Scouts BSA Seek To End Girl Scouts' Trademark Lawsuit By Brazenly Claiming No Confusion Does Or Will Exist

from the scout's-honor dept

We've been covering the lawsuit brought by The Girl Scouts of America against Scouts BSA, formerly The Boy Scouts of America, for some time. In the two posts that covered the suit, the GSA has alleged all kinds of very real confusion in the marketplace for female scoutting as a result of the branding change by Scouts BSA, which include:

-“As a result of Boy Scouts’ infringement, parents have mistakenly enrolled their daughters in Boy Scouts thinking it was Girl Scouts,” the lawyers said, adding that this never occurred before 2018.

-The lawyers said Boy Scouts councils in Illinois acknowledging improperly using the Girl Scouts’ slogan in Cub Scout recruiting materials and pictures of Girl Scouts to promote a Boy Scouts “Scouts Sign-Up Night!”

-They said a western Massachusetts Boy Scouts council posted a recruiting flyer on Facebook including a photograph of a girl depicted in her Girl Scouts Brownie uniform.

-Meanwhile, Ohio Boy Scouts used the Girl Scouts trademark to try to get a local newspaper to write an article, suggesting a storyline entitled “Boy and Girl Scouts Looking for Members” even though the recruitment involved only the Boy Scouts, the lawyers said.

-Minnesota families looking to sign up their girls were erroneously told the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts have merged. Meanwhile, in Indiana and South Dakota, some parents mistakenly signed up their daughters to girls’ programs in the Boy Scouts.

Those appear to be verifiable, real-world claims of confusion as a result of the BSA rebranding to a more generic name, all in the context of a world where the BSA and GSA have long been separated along gender lines. Why it should be any surprise that confusion exists here is beyond me. It seems like roughly the most predictable thing in the world to have happened, particularly when you account for the actions of local Scouts BSA organizations that seemed to actively attempt to instill such confusion.

In fact, perhaps the most surprising thing now is that Scouts BSA is asking a judge for a summary judgement that no confusion has or will exist.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan will hear oral arguments on the Boy Scouts' motion for summary judgment, in which it argued that rebranding as "Scouts BSA" and advertising to girls won't cause confusion with the Girl Scouts.

The Boy Scouts said in a statement that it has been clear that the groups are separate organizations, and trusts that "families choose organizations for their children with great care." Rachel Kassabian of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan represents the Boy Scouts.

This is belied, again, by the examples of confusion that have not been specifically refuted as well as some of the confusion-inducing actions taken by Scouts BSA local chapters. It's also a simple matter to remind the public that the BSA has itself been extremely protective of all manner of its IP in the past, making this not solely a story about spurious claims of non-confusion, but also one of hypocrisy.

We'll await the ruling by the judge on this motion, but it would be very strange if Scouts BSA prevailed.

Filed Under: likelihood of confusion, scouts, trademark
Companies: boy scouts of america, girl scouts of america, scouts bsa

Musk's Starlink Pre-Order Subscribers Say Customer Service Is A No Show

from the innovative-to-a-point dept

The narrative du jour is that Elon Musk's companies are just so damn innovative that they don't have to adhere to basic norms. His companies don't need a functioning PR department, for example, because Musk is just so damn charming on Twitter. As you may have noticed, this narrative isn't always particularly accurate.

Take Starlink, Musk's attempt to disrupt telecom with low orbit satellites providing pretty impressive broadband speeds. The service remains in beta, and because there's limited satellite capacity (an unfortunate side effect of physics), it won't be able to provide service to more than say 500-800k subscribers for some time (for scale: 42 million lack broadband and 83 million live under a broadband monopoly). So needless to say, those slots are going to be relatively precious for folks out of the reach of traditional broadband who'll genuinely be helped by having a new option.

