in 22, stating the penalties for the usage of name and/or coat of arms without a proper approval from the city government.

Again, not a lawyer, but in my view anything except the usage of name Sarajevo and its coat of arms in the names of legal entities and their products, stamps and logos is outside of scope this Decision. Purely speculating, but perhaps somebody from the city government decided it is time to optimise a revenue stream, which is now 12 years old (the Decision was published in 2006). If they continue harassing people on the Internet, there is going to be more of a coordinated backlash and sooner or later they will have to amend the Decision.

Thanks, appreciate the clarifications.

This law clearly would not be enforceable in the the US (you can’t start trying to enforce a trademark that you haven’t been defending and that is in wide use).

Having said that, there is recent precedent where FB differentially enforces foreign laws, apparently for their own political/financial reasons.

For example, Palestinian political speech about Israeal is subject to much harsher censorship rules than Israeli speech about Palestine.

So, this case really boils down to how much FB values its political/financial ties to the city of Sarajevo.

Hello Aleksandar, I hope you live somewhere Sarajevo's rule does not apply (e.g. anywhere else on this planet) and that you just happened to write this while just visiting there.

Stay safe and well!

Why? A city (or a country for that matter) can be a beautiful place to live despites the brain damaged administration it might have

Physical safety

In the chaos, speaking up is not that hard.

I was the first local to talk about certain government entities in Bosnia & Herzegovina buying FinFisher software. I was the first to talk about the government testing Hacking Team software as well. Later on, I've worked on Panama Papers. And now, I wrote this.

I am also far from laying low, as I have been a guest in two TV shows talking about my line of interest in the last two years (one for the local TV station in <REDACTED>, one on Al Jazeera Balkans, that aired to the entire country + Serbia and Croatia), and asked some tricky questions to the government representatives multiple times in open panels.

The point that I'm trying to make is that I'm pretty sure I've pissed off some part of the country's government multiple (if not dozens of) times. And while I do take a higher level of precaution compared to the average Joe (VPNs, Tor, Signal etc.), I have so far not received any legal complaint, nor have I ever felt threatened.

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