On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 21:55:04 -0700, Mark & Juanita
wrote:

For monster to claim that they have a business interest in the area
of educational ski training videos for children and that Mr. Turners use of
the English word "monster" in his business name for that business niche
thus infringes their business interests is ludicrous. The current state of
affairs with various companies and corporations attempting to copyright
and/or trademark the use of common English names or phrases is a very
dangerous trend. Building a brand and trademark is certainly something
that needs to be protected; attempting to assert that they have the
exclusive use of a common word or phrase and actually successfully having
legal actions assert that is going to lead to severe problems as our
ability to use our language becomes more and more restricted.

(unfortunately, i couldn't read the original story,
the link was broken, or taken down or something...)

agree agree agree

copyright/trademark law is a personal pet
peeve of mine, for a number of reasons...

i have done *some* amount of esearch, legal
readings, and even consulted a trademark/
copyright lawyer several years ago...

besides being *quite* the tangled web of
regional, national and international laws and
legal precedents, it generally protects only
those big korporations who have the resources
to have teams of parasites, er, lawyers on
retainer...

while *supposedly* it offers protection to
the originator/creator/artist, in reality, li'l
peeps can not generally afford :

1. the protection officially registering trademarks
and copyrights can provide if/when legal action
is contemplated/necessary...

(yes, don't tell me how easy it is to copyright
stuff *FORMALLY*/'legally', it is *still* a pain
in the patootie that many/most independent
artists don't have the time to do assiduously...
trademarking is even more of a pain, in that it
costs a chunk of change, has to searched and
approved, has to be renewed regularly, etc...)

2. don't have the resources and manpower to
'police' their trademarks/copyrights...

(in a knockdown drag out legal brawl, it WILL
NOT metaphysically matter if you ARE the
creator of art/widget 'X'; if BigCo, Inc. steals
your idea/art, files the paperwork, and then
sics a team of lawyers on you, you WILL lose...)

3. don't have the lawyers on retainer looking
for something to justify their existence...

(trademarks in particular, are *supposed* to
be 'policed' on a constant, consistent basis
-even if you live in key west and the 'violation'
of your trademark occurs in walla walla- or
you will lose the 'right' to 'own' that trademark...)

4. most creations are done as 'work for hire'
FOR a korporation, such that -once again-
korporate interests are paramount, not
granma moses scraping out a living selling
pieces of her talent/soul...

further, korporate kreeps like disney are THE
prime copyright/trademark nazis when it comes
to 'enforcing' their 'rights' in this area...

they have and will go after people as 'innocent'
and as a nursery school who had crude
pics of goofy, mickey rat, etc painted on their
walls... (needless to say, the kids lost... *how*
this is supposed to be a feather in the cap for
dizzyworld is beyond me...)

(for the kamper who *seemed* to be saying
that disney 'deserves' their agressive protection
because of their 'creativity', i should remind him
that ALL the crap that disney (nike, whoever)
puts out that is popular and sells a zillion units of
mickey mouse crap, are popular *because* of US
MAKING IT POPULAR, not some inherent,
incredible artistic value... ULTIMATELY, disney/etc
are parasitizing OUR popular culture that WE made
popular...)

not only that, but disney has snuck through
kongress a number of extensions to the terms
that copyrights/trademarks are good for, SOLELY
to 'protect' 'their' ownership of mickey rat, donald
duck, goofy, etc, when their trademarks/copyrights
*SHOULD* have expired in the last couple years...

(in other words, the big guys change the rules of
the game when it suits their purposes... surprise...)

now, the point about this that makes me mad, is
that we STARTED out with trademark/copyright
laws that had something like 16-17 years for
'protection' (even patents on inventions have
less time protection than stupid freaking
mickey rat-type crapola ! ! ! ); then it was increased
to the lifetime of the 'artist'; then it was increased
to the lifetime of the 'artist' plus X years, now it is
lifetime plus 75 years, etc...

anyone want to guess the 'lifetime' of immortal,
fictitious legal entities we call korporations ? ? ?

(THE root of all evil, by the way; not corporations
per se, their immortal immoral status as super-citizens
who are more important than impotent li'l peeps...)

how is it that when we depended upon a
fragmented society, with (relatively) crappy,
ineffecient communications where it could take
years for ideas, inventions, text, artwork, etc
to be reproduced (if it even could be), and
spread from one end of a relatively small country
to the other, we had 'protection' periods which
are a fraction of what we have in a huge, relatively
homogenous, instant-communication, xeroxed,
pop-culture society ? ? ?

*shouldn't* the periods of protection be
DECREASING as our society speeds up and
pieces/parts of our culture are fragmented,
sampled, re-mixed, and assimilated at an
incredible pace ? ? ?

the nike swooshtika hasn't sold a gazillion
tee shirts/etc because of the inherent artfulness,
creativity, and appeal of that design; it has
sold a gazillion because THE PEOPLE MADE
IT POPULAR, IT 'BELONGS' to US...

on top of it all, greedy rat *******s in
corporations -and other public figures-
are trying mightily to remove any and
all usage for 'fair use', so that they can't be
made fun of with their own useless crap...

my two centavos...

eof