The service, which provides speeds sometimes faster than 100 Mbps (at least on non-commercial beta network) costs $100 a month, plus a $500 equipment fee. But the users who say they plunked down $100 early this year aren't receiving any communication from the company... at all. Attempts to inquire where they are in the process or when they'll get a working satellite broadband terminal wind up being thrown into a void:

"The Starlink app doesn't have a customer service option for people with deposits, said Corey Gordon, who is based in Alberta, Canada, and paid 129 Canadian dollars ($103) for the deposit in May. "I have left a couple of detailed voicemails on an answering service at SpaceX over a month ago and still have heard nothing," he told Insider.

Reviews for the service have been decidedly mixed, though updated hardware and satellites may help mitigate many of these early complaints. Still, early adopters are, understandably, a little perplexed at why a company that designs rocket ships can't answer basic email inquiries:

"If they can send a rocket to space, why can't they figure out how to provide customer service?" he said. A deployment map would be useful to check when to expect Starlink, he added."

Granted dodgy customer service for Musk-owned companies isn't all that uncommon, especially if you spend more than twenty seconds looking at customer experiences with Tesla's rooftop solar system installations. As for Starlink, the service has already signed up 500,000 users, and it will take several years before it's able to provide service to many more than that. With so many Musk fans jockeying for those remaining slots, things could get very Lord of The Flies-esque in short order. And that's before you get to supply chain issues or potential congestion problems on a fully launched and loaded network.

Regardless, it's odd that the Musk companies' reputation for boundless innovation apparently often doesn't apply to customer service. Or a functioning PR department capable of explaining why such an innovative company can't seem to design a basic, working, automated confirmation system for Starlink subscribers.

Filed Under: customer service, elon musk, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink

Trump Donor Who Propped Up His $2 Billion Hotel Business With $96 Million In COVID Loans Threatens Website For Publishing Facts And Opinions

from the once-again,-'hurt-feelings'-is-not-an-actionable-claim dept

Being defensive when criticized is a very human trait. It's often the default response. And it's completely understandable. Very few people can suppress the urge to defend themselves -- or engage in retaliation -- when (as Tom Wolfe put it) their ego is stripped of its virginity. Like I said, it's a wholly human response.

But when the target of criticism runs a multibillion-dollar trifecta of companies, kneejerk reactions should be tempered by the better judgment of presumably expensive legal teams who are there to do exactly this: cushion the blows of online criticism and temper the responses of their aggrieved employer.

Monty Bennett -- a Trump donor with $2.2 billion in combined revenue from his hospitality holdings last year -- decided his businesses were small enough to grab some of the "small business" loans the government floated when the hospitality business fell off the cliff during the first few months of the COVID epidemic.

As the coronavirus ravaged the United States, the pseudonymous "Doktor Zoom" wrote a highly critical post for Wonkette about Monty Bennett, the billion-dollar businessman who complained about being able to claim "only" $96 million in relief funds. Combining an amazing blend of resentment and entitlement, Bennett wrote a blog post complaining about the government's alleged unwillingness to foot more of the bill for big business like his.

Meanwhile, Bennett -- the self-proclaimed victim of regulation and small business loan restrictions -- did this:

Bennett's companies brought in a combined revenue of $2.2 billion last year, but because of the Rona Recession, the hotels have furloughed or outright laid off 95 percent of their more than 7,000 employees. It's all so upsetting to Bennett that he's had to console himself with some great big bonuses, plus huge dividends from his preferred stock.

While 7,000 employees went without work, Bennett took home a little over $3 million in salary and bonuses. Sure, it was a huge reduction from his 2019 total of nearly $7 million, but landing on a few million in pre-tax income is far preferable to having no pre-tax income at all, like nearly 100% of his employees.

This hurt Bennett's feelings. And it appears his companies' legal department is either incapable or unwilling to talk Bennett out of making things worse for himself. Legal threats have been issued to Doktor Zoom and Wonkette.

Last week, your beloved Wonkette received a very serious letter accusing us of ALL THE LIBELSLANDER.

[...]

Monty was, apparently, VERY UPSET that we wrote true, mean things about him. SO upset, in fact, that, 16 months after Dok's post, he decided to have Holland & Knight partner Stephen Rasch (aka expensive big-firm lawyer) send us a letter, accusing us of defiling his good name.

