Piracy is still piracy

Uhhh… trademark infringement and counterfeiting aren’t piracy. Piracy, when talking about IP, consists solely of copyright infringement, not trademarks or counterfeits.

Maybe they should just be distributing cracked copies of software instead? Or cracked e-books. Or burn the torrents to Blu-Rays.

See, that is all (at least arguably) piracy, as that all involves copyright. It’s also completely different from what is described in the article, which is about trademark.

ICE is the agency that handles IP theft.

Exactly what falls under the purview of ICE is uncertain, but I do know that few would argue that all “IP theft” is handled by ICE. At most, they are supposed to handle counterfeit goods and goods that infringe upon someone’s trademark, and even then only if the goods physically cross the border of the US. (Though ICE has tried to expand its powers to enforce other things, most believe that anything regarding IP “theft” beyond what I said would clearly fall outside ICE’s authority.) And even there, a lot of people would argue that enforcing trademark should also fall outside ICE’s authority, so this point is debatable even if we restrict it to what’s covered in the article.

Also, neither copyright infringement, patent infringement, nor trademark infringement are theft. Copying, misrepresentation, and fraud aren’t theft, nor is any form of IP infringement.

You could try to make a case against it, but it is hardly "free advertising" when the item is pirated.

Again, this isn’t piracy. At most, it’s trademark infringement. And even piracy can be free advertising, as has been discussed in numerous articles on this site. Same with some cases of trademark infringement. Again, it’s debatable.

I don’t like the NFL, even worse when they try to be Politically Correct.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about here about them being PC, but then I don’t really follow football.

This is another aspect (Hollywood is worse – FanFiction is even more crushed – heard of ST:Axanar?).

“This is another aspect” of what? “This is another aspect” of the NFL you don’t like, or “[t]his is another aspect” of the NFL trying to be PC? Or did you mean something else?

And while I haven’t heard of ST:Axanar (or at least I don’t recognize the name), I am aware of companies crushing fanfiction. Though, again, that’s primarily about copyright, which is very different from trademark. Honestly, I don’t get why people lump trademarks in with patents and copyrights considering how different they are and the massive differences between the purposes behind them.

Your complaint is with the NFL calling the police, not the police.

Again, some would argue that this falls outside of what ICE should be concerned with (drugs, child porn, counterfeit goods (not merely those that infringe upon trademarks), banned weapons like explosives, stuff banned by a court order, immigration, fleeing fugitives, and maybe some other illegal goods, not stuff that is merely unlawful like trademark infringement). That said, the article does also complain about the NFL.

Maybe everyone should "take a knee" during the national anthem to object to the NFL using ICE to aggressively enforce their Trademark.

I’m not opposed to some sort of organized protest against the NFL over this, but this is greatly misinterpreting what taking a knee during the national anthem represents; it was intended as a peaceful and silent protest of police violence and discrimination occurring under the same flag while also still respecting the troops. I don’t think that has any real similarities to what’s going on here.

(They have to at least complain lest they lose the Trademark, like Xerox, Kleenex, Band-Aid, etc.).

IANAL, but while this is technically true, it can be fulfilled through lawsuits, C&Ds, some publicly made declaration, etc. It also is primarily for unregistered trademarks; registered trademarks are given a lot more leeway with using discretion in enforcement. The cases you reference are a little different in that they involve genericide, which is slightly different from the enforce-it-or-lose-it thing you describe, and it’s highly unlikely to occur with any of the NFL’s trademarks. That’s really only a concern when the trademark is used to refer to a distinct product or invention of some sort, like Velcro or Google. It doesn’t really apply to something like team names or any logos.

Complain more about the NFL, not ICE.

As mentioned, they did complain a lot about the NFL, and there is some argument as to whether ICE is actually supposed to enforce trademark at all.

And get Congress to change the laws back to rationality, instead of what the Disney Deathstar wants to do – extend copyright forever so nothing ever more in the public domain. The problem is Congress.

Again, I completely agree with you on that, but that has nothing to do with what this article is about, which is trademark. Copyright law and trademark law are completely different beasts. And actually, as written, US trademark law is a lot less problematic (though I do think we should have a similar use-it-or-lose-it requirement to the EU). Some issues come from the USPTO granting dumb or broad trademarks (which isn’t exactly the fault of Congress), companies and individuals overenforcing trademarks (same), ICE enforcing it (same), and the pressure to crack down on anything close to similar (created by how the courts have ruled rather than what Congress enacted).

In fact, I’m pretty sure that ICE itself was created by an executive order, not an act of Congress, and I’m certain that how they enforce trademarks has nothing to do with any acts of Congress. So yeah, Congress doesn’t really have much to do with these issues, and I don’t know if they could actually do much about them.

Maybe Schumer and Pelosi should try to fix that instead of the show trials.

First, I don’t think Schumer has anything to do with the impeachment beyond serving as a member of the jury due to his position as a senator. Everything else has been up to (mostly Democratic) members of the House, Mitch McConnell, the White House’s defense team, the Chief Justice, and the Republicans in the Senate (especially the House, and currently the Republican majority of the Senate).

Second, the impeachment trial has nothing to do with anything here, so please leave that out of this.