From the latest followup posted, it seems they actually think they might be able to work something out (which probably means either they are painfully naive or it's not Nintendo). Of course, since they are doing manuals for three different games from three different companies, working something out with just one of them doesn't put them entirely in the clear...
Also, to be clear, they have said what they got was not a formal cease and desist letter. Rather, "We were contacted by a lawyer representing one of the game companies suggesting there may be [unspecified] concerns."
In case anyone is wondering, like me, when the statue falls out of copyright, the two key facts: The statue was made in 1913 -- except that doesn't matter under Danish law; the sculptor died in 1959. Danish copyright is life+70, so the statue enters public domain in 2029. Which means we have 8 more years of this nonsense to look forward to.
And after Contreras took the cell phone, he broke into her house (because she had changed the locks) which is where the Chief relieved him of one weapon -- but did not force him to leave.
In 2003, SCPD investigated allegations that Contreras had sexually abused a child, but SCPD ultimately concluded the allegations were unsubstantiated.
The documentation of the investigation has since disappeared. After Ms. Bascom’s murder, SCPD came to possess a memory card that contained apparent child pornography, including images of Contreras, in uniform, exposing himself to young girls.
I got curious to see if there were any consequences for the chief in this case, and discovered something interesting: He retired very suddenly in May 2018, appearing unannounced at a City Council meeting and giving only one week's notice. That... is not how one normally retires.
And there's an update: In a video just posted to his account, Anthony says he has now been hired by the company Florida Paints and will be moving to Florida to help make their paint cool. So there's at least one paint company that gets it.
Let's not forget that, while Linus was responsible for the kernel, some 90% of the codebase of the GNU/Linux system predates him, dating back as far as 1983 (though it's less clear when it became a work-from-home project).
Now if you want to credit Linus for Git/Github, that's a different story, and probably the one you should have written.
Good point -- though it wasn't really briefed. If they had mentioned that they only just discovered the books (and why), it might be more compelling; otherwise, it just seems like they have been poor stewards of their copyright.
And you've now given some hint of why this was filed in New Mexico.
There's a long road between initial filing and trial. As I suggest below, there's also an excellent chance this case will get thrown out long before witnesses or a jury are needed.
Why TF was this filed in New Mexico? The author of the original novels lives in Florida, the companies are incorporated or based in Delaware, New York, or California, the film production company is in Georgia, and a couple of other defendants are British. I expect it to get tossed on venue alone. The only people in New Mexico are the lawyers.
And then, on top of it all, as others have pointed out, the film itself could be argued to depend only on those stories that have (now) fallen out of copyright. The original novels could be another story, but given that they were published from 2006-2010, it would seem there's a statute of limitations issue. They're playing some kind of silly statutory limitation handwave to try to artificially add three years to the copyright term to rope in the four 1923-24 stories.
That's before you even get into the weakness of the primary argument, which was the focus of Tim's article. Oh, and the fact that they mention "precedent" but cite no cases.
I am not a lawyer, but I can't believe 3 lawyers signed off on this.
OK, I skimmed through some of the archived stories about the car wash, and the city looks even worse. According to those stories, the owner, apparently recognizing that Dallas PD wasn't going to do the job he needed, formed a PID (an association of local businesses) to collect extra taxes for security and trash pickup. There were some such services for a time, but they stopped (but the taxes did not).
Headline is incorrect; as the article states, it's 414 pages of calls, not 414 calls. By my count, there were 130 calls, as each call takes 2 to 6 pages (most are in the 3-4 page range; average is about 3.2 pages). Still an awful lot of calls, but let's be accurate here.
I'm going to give Skippy half a point here, because unlike some of the other trademark stories that have been covered here, there is actually peanut butter used in the beer, and someone could theoretically think, given the name, that the peanut butter used is Skippy -- similar to how Oreo has licensed their trademark for candy bars and pudding. However, the "not currently sold in Canada" aspect does still make this a trademark bully situation. Plus, the graphic design, if you can call it that (a simple black-on-white block lettered label) in no way resembles the peanut butter (yes, I watched the linked video to find that out -- along with the new name, "Illuminutti").
On the post: Monster Energy Buys A Brewery; Trademark Lawsuits Are Almost Sure To Follow
Update on the teen (actually, he was 21 at the time)
I got curious, and found this update: https://www.theunion.com/news/nevada-city-energy-supplement-business-returns-after-2019-logo-opposit ion-from-monster-energy/
In short, he redesigned his logo to remove any obvious "M" - it's now so stylized even Monster's lawyers apparently can't find a similarity.
On the post: Monster Energy Opposes Teenager's Trademark Application Over Logos Not At All Similar
New year, new logo
An update: https://www.theunion.com/news/nevada-city-energy-supplement-business-returns-after-2019-logo-opposit ion-from-monster-energy/ -- in short, he now has a completely new logo.
On the post: Hey North Face! Our Story About You Flipping Out Over 'Hey Fuck Face' Is Not Trademark Infringement
Mike is not a lawyer...
... otherwise, he might have simply referred them to Arkell v. Pressdram.
