Viacom's Copyright Bots Take Down 'Star Trek' Comic-con Panel Because These Bots Suck Out Loud

from the energize dept

We've argued for a long, long time that these automated copyright takedown bots that far too many media companies utilize are both broken and illuminate just how broken copyright takedown policies for streaming sites have become. The output of this broken system is shown when these bots take down totally legitimate content or when grifters abuse the system to try to take some measure of income away from small third-party streamers. But attempts at machine-based copyright enforcement are truly at their most satisfying when content companies employing these bots commit unintentional copyright seppuku.

This happens way more than you might think, but the latest version of this is Viacom briefly nuking its own Star Trek Comic-Con panel when the copyright borg misfired.

The panel included the cast and producers of Discovery doing a read-through of the first act of the season 2 finale, "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2." The "enhanced" read-through included sound effects, effects shots, and storyboard images meant to bolster the actors as they delivered lines from their living rooms and home offices.

Even if the presentation didn't look like a real episode of Discovery to the home viewer, it apparently sounded close enough: after the Star Trek Universe virtual panel began viewers began to lose access to the stream. In place of the video, YouTube displayed a content ID warning reading: "Video unavailable: This video contains content from CBS CID, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.

While it's fun to laugh at the notoriously protective CBS for killing off its own stream, the reality is that even these instances are immensely frustrating. The fact is that instances like this should serve as an indication to CBS that something is very wrong with how it's operating when its attempts at copyright protection result in its own promotional material getting taken down, however briefly.

But the introspection never comes, changes are never made, and instead CBS goes on its merry way likely shitting out mistaken copyright enforcement at plenty of others. I'd say that it at least gives me items to write about, but I don't want to. The fact is that the system is broken, everyone knows it's broken, and we have yet to even begin doing anything about it.

In fact, these automagic filtering systems are in such wide use that this same stream has to be unblocked by more parties as well.

Unfortunately, it seems an array of media companies are each going to have to rush to correct the error in turn: two hours later, io9 reporter Beth Elderkin tweeted that a Cartoon Network panel livestream was pulled offline due to a copyright claim from Turner, Cartoon Network's parent company.

Again...broken. Beyond repair. And yet we're not going to even try to fix it, because something something protecting the artists.

Filed Under: automated takedowns, comic-con, copyright, self-own, star trek
Companies: viacom

FanX, Previously Salt Lake Comic Con, Ordered To Pay $4 Million For San Diego's Con's Attorney's Fees, Barred From Calling Itself A Comic-Con

from the by-any-other-name dept

It's the trademark story that simply won't go away and in which the legal system appears to get everything wrong. The saga of the San Diego Comic-Con's legal adventures against what was formerly the Salt Lake Comic Con (now rebranded as FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention) has been brutally frustrating. The whole thing started when the SDCC decided somewhat out of the blue to begin enforcing a trademark it had been granted for "Comic-Con" against the Utah production. The trademark original sin of this story began all the way back with the USPTO, which absurdly granted the SDCC its trademark for a purely descriptive term, one which is only unrecognizable as such due to the shortening of the second word from "convention" to "con." Despite that, the trademark suit brought against the Salt Lake Comic Con somehow ended in a win by jury for the SDCC, which was awarded only $20k. In the trial, SLCC had pointed out several times that the term "comic-con" was both descriptive in nature and clearly had been abandoned by SDCC, evidenced by the long list of other comic conventions going by the term carried out throughout the country.

Deep breath.

Well, after getting its five-figure award for a lawsuit that ran the course of nearly half a decade, SDCC realized that it sure would suck to be stuck with its $4 million in legal fees at the end of the day, so it petitioned the court to force SLCC/FanX to pay those fees. Oh, and in accordance with the jury's finding that there was trademark infringement, it asked the court as well to ban FanX from calling itself a comic con, a "comic convention", or any phonetic versions of those terms. Such a request itself validates the claim that SDCC's trademark is descriptive. If a comic convention cannot call itself a "comic convention" due to an existing trademark, that trademark is descriptive, full stop.

Unfortunately, because the world doesn't make sense any longer, the judge in the case did issue an injunction against FanX calling itself a "Comic-Con" and ordered FanX to pay SDCC $4 million in attorney's fees.