If you want to draw attention to how much of a grifter and asshole you are, baseless legal threats over true facts is a great way to do it, as Wonkette's Jamie Lynn Crofts (who happens to also be a 1st Amendment lawyer) points out:

You presumably came to our website at least once, to read all of the mean, true things you complain about in your letter. So you should have at least some concept of Wonkette's tone.

Even without doing a cursory google to see how we might respond to letters such as this, did the words "Streisand Effect" really never once come to mind?

But, again, thank you. Truly. Last week was a very hard week and I was in great need of a little comic relief. And a defamation accusation containing such gems as the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "sleazy" was exactly what I needed.

The whole letter [PDF] is the kind of blustery bullshit we've covered countless times here at Techdirt. When the facts are against you, release the paper tigers to pound the tables, I guess. The enjoyment lawyer Stephen Rasch may have wrung out of writing these sentences will be the last fun he has if he chooses to continue harassing Wonkette, or decides he and his client might want to have their ass kicked in court.

The article states that Mr. Bennett “exploit[ed] the ‘small’ business loan program” and that his actions were “sleazy as fuck.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “sleazy” is defined to mean “sordid, corrupt, or immoral.” Mr. Bennett and Ashford neither “exploited” the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) nor acted in a sordid, corrupt, or immoral manner.

Thanks, Doctor Dictionary. I'm sure Wonkette and Doktor Zoom knew what the word "sleazy" meant when they used it. Quoting the dictionary using law firm letterhead doesn't make it any more actionable.

I won't dissect any more of this truly stupid letter, because Wonkette has already done this. Here's the big-money lawyer saying things about defamation:

Wonkette falsely asserts that Ashford constitutes “a single business pretending it's several smaller businesses.” That statement is factually and legally false. Ashford, Inc., Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc., and Bracmer Hotels and Resorts are separate and legally distinct entities. Additionally, the hotel properties within the Ashford portfolio are owned by entities separate from Ashford.

Here's Wonkette's legal expert, deftly pointing out just how ridiculous this claim is, using the law firm's own words to prove Wonkette's point:

I find it truly fascinating that the letter you sent us refers to Monty's business empire as "the Ashford portfolio," but you would like to make sure we affirmatively note that companies named things like "Ashford, Inc." and "Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc." are, technically, separately and legally distinct entities.

That's just part of it. The whole threat letter is worth reading for its inadvertent hilarity. The Wonkette response is worth reading in full for its deliberate hilarity, as well as its deliberate humiliation of a lawyer apparently being paid enough to suppress his better judgment. The opinions (like "sleazy") are opinions. The facts delivered by Wonkette are factual. And whatever developments may have happened after the April 2020 post cannot be held against Wonkette, which was reporting on known facts at the time of publication.

Oh! And it appears we were supposed to predict that, at some point after our post was published, Monty would be publicly shamed into returning the PPP loan money and rehiring some people?

[Threat letter] "Further, Ashford subsequently returned all of the PPP loan funds and rehired many furloughed employees."

Can I get your psychic's number? It sounds like you might have a good one. And I am definitely very sure this was all out of the goodness of Monty's heart and had nothing to do with the slew of stories about what a piece of garbage he is. (I'm sorry. That was mean to garbage.)

If anyone needs to retract anything, it's Monty Bennett and his legal reps, who were apparently convinced to act against Bennett's interests by the guy paying their retainer, who I can only assume signs his name "Monty Bennett." But this may be just the sort of stupidity Holland & Knight -- last seen at Techdirt abandoning its defense of First Amendment rights in the face of pressure from Florida governor Ron DeSantis -- enjoys engaging in.

Unfortunately, even extremely stupid lawsuits are a drain on those defending themselves from baseless claims. And it's unclear where the law firm might decide to pursue this lawsuit (it's located in Texas but Wonkette's owner, Commie Girl Industries, is located in Montana), which is yet another reason why a federal anti-SLAPP law is needed to make it easier for everyone involved to utilize the same rules and -- even better -- discourage plaintiffs without actionable claims from draining the resources of entities that never defamed them.

