From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:24:34 -0500 Remember, also, that Xerox gave up the fight to protect the use of "xerox" as a verb as a synonym for "photocopy." I suspect the same has been happening with "Google." Sandy Thatcher > From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 22:09:56 -0500 > > On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 4:53 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:49:36 -0400 >> >> Seems to me that's a specimen of a rightsholder who doesn't know when it's in its own interest to acknowledge fair use and let a small dollar revenue stream dry up. Wouldn't it be a nicer world if universities and publishers and Disneys made a *point* of their own admiration for and respect for fair use as a principle? If they convinced the general public that they get it about where a reasonable boundary lies between what we can do for free and when we should start paying licensing fees? > > SA: Normally I'd agree with you, but trademark is a funny right. In > most cases, the rightsholder MUST sue in order to prove it is > protecting its right when it comes time to renew. You have to prove > you are protecting it because, in the end, the goal of trademark is to > not only ensure that rightholders are paid for goods which receive > additional value from their mark, but also to hold the rightsholder > responsible for things produced in its name. And I'm not sure if this > particular use necessarily qualifies as "fair use" in terms of a > trademark, but certainly it is pretty common practice around cultural > institutions like sport. I think Disney and others are in a different > ballpark since they are clearly less forgiving than they could be - > particularly when most of its back catalog is blatant plagiarism of > our culture. > >> I cannot think offhand and would welcome examples of rightsholders who have done a good job of that kind of marketing. I'll pay you a rights fee a *lot* more happily if I feel in my gut that they're more or less on the same page with me about where that boundary lies. > > SA: Most trademark holders are pretty ruthless. Copyright is > certainly more fluid and your sentiment seems widely held - though I > can't think of anyone who isn't a stickler on some level. Many bands > allow bootleg tapes - cf. the Grateful Dead collection in the Internet > Archive > > http://archive.org/details/GratefulDead > > and many a video remake on Youtube seems to suggest that it is a > pretty accepted practice by most rightsholders (though there are major > exceptions.) > > I think the best example of what you are talking about is Lego. I > can't find the history, but my sense is that fans of movies began > using legos to create stop animation movies because they were an easy > medium to manipulate. These were explicitly called Lego Star Wars or > Lego Superman or whatever film it was being remade with Legos (the > first one I saw was Star Wars, not sure when it really began.) Here > is a sample of some more recent ones. > > http://mashable.com/2010/04/24/best-lego-movies-youtube/ > > And here is the Internet Archive page cataloging all the works of > "Brickfilms" http://archive.org/details/brick_films > > So far as I know, they never sued people for using this trademark, and > since then have gone on to create not only playsets but videogames and > more professionally produced films, or, at the very least, had them > licensed. In other words, by allowing this fan activity, they actually > opened up an entirely new market for themselves. Then again, I've not > seen a report about how this activity began: maybe it was more > ordinarily litigious. > > Not sure if that's what you had in mind but... > > -- > Sean Johnson Andrews > [log in to unmask] > Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies > Columbia College, Chicago > 2011-2013 ACLS Public Fellow > Program Officer > The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education