Now, why didn’t they do this in the first place?
Clarification here.
Thoughts? I don’t begrudge them protection of their trademarks. I took issue with how it was handled and the lack of clarification around why they put the protections in the terms of service, which seemed to suggest they might over-rule nominative fair use. Their current clarification seems reasoned, thoughtful, and should allay most fears, although sometimes poorly executed communication strategies leave a sort of bitter taste.
Ah well. Another day on the Grid. Better try to get on before peak concurrency and they shut half the features down.
At last! Thanks, Dusan; I’m putting this up on Around the Grid now, and linking to you as the person to twig me to it.
[…] — AT LAST! (With thanks to Dusan Writer, who put me on to this while I was tag-surfing the WordPress.com […]
This is weird stuff from a german point of view. I can’t imagine having to put a copyright symbol behind each trademark I use in my writing. “I rode my Mercedes Benz® to the Paunsdorf Center®, where I bought some Coca Cola® and some Pringles® for my planned evening in Second Life®. While I was there I got a BigMac® at McDonalds® for lunch, later I checked the shops from Karstadt®, Quelle®, Aldi®, C&A® and bought me some Levi’s® and a new Motorola Razr®.”
Did I read that wrong or is that how they imagine people should write?
That’s how you should write, if you’re in the US. (First time only). Actually, if you look at a lot of US novels and so on that use brand names, they actually will have a copyright disclaimer at the beginning. Aspirin lost its trademark over something so simple and yeah, it’s moronic but hey. You would thing a capital letter would be enough.
Outside of the US the rules are a bit different.
Have a look at this comment on Xerox in Wikipedia:
The word “xerox” is commonly used as a synonym for “photocopy” (both as a noun and a verb) in many areas; for example, “Lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox”. Though both are common, the company does not condone such uses of its trademark, and is particularly concerned about the ongoing use of Xerox as a verb as this places the trademark in danger of being declared a generic word by the courts. The company is engaged in an ongoing advertising and media campaign to convince the public that Xerox should not be used as a verb.[9][10]
To this end, the company has written to publications that have used Xerox as a verb, and has also purchased print advertisements declaring that “you cannot ‘xerox’ a document, but you can copy it on a Xerox Brand copying machine”. (Note that xerox is functionally a verb in this sentence.) Xerox Corporation continues to protect its trademark diligently in most if not all trademark categories. Despite their efforts, many dictionaries continue to mention the use of “xerox” as a verb, including the Oxford English Dictionary.
Well thankfully where I am such demands would be laughed out off the courtroom…
I mean, I can understand that they don’t want a non-approved “Second Life Magazine” that takes advantage from the trademarked name, but other use, like writing an article about “with lots of luck it works fine every SECOND day LIFE”? Nope. I won’t go on a google search each time to find out behind what words that I use I have to put a ® or other character in a little circle