Filed Under: covid, criticism, defamation, free speech, government suport, monty bennett, payroll protection, ppp
Companies: ashford, wonkette

Daily Deal: The 25 Courses for $25 Web Development Mega Bundle

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The 25 Courses for $25 Web Development Mega Bundle has all you need to kickstart your career in web development. You'll learn the fundamentals of working with AWS, Azure, CSS, HTML, Java, Python, and a whole lot more.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

London's Top Cop Says 'Big Tech,' Encryption Are Letting The Terrorists Win

from the applying-excessive-force-to-a-horse's-corpse dept

Dame Cressida Dick -- the former National Policing Lead for Counter-Terrorism -- has had an op-ed published by The Telegraph that leverages the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to advocate for less privacy and security for routine targets of terrorist attacks: everyday people without powerful government positions.

Writing from her latest official position -- that of Metropolitan Police Commissioner -- Dame Dick says the War on Terror can be won… sort of. (Paywalled but here's an alternate link.)

The future, as ever, is uncertain - as exemplified by the situation in Afghanistan as we wait to see how events there might once again impact on the terrorism landscape. But as I reflect on what has passed since 9/11, I am confident that we continue to develop the exceptional tools and capabilities that will give our counter-terrorism officers the best chance of successfully confronting the threats that will emerge over the next 20 years.

That's just a small part of it. It's headlined by this declaration by the Police Commissioner:

Terrorists seek to divide us -- they won't win

Not so fast, Cressida. Right in the middle of your own op-ed is an admission the terrorists have won, at least using these metrics.

The threat of sophisticated terrorist cells being directed from overseas has been added to by that of the individuals carrying out rudimentary attacks with very little planning or warning. The current focus on encryption by many big tech companies is only serving to make our job to identify and stop these people even harder, if not impossible in some cases.

And there it is: the thing that divides us. Government officials continue to insist that if encryption can be used by terrorists and criminals, then it really shouldn't be accessible to all the non-terrorists who use it to secure their personal information and communications. If the end goal of terrorist attacks is to drive a wedge between the public and their public servants, mission accomplished.

The public would like to have actual security. The government would prefer the illusion of security: a nonexistent form of encryption that only allows good guys to peek in on "secure" communications. And, on the flip side, these officials believe the only people who really "need" encrypted communications are criminals and terrorists since they have the most to hide. If that's the only real market for encryption, then non-terrorists should be happy using insecure communications options because they have nothing to hide and nothing to fear from their governments.

And while we're on the subject of reasoning that's mostly circular, The Telegraph manages to close its own loop by dropping a link in Dame Cressida Dick's op-ed. That link takes you to this article ("Tech giants are making it impossible to stop terrorists, says Dame Cressida Dick"), which opens with this:

Tech giants are making it impossible to identify and stop terrorists carrying out deadly attacks, Dame Cressida Dick warns on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner - who was granted a two-year extension on her contract on Friday - said the introduction of end-to-end encryption, which allows users to message one another in complete secrecy, was giving terrorists an advantage over law enforcement.

Companies such as Facebook have argued that introducing encryption will improve privacy for their customers.

But writing in The Telegraph, Dame Cressida warns that terrorists are exploiting such technological advances to radicalise people and direct attacks around the world.

That last link takes you back to Cressida's op-ed, which contains one paragraph about Big Tech and encryption -- a paragraph that is quoted in its entirety further down the page in this separate article. The op-ed links to the article… which links to the op-ed… which links to the article. It's a neat trick, one that makes one hand clapping sound like applause. One could theoretically spend hours opening each self-referential link, allowing Dick's single argument to become a groundswell movement that gradually consumes every last bit of available RAM (mainly looking at you, Chrome).

And that's as good a metaphor as any for the anti-encryption agitation of officials like the Dame. Like other law enforcement officials who would like to see encryption backdoored if not eliminated completely, the Dame's attacks on encryption appear to operate under the theory that if someone says something often enough, and authoritatively enough, then some people are going to believe these assertions are true.