A California court has ordered FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, and FanX creators Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg to pay nearly $4 million in legal fees to San Diego Comic Con-International (SDCC).

The judge also issued a permanent injunction against FanX, barring it from using the "Comic-Con" brand including reminding consumers that it used to be known as Salt Lake Comic Con.

First, the attorney's fees are awarded based on the judge's ruling that this was an "exceptional" trademark case. That designation has typically been reserved for when an infringement is deemed willful or malicious. In this case, the jury's low award was based on its determination that SLCC's infringement was neither. However, the law is quite vague and carves out space for the court to deem a case exceptional based on perceived bad behavior by the defendant or its lawyers. This is where the judge details a long list of complaints about how SLCC litigated, how it responded or failed to respond to the court's requests, and how it handled procedural process. It originally ordered the legal fees be paid, only to agree to delay while FanX appealed the case. This most recent ruling reaffirms the attorney's fees payment, even as the appeal is ongoing.

Meanwhile, the ruling also orders the injunction against FanX calling itself a "comic-con" or any variation therein. The court did not, fortunately, go so far as to bar the use of "comic convention", however.

Battaglia, in his order on an injunction, has enjoined Salt Lake from "Comic Con" and "Comic-Con" and any phonetic equivalents (i.e. ComiKon). Additionally, Farr and Brandenburg can't operate any social media site that incorporates the trademark, nor can they even advertise how the festival they run was "formerly known as Salt Lake Comic Con."

On the other hand, the judge rules it would go too far to prevent the phrase "comic convention" and won't require defendants to destroy all of their already-made merchandise and marketing materials bearing the banned phrases.

But, again, all that really does is point out just how absurd this all is to begin with. The daylight between "comic con" and "comic convention" is so thin as to be laughable. Both are descriptive and there is nothing original or unique about the shortening of a single word of the phrase. It's still descriptive and does not serve as a source-identifier. And, yet, seven letters make all the difference?

The real key to all of this is the appeal of the trademark case. Depending on how that goes, this all may be moot. But given how nothing in any of this has concluded with results that make any sense thus far, I'm not holding out much hope.

Filed Under: comic convention, comic-con, comicon, injunction, trademark
Companies: fanx, san diego comic-con, sdcc, slcc

Bonkers Attorney's Fees Ruling Results In SDCC Getting $4 Million Out Of SLCC AFter $20k Jury Award

from the make-it-up-on-the-back-end dept

The last time we checked in on the trademark dispute between the San Diego Comic-Con and the Salt Lake Comic Con, we were in the wake of the jury's decision that SLCC did in fact violate the trademark rights of the SDCC by daring to use the term "Comic Con." We pointed out at the time that this is pretty plainly insane as a matter of trademark law, both because of the generic nature of festivals all over the country using some version of "comic con" in their names and the fact that the term itself is almost purely descriptive, being a shortened version of "comic convention", which is what all of these shows are. While the verdict didn't come down as predicted, the jury did manage to only award SDCC $20k in damages, finding that the infringement was not willful. The last checkpoint in the case was SDCC petitioning to get attorney's fees out of SLCC and to prevent it from calling itself a "comic convention."

Well, Judge Anthony Battaglia has ruled on both requests and, holy shit, he both granted most of the injunction requests and somehow managed to award $4 million dollars in attorney's fees to SDCC in a case that resulted in a $20k judgement.

In yet another victory for Comic-Con in its long-running battle over the rights to its name, a San Diego judge has ordered organizers of Salt Lake City’s comic convention to pay nearly $4 million in attorney fees and costs.

The ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia also granted a permanent injunction barring the Salt Lake convention from using various versions of San Diego Comic-Con’s trademarked names, a decision that eventually could have a more wide-ranging impact on other conventions that continue to incorporate variations of the Comic-Con name.

Battaglia justified the high dollar award by claiming that the case was "exceptional" in nature, essentially arguing that SLCC's defense was needlessly robust in ways that caused SDCC to have to spend more on its legal fees than it otherwise would have. That justification appears to ignore the reality of the situation, one in which SLCC for some reason had to defend its use of a shortened descriptor for the exact kind of show it was putting on. The injunction is somehow even more insane, with the court barring a comic convention from calling itself by any name that remotely approaches the term "comic-con" except for the term "comic convention", from which that shortened term is directly derived. In other words, a comic convention can call itself a "comic convention" but not a "comic con." That "vention" appears to be doing a great deal of heavy lifting in Battaglia's mind.

