Everybody loves the sound of a thread derailing in the distance... everybody knows its true.
On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 5:18 PM, Karl Fogel <[email protected]> wrote: > Chris Sakkas <[email protected]> writes: > Trademarks are always rivalrous, no matter what party is using them nor > whether it's for mere "nominative use" or something else. The point of > a trademark is in its association with the thing it refers to. So when > someone starts using it to refer to something else, its value decreases. It's not so simple :) Few things are purely rivalrous or non-rivalrous. Marks are compact identifier art, and convey association and connotation to readers. Other creative works are usually longer-form art, and convey ideas, experiences, associations, and connotations to readers. The two occupy different areas of creative-work-space, but their differences can be described without reducing them to dichotomies. A malicious actor can decrease the value of either one. Other factors, including where they fall on the uniqueness-universality spectrum, can also modify their value. > I could put a halaal certification group's logo on pork. Now I've diluted > the value of that > mark, because I've diluted its *meaning*. Yes. I can also take "Das Lied der Deutschen" and a famous Haydn musical poem, and turn them into "Deutschlandlied", making it a German national anthem. Now I have forever changed the *meaning* of those two works of art -- each with its own very different origin -- for all modern experiences. Then I can further go on to use that anthem widely in the context of a world war, and all of the pomp and ceremony of a military government, and again - through copying, broadcasting, and reassociation - change its meaning for any future listeners. > Thus trademarks are only useful to the extent that they are rivalrous. Not so. In many cases, the value and use of trademarks increase as they are [re]used. Both when they are used 'as intended' by the creators of that art, to identify a narrowly defined subject -- and when they are used as satire, or to describe similar (even competing!) products. The Xerox, Kleenex, and Coke brands are in some ways reduced, in others changed, in still others burnished and enhanced by becoming 'generic' and universal, entering into the dictionary. Those marks are useful even when used in 'non-rivalrous' ways. Google's colorful and creative mark is enhanced by encouraging small and large variations on that theme, both formally blessed as doodles and otherwise. And that's just in the boring world of corporate marks. Human names are enhanced and spread throughout history by being modified, copied, and remixed. Even the Smurfs managed only to earn their mark and identity an eternal smurf in Smurf smurf through the prolific smurfing of the various smurfs. SJ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