And at the end of all of this, it must be pointed out that the split between law enforcement officials and security experts continues to increase. But the terrorists didn't cause this split. The War on Terror did. The response to the 9/11 attacks was a power grab by the government, which suddenly had the justification it needed to curtail rights and liberties it often found inconvenient. And now it's Big Government complaining about Big Tech, using terrorism as an excuse to undermine security for everyone.

Filed Under: cressida dick, encryption, london, metropolitan police, terrorism

FCC Will Take A Closer Look At ISP/Landlord Broadband Monopolies

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

One of the tricks dominant broadband providers use to limit competition is exclusive broadband arrangements with landlords. Often an ISP will strike an exclusive deal with the owner of a building, apartment complex, or development that effectively locks in a block by block monopoly. And while the FCC passed rules in 2007 to purportedly stop this from happening, they contained too many loopholes to be of use. Susan Crawford wrote an excellent story at Wired about this a few years back, noting that the rules are so terrible ISPs and landlords can tap dance around them by simply calling what they're doing... something else:

"...The Commission has been completely out-maneuvered by the incumbents. Sure, a landlord can’t enter into an exclusive agreement granting just one ISP the right to provide Internet access service to an MDU, but a landlord can refuse to sign agreements with anyone other than Big Company X, in exchange for payments labeled in any one of a zillion ways. Exclusivity by any other name still feels just as abusive."

She was also quick to note that while the FCC rules technically prohibited exclusive building broadband deals (which they again failed to actually do), ISPs also took to striking deals with landlords banning any other ISP from being able to advertise in the building:

"Here’s another colorful workaround exploited by the incumbents. Even though exclusive agreements are a no-no, marketing exclusivity is apparently permitted. So AT&T and Comcast and others will sign deals with buildings that require that only their flyers are displayed in the leasing office. No one else is allowed to distribute any competing material — and no events (think wine and cheese party for tenants) can be held by any competing provider on the premises."

I bring it up because Axios, this week, reported that the FCC would finally be taking another serious look at this problem. More specifically, they'll be seeking public comment from consumers and landlords about the impact this problem has on them, as part of the Biden camp's broader bid to tackle monopolization. Of course "looking into" the problem and fielding comments is not synonymous with actually fixing the problem, which has been going on for decades thanks to bipartisan regulatory apathy.

This is where Biden's failure to appoint a permanent FCC boss and third Democratic Commissioner enters the picture. Without a voting majority the agency can't pass any reform that's even remotely controversial, and the telecom industry will lobby hard to, as usual, keep this broken status quo intact. Interim boss Jessica Rosenworcel's term ends at the end of this year, and if the Biden foot dragging on this front continues, the FCC could see a 2-1 GOP majority in the new year. And guys like Commissioner Brendan Carr pretty rarely can be bothered to stand up to dominant broadband monopolies on any substance of note.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, landlords, monopolies

Mistrial Declared In Backpage Founders' Trial; After DOJ Ignores Judge's Rules Regarding What It Could Present

from the poisoning-the-well dept

As we noted recently, the trial of Backpage's founders finally started after years of legal wrangling. However, the judge has already declared a mistrial after the DOJ, in typical DOJ fashion, tried to ignore the judge's warnings against focusing too specifically on the specifics of sex trafficking alleged to have occurred on the site. Specifically, prosecutors repeatedly referred to child sex trafficking, despite the fact that there are no sex trafficking charges in the case (let alone child sex trafficking):

U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich said that the cumulative effect of the child sex trafficking references made by prosecutors in opening statements and by witnesses for the government “is something that I can’t overlook and will not overlook.”

Before the trial, the judge concluded she would allow evidence showing that people were trafficked using the site, but would not allow prosecutors to linger on the details of the abuse suffered by victims.

“It seemed the government abused that leeway,” Brnovich said. The judge said one government witness testified about being raped more than once, which raises a “whole new emotional response from people.”

