alexseanchai | (no subject)

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osu: disney gender race empire

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Disney has trademarked the phrase "Snow White".

I don't know anyfuckingthing about trademark, but I get the distinct impression that now I am not allowed to publish a story entitled "Snow White", even if it is a retelling of the public fucking domain story "Snow White".

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wtff

precisely

I wish them luck with that abroad. That's the real reason it's SyFy now.

Oh, because "SyFy" was trademarkable and "SciFi" isn't?

Yes, in other countries SciFi was too common a phrase. I still think if they'd just said so when they announced it rather than trying to couch it as a rebrand, it would've gone over better.
Also, that document you linked says it's a Service Mark, not a trade mark, but I honestly don't know what the difference is.

it looks like they didn't necessarily trademark it for stories - it might just be for films, tv, and plays? but still.

Yeah, that's not much of an improvement.

Here is a rather thorough dissection of this and what the trademark does and does not cover. It's not as bad as it looks.

Copyright and Trademark law both need MAJOR revisions. I'm all for making sure artists get paid for their work, but I think we've gone down the rabbit hole with this stuff. Don't even get me started how I'm infringing a musician's copyright if I want to **videotape my kids' dance recital** even though the dance studio pays ASCAP/BMI for performance rights, because that doesn't include video synchronization rights (meaning no putting the song to video). Because me wanting a video of my kid dancing to something from "Shake it Up" is EXACTLY THE SAME as me pirating "Shake it Up." (And not coincidentally, it's the Disney song that got me banned from YouTube until I removed it. Other artists go the more sensible route of slapping a link on the page saying where you can buy the actual song.)

Sorry. Wandering a bit OT there, but this stuff makes me grind my teeth.

*nodnod*

Oh, and here's another one that makes me nuts. My husband made a ton of music videos for local bands in the 80s. Some of the bands got some national recognition, even. He has all the master tapes in the closet of his office and he CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH THEM. The process and expense of getting all the various rights sorted out (publishing rights, performance rights, synchronization rights, visual image rights, etc. ad nauseum for **each individual song**) is so fucking complicated that all that will ever happen to these videos is they will sit in his closet and collect dust. No one will ever see them, even though there's a market for them. Explain to me how that's protecting artists, keeping their work from ever being seen and keeping *anyone* from making a dime off it????

(And yeah, I know copyright and trademark are different, but it's all the same kind of protectionism that is killing creativity.)

It's protecting the bigger artists from competition, I bet is what it's protecting. Free-market my ass.

I think you are dead spot on.

... WHAT. THE. FUCK. >:(

(*grumblegrumble* bad enough that Disney regularly ruins my beloved myths&fairy tales, now they want their versions to be the One And Only Official Ones?! SO MANY LEVELS OF NO.)

*nod*

I want to trademark the name "US Patents and Trademarks Office" and the acronym "USPTO" in connection with news reports of extreme greed and bureaucratic stupidity. Where do I start?

Patents are another area where there is much fuckery. There are companies who buy patents for things like the technology to scan and e-mail documents, then they go after small businesses who scan and e-mail documents and sue them for patent infringement. It's called patent trolling. At least that one they're looking to clean up. Maybe Disney's overreach with trademarks will ge some attention on cleaning up those laws, too? I mean trademarking Day of the Dead? W. T. F.??? I'm waiting for them to trademark Christmas and Santa Claus because they made The Santa Clause movies.

I'm to the point with this crapola where I'm ready to do away with copyright and patents and whatever in the arts altogether. Artists should still get credit for their work and for originating things, but if someone else writes a better story in your world than you do and therefore sells more -- tough noogies. Copyright's been so consistently misused and abused, I just want it gone. And I'm pretty sure it's 95% Disney's fault.

I think there should be some sort of licensing set up, but not the way it is now, where the licensor gets to decide who can and can't play in their world, but more like cover bands playing someone else's song. That way, the original artist get paid for their work being used, but it isn't so restrictive and limiting.

Edited 2013-07-01 00:34 (UTC)

That is an excellent idea. Maybe the originator would get a certain amount of the royalties?

There was a writer who said, when another writer was having a meltdown over fanfic (paraphrase): "I am not a precious sparkly unicorn. I am a big scary dragon guarding its hoard. Try to take the dragon's gold and the dragon will be angry. Bring the dragon gold and the dragon shall be pleased."

Edited 2013-07-02 19:36 (UTC)

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