Cory was off the grid - so my apologies to Cory
I accused Cory Doctorow of not speaking up regarding Tom Raferty getting C&Ded.
Cory later did - and so to the timing of said response, I was wrong. He was traveling and as I often find myself, we are not able to get on-line - for awhile.
Turns out that I had sat there and waited for Cory’s reply, assuming it would come. First I thought that he must have already done so - so I went backwards a few days to look for it. The fact that he replied is reassuring.
The issue of how much money O’Reilly is making off of the term Web 2.0 would be an interesting fact to reveal. Maybe folks would understand more how this game is played. Remember it was Levi Strauss who made most the money from the gold rush.
The fact that Cory doesn’t see the similarities between the injustice of trademark laws and copyright laws is disappointing.
That’s where ths conversation needs to go:
“How are trademark laws similar or different from copyright laws?”
“How can we diss one while embracng the other - or vice versa?”
“When does idealism of what a law SHOULD be overtake its current day interpretation or how lawyers use it - to no good?”
That’s what I’d rather talk about right now.
Besides Tim O’Reilly is off the grid right now anyway. Once he’s back, we can get it from the horse’s mouth.
And yes - this post will have no links in it.
May 27th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Isn’t it irritating that the baying masses think this issue constitutes a business emergency substantial enough to stop aircraft, interrupt vacations and call after-hours conferences? While some good discussion has emerged, Tim himself needs to review the backlash that emerged from a cease and desist letter and to lend his voice to the issue.
He may discover that Marc Canter was on stage during a previous Web 2.0 conference in Ireland and needs to be determine if that act also erodes CMP’s Web 2.0 conference trademark position.
May 29th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Marc, look into the history of trademark laws and you’ll find all the answers you need. Trademarks laws are designed to protect consumers, not to ensure a revenue stream for companies. They’re designed so that no one can make crappy vacuum cleaners and call them “Hoover” (except, Hoover themselves, of course
), thus fooling you out of money and incidentally protecting the company from damage to its reputation.
Copyright, on the other hand, is designed to benefit the creator of works by granting a limited-term exclusive license to the work to them. It’s completely different both in origin and in scope.
So let’s get back to the whole “Web 2.0 Conference” thing. O’Reilly/CMP have spent time and money building up the good name of the “Web 2.0 Conference”. People go to that conference because they know it’s well-run with interesting speakers and they’ll meet interesting people. Suppose someone comes along and just decides to create a conference called “Web 2.0 Conference London”. Because the names a similar, there might be an expectation from people that it’s an O’Reilly conference - but it turns out that it’s badly organised, badly executed, and has idiots talking at it. Now, the “Web 2.0 Conference” brand is damaged, and anyone who went along expecting something like the O’Reilly/CMP conference is going to be very unhappy.
That’s the difference. Trademarks aren’t about “owning a concept”, as many people have jumped into saying lately, but about ensuring that one company can’t pass off its product or service as that of another. People are confusing patents and copyright with trademarks, because they’re all types of intellectual property, without actually thinking things through and realising that they’re all different, and have different roles and functions.
No one sane - even in the anti-IP camp - thinks trademarks are a bad thing. You want that bottle with Coca-Cola on the label to be Coke and not SchmoCola made from ground up wombat shit, right?
May 29th, 2006 at 7:28 am
[…] Continuing the conversation, Ian Betteridge writes (in a comment): […]