This is the thing that always seems to happen with Backpage. People insist that if they just demonstrate some of the (very real and very terrible) examples of bad stuff that happened, in part, via the platform, they don't have to meet the burden of actually proving the crime at issue happened. We've seen that repeatedly -- including in the comments to our last post about Backpage and in years of coverage about the company. People highlight bad (really awful) stuff that happened because people abused the platform, and then assume they can just skip all of the important steps regarding pinning the liability on the company (and its founders).

It's depressing, if not surprising, that it was apparently the DOJ's plan to try the same strategy in court, and it's good to see the judge put a stop to it.

Filed Under: doj, james larkin, michael lacey, mistrial
Companies: backpage

Kickstarter For Hand-Drawn Video Game Manuals Shuts Down Due To IP Threat

from the book-burning dept

You may recall that about a year ago we discussed one man's attempt to digitize the game manuals for really old games. Notably, that project didn't appear to face any threats over copyright laws by the normal companies -- Nintendo, Konami, etc -- though that almost certainly was partially the result of the project not being a commercial endeavor, but a simple attempt at art preservation that would clearly be covered by fair use. But the overall point is that there is a thirst for this sort of thing, especially when you realize that some of these game manuals are endangered species, close to being lost for all eternity.

Well, apparently there is at least one company out there that is not so keen on letting something similar to that go forward if it means anyone is going to collect money over it. A Kickstarter for hand-drawn recreations of the sorts of video game guides that were popular decades ago, which far exceeded its initial goal, voluntarily shut itself down after facing unspecified legal threats.

Near the end of a staggeringly successful Kickstarter campaign, Hand-Drawn Game Guides was cancelled. Philip Summers, the individual behind this campaign, cancelled his Kickstarter due to legal pressure from unknown parties. In a statement released on Hand-Drawn Game Guides' Kickstarter, Summers says:

"Tonight I pulled the plug on the Hand-Drawn Game Guides Kickstarter. Yes, for exactly the reason you think it’s for. I had hoped that I could successfully navigate any legal trouble, but alas I wasn’t able to do so."

Summers made it clear elsewhere that none of this was unforeseen, nor is he particularly angry about it. The source of the legal threats was never specified, but it's clear that Summers is facing some kind of copyright or trademark threat by one of the gaming companies that owns the rights for the games he's creating new manuals/guides for. It could be one of many companies, of course, though it won't surprise regular readers here to learn that I very much suspect it's Nintendo. If it is, the company can certainly argue it has a valid copyright claim on these manuals, assuming it has the relevant IP rights for them. But, as is always the question, why does Nintendo or whichever company made these threats feel the need to go this route?

Summers started his campaign seeking $20k, but ended up amassing over $300k in pledges for the project, all for hand-drawn video game guides for very old games.

Summers' guides deal with IPs by Nintendo, including The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. Just recently, Nintendo issued a cease and desist for Metroid Prime 2D, a game starring Samus Aran and based on the Metroid series, and not long ago they hit The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link a fan-game that bridged Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Contra and Ninja Gaiden guides backers could have purchased, so legal pressure Konami, Koei Tecmo, or Nintendo is possible but not confirmed by any party. As we've seen previously, fan-made projects ending due to legal reasons is nothing new for the industry.

This campaign aimed to bring guides of retro video games to the masses, which were completely hand-drawn and went over the workings of each title. This included tips and tricks, maps of dungeons and other levels, and more.

If there is an actual threat in any of that to any of the named companies, I am failing to see it. Instead, I only see the desire for total control over intellectual property playing out in such a way so as to destroy an otherwise wildly successful Kickstarter by someone who is obviously a very big fan of retro video games and the guidebooks of the past. And if that doesn't sound like Nintendo, I don't know what does.

For now, Summers and his publisher are making it clear that the project isn't necessarily 100% dead, asking backers to stay tuned. But in the meantime, the funding for the Kickstarter has been canceled, all because someone had to kill the fun.

Filed Under: crowdfunding, hand drawn video game manuals, manuals, video games
Companies: kickstarter