Get Overly Aggressive With Your Trademark... And Watch Your Reputation Fall

from the can't-be-good-for-business dept

We wrote recently about how an author and her lawyer appeared to be quite overaggressive in trying to enforce the trademark on the title of a book she had written. As someone pointed out in the comments on that post, as the story has grown more popular, many people are coming out of the woodwork to express their displeasure with the book in the Amazon reviews. So, once again, it's a case where being overly aggressive on trademark is doing significant harm to business prospects.

Imagine, instead, if Susan Jeffers, rather than having her lawyer send a letter demanding credit, had simply emailed the author of the original blog post and said "Hey, this is a great blog post, and I've written this book you might be interested in, which even uses that same phrase you mentioned, 'feel the fear and do it anyway.' I'm sure you'd like the book, so let me send you a copy. Thanks!" Think what might have happened? The blogger would likely have been interested, seeing as the topic of the book is similar to what he writes about, and he might even write a review or mention her book positively in future blog posts. But, instead, she jumped to the legal route, and is now suffering the consequences.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: reputation, susan jeffers, trademark


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    another mike, 30 Apr 2009 @ 12:26pm

    going the lawyer route

    Everyone knows not to call out the lawyers but she did it anyway and now she's feeling the fear.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tgeigs, 30 Apr 2009 @ 12:33pm

    Hmm

    I imagine her lawyer as Ted from Scrubs...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Crashoverride, 30 Apr 2009 @ 12:48pm

    Even better example is the recent news stories about Monster Cable having to slash prices because of there negative name in recent trade lawsuits and with Circuit city gone they lost one of there largest distribution channels

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    B, 30 Apr 2009 @ 12:53pm

    A dash of irony

    Most of the negative reviews are legitimate looking enough to avoid being deleted... these cracked me up though:

    Robert Riddle - "A bland and overly generic book, just a repeat of ideas I've heard many times. Looks like the author just took a bunch of ideas that have been around forever and decided to write them down as if they were her own."

    And Frettful "J" - "[...] Oh by the way, I'm pending a copyright for this comment. This will be a registered trademark, and so if you wish to use this phrase for any purpose whatsoever, you are required to contact me."

    Oh crap... I better email Frettful "J"...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    R. Miles, 30 Apr 2009 @ 12:57pm

    And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

    In looking at the one star reviews, it's no coincidence most were posted about the same time the negativity about the copyright was placed.

    Sure, there's a correlation, but when most of those reviews are stupid one-liners, there's no way I'd take those as "reviews".

    Just bullshit.

    The entire point of a review is to convey the opinion of the material at hand.

    Anyone who takes these one-liners as a "review" is a complete moron.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 30 Apr 2009 @ 1:00pm

      Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

      But are they a moron in a hurry? Isn't that the real question?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        John Duncan Yoyo, 30 Apr 2009 @ 2:26pm

        Re: Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

        >But are they a moron in a hurry? Isn't that
        >the real question?

        These Lawyers are professional moron's in a hurry to build up billable hours.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Chronno S. Trigger, 30 Apr 2009 @ 1:33pm

      Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

      It's not hard to convey large amounts of information in a one line review.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 30 Apr 2009 @ 1:52pm

      Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

      These reviews hold a lot of sway for many people. Even if her book was the best thing written in the last 100 years, if I read a bunch of reviews on Amazon talking about how the author is a copyright NAZI I'd pass on their book in a second. It's the same thing with all the negative reviews of PC games that use DRM, who cares if the game is good or bad, I won't support DRM.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      bigpicture, 30 Apr 2009 @ 2:44pm

      Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

      Morons are usually too stupid to see the irony of "just bullshit" being a one line opinion that also conveys no information.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      R. Miles with brains, 30 Apr 2009 @ 3:15pm

      Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.

      Did you look at the 5 star reviews with the wall of text? Just because they had words, doesn't mean they actually conveyed anything. Most of the positive reviews provide nothing except for "Wow! I love reading self help books and I liked this one too! Wee!" Or even blatantly provide a positive review to have a plug for own self help book. Either way, the point is that the author is suffering the consequences of being stupid.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sehlat (profile), 30 Apr 2009 @ 1:09pm

    Actually, Jeffers' reputation isn't in that much trouble.

    After all, a fall from a very low height can't do a lot of damage.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      DJ, 30 Apr 2009 @ 1:38pm

      Re: Actually, Jeffers' reputation isn't in that much trouble.

      depends on how/where you land.... (sorry "J")

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Different Mike, 30 Apr 2009 @ 2:26pm

    One line reviews

    I think the people mentioning the one-line reviews are overlooking a very important fact: A very large number of Amazon's customers do not read the reviews at all, they just look at the overall star rating. For those people the one-line reviews are just as effective as a well thought out, paragraph-long review.

    I love watching overzealous copyright holders shoot themselves in the foot. Or, more accurately, they get shot in the foot by their own lawyers.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Apr 2009 @ 2:36pm

    Sentence squatting is the new domain squatting.(R)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    insignificant insect, 30 Apr 2009 @ 3:27pm

    bad review SPAMing

    All those reviews were probably written by the same person, or numerous of them were written by the same person. basically "bad review" spamming. Also, notably all the negative one star reviews start when techdirt made note of it on april 27th, not april 26th when the original blogger posted about it...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 30 Apr 2009 @ 5:24pm

    Feel the review

    "feel the fear and do it anyway" is the work of a woman with an insane sense of entitlement, and possibly clinical OCD issues. Based on her poor understanding of trademark law, I'd avoid any advice that comes from her.

    YMMV

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Sos, 30 Apr 2009 @ 5:37pm

    Is "feel the fear" equivalent to "smell the glove"?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2009 @ 2:56am

    A few days ago it had over 100 "one star" reviews... Now it has just over 50... It might be another glitch...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2009 @ 5:53am

    It might be a reach to say that the action caused significant harm to this author. Who had heard of the book before doing so? If there were no sales (or the sales that would ultimately going to be made have already taken place) and then the bad reviews started, then it doesn't really make a difference.

    Who knows, the bad publicity might have sold more books.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2009 @ 7:41am

    I seem to remember...

    ...someone saying that any attention is good attention, even if the attention is negative.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      MattP, 1 May 2009 @ 11:53am

      Re: I seem to remember...

      The attention just happens to be good for the consumer in this scenario.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tamara, 1 May 2009 @ 6:03pm

    You'll need to be an idiot

    Yes this women is totally wrong for going after the blogger, but putting in false reviews isn't right. Sure, give her 1 star for her actions and mention that, but don't tell lies about the book. Let people make up their own mind, if they want to support a copyright nazi or not.

    Reviews like this

    check it out, this book was so trite and useless that I actually recieved more help from a homeless man that I had given a nickle to. He was more helpful than this book and when I tried to offer it to him, he balked and spat at my feet as if I had insulted by my precieved gesture of kindness. Nonetheless I fell disheartened from this exchange and felt the need to tell the savy consumers of Amazon that this book will only be useful if you enjoy reading regurgitated common ideas. [...]

    Are so obviously made up, and no one will believe them, but some people may find this book useful. You're only hurting them if you steer them away with lies

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.