SLCC, of course, immediately signaled its intent to appeal.

“We do not expect a $4 million attorney fee award predicated on a $20,000 jury verdict to survive appellate review,” they said. “We have instructed our attorneys to begin working on an appeal to the Ninth Circuit — while we prepare for what we expect to be our best event ever, starting September 6."

The money is one thing, but the injunction is what will really have an impact for other conventions throughout the country. Suddenly, SDCC has a legal win that includes forcing another comic convention in another state to not be able to accurately call itself anything other than a "comic convention" specifically, with all other variations on that term being verboten. That sound you hear right now is hundreds of organizers of comics festivals falling out of their chairs.

Hopefully this all gets corrected on appeal.

Filed Under: comic-con, comiccon, trademark
Companies: salt lake comic con, san diego comic-con

Houston Convention Bureau Claims Trademark Infringement After Buying Into The Comic-Con Industry

from the how-heroic dept

When I wrote about the monumentally silly trademark dispute between the San Diego Comic-Con and the Salt Lake City Comic Con, I didn't appreciate the simple nature of that trademark dispute. Sure, the idea that the phrase comic-con, or comic con, could be trademarked seemed wrong. The phrase is arguably both generic and descriptive, after all. But at least the dispute was simple.

A trademark battle currently underway in Texas is less so, unfortunately. This dispute involves two relatively new comic conventions, Houston's nickname of "Space City", and the city's convention bureau buying into the convention industry itself.

Houston's convention bureau is suing the operators of a popular local convention over the use of "Space City" in its name, claiming it infringes on a 12-year-old trademark. The convention in question, Space City Comic Con, also happens to compete with a similar event that is half-owned by the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau itself. The bureau acquired a 50 percent stake in the more established Comicpalooza last September, spokesman A.J. Mistretta said.

Both events bring in television and film stars for appearances that attract thousands of autograph buyers. Fans come dressed as their favorite characters from science fiction, anime and super-hero fantasies to browse exhibits, purchase items from vendors and play video and table-top games. The fests charge comparable admission fees.

Now, there's several things we can dig into here, but let's focus instead on the timeline of events to get a good understanding of why this dispute is dumb and contrary to the purpose of trademark law. This isn't laid out well in the link for some reason, but I'll make it easy for you.

• 2004: the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau is granted a trademark for "Space City" for use in promoting tourism, business and conventions in the Houston area.
• 2008: Comicpalooza began as a small comics convention in Houston and has grown larger since.
• 2012: Space City Comic Con began as a small comics convention in Houston and has grown larger since.
• 2015: the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau acquires a 50% stake in Comicpalooza.
• 2016: the Convention and Visitors Bureau sues Space City Comic Con for using "space city" for which it has the 12 year old trademark.

Any reading of that timeline leads to the obvious conclusion: the Bureau didn't give a damn about a comic convention's use of "space city" until it was heavily invested in a competing convention. That the name went unchallenged for several years is a wonderful indication that, assuming the Bureau wants to claim infringement, it wasn't bothering to police its trademarks properly. The article quotes a rep for the Bureau claiming it was unaware of the comics convention, which seems strange since knowing and promoting such conventions is the entire point of the Bureau to begin with.

And even setting aside the problematic timeline and all of its implied opportunism, Space City Comic Con can further defend itself by pointing out that the term "space city" at this point has become a generic nickname for Houston, harkening back to the glory days of America's space program.

One possible line of defense for Space City Comic Con is to prove that "Space City" is a generic term that has become synonymous with Houston, said Bruce Patterson, intellectual property lawyer with Patterson and Sheridan in Houston. The bureau also has to prove "Space City" is famous, said Amanda Greenspon, trademark lawyer with Munck Wilson Mandala in Dallas.

"It's not just enough to be famous in Texas. You have to be famous around the country, she said. "I don't know if 'Space City' is famous in Arkansas, North Dakota or New York."

All around, it's just a slimy look for Houston's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Filed Under: comic-con, comicon, comicpalooza, houston, space city, trademark
Companies: houston convention and visitors bureau, space city comic con