On the post: Kickstarter For Hand-Drawn Video Game Manuals Shuts Down Due To IP Threat
Re: naming the bully
From the latest followup posted, it seems they actually think they might be able to work something out (which probably means either they are painfully naive or it's not Nintendo). Of course, since they are doing manuals for three different games from three different companies, working something out with just one of them doesn't put them entirely in the clear...
Also, to be clear, they have said what they got was not a formal cease and desist letter. Rather, "We were contacted by a lawyer representing one of the game companies suggesting there may be [unspecified] concerns."
On the post: Edvard Eriksen Estate Goes After Another Danish City For Having A Mermaid Statue
Term of copyright
In case anyone is wondering, like me, when the statue falls out of copyright, the two key facts: The statue was made in 1913 -- except that doesn't matter under Danish law; the sculptor died in 1959. Danish copyright is life+70, so the statue enters public domain in 2029. Which means we have 8 more years of this nonsense to look forward to.
On the post: Axios Parrots A Lot Of Dumb, Debunked Nonsense About Net Neutrality
Link to article
Since this article didn't provide the link, here is the original article on Axios.
On the post: Tenth Circuit: No Immunity For Cops Who Protected An Abusive Fellow Officer Right Up Until He Murdered His Ex-Wife
It just keeps getting worse...
And after Contreras took the cell phone, he broke into her house (because she had changed the locks) which is where the Chief relieved him of one weapon -- but did not force him to leave.
On the post: Tenth Circuit: No Immunity For Cops Who Protected An Abusive Fellow Officer Right Up Until He Murdered His Ex-Wife
And Tim didn't even mention the child porn!
From the decision:
On the post: Tenth Circuit: No Immunity For Cops Who Protected An Abusive Fellow Officer Right Up Until He Murdered His Ex-Wife
Chief resigned
I got curious to see if there were any consequences for the chief in this case, and discovered something interesting: He retired very suddenly in May 2018, appearing unannounced at a City Council meeting and giving only one week's notice. That... is not how one normally retires.
On the post: Inconceivable: TikToker Who Made Paint Mixing Very, Very Cool... Is Fired From Sherwin-Williams For Doing So
Yay for Florida Paints
And there's an update: In a video just posted to his account, Anthony says he has now been hired by the company Florida Paints and will be moving to Florida to help make their paint cool. So there's at least one paint company that gets it.
On the post: Join The Fan Fiction Deep State And Watch This Latest Video That Addison Cain Really Doesn't Want You To See
Re: streisand effect
It's even more explicit (and funnier) at https://youtu.be/K3v5wFMQRqs?t=1119
On the post: How Linus Torvalds Invented Today's Work From Home Paradigm In 1991
So, is Richard Stallman chopped liver?
Let's not forget that, while Linus was responsible for the kernel, some 90% of the codebase of the GNU/Linux system predates him, dating back as far as 1983 (though it's less clear when it became a work-from-home project).
Now if you want to credit Linus for Git/Github, that's a different story, and probably the one you should have written.
On the post: Estate Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Alleges Copyright Infringement Over Sherlock's Emotional Awakening
Re: Re: 10+ years ago
Good point -- though it wasn't really briefed. If they had mentioned that they only just discovered the books (and why), it might be more compelling; otherwise, it just seems like they have been poor stewards of their copyright.
And you've now given some hint of why this was filed in New Mexico.
On the post: Estate Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Alleges Copyright Infringement Over Sherlock's Emotional Awakening
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
There's a long road between initial filing and trial. As I suggest below, there's also an excellent chance this case will get thrown out long before witnesses or a jury are needed.
On the post: Estate Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Alleges Copyright Infringement Over Sherlock's Emotional Awakening
10+ years ago
According to the complaint, the books were written in 2006-2010. That would seem to be outside the statute of limitations for bringing a claim.
On the post: Estate Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Alleges Copyright Infringement Over Sherlock's Emotional Awakening
Venue shopping?
Why TF was this filed in New Mexico? The author of the original novels lives in Florida, the companies are incorporated or based in Delaware, New York, or California, the film production company is in Georgia, and a couple of other defendants are British. I expect it to get tossed on venue alone. The only people in New Mexico are the lawyers.
And then, on top of it all, as others have pointed out, the film itself could be argued to depend only on those stories that have (now) fallen out of copyright. The original novels could be another story, but given that they were published from 2006-2010, it would seem there's a statute of limitations issue. They're playing some kind of silly statutory limitation handwave to try to artificially add three years to the copyright term to rope in the four 1923-24 stories.
That's before you even get into the weakness of the primary argument, which was the focus of Tim's article. Oh, and the fact that they mention "precedent" but cite no cases.
I am not a lawyer, but I can't believe 3 lawyers signed off on this.
On the post: Parler Speedruns The Content Moderation Learning Curve; Goes From 'We Allow Everything' To 'We're The Good Censors' In Days
OK, what "official" rule does this break?
https://twitter.com/DevinCow/status/1278092655914659840
Unless the rule is "we don't like it" -- which as Mike points out, is valid, but hypocritical. Heck, they aren't even making fun of Parler.
On the post: City Of Dallas Shuts Down Business Of Man Who Called Cops Over 100 Times In 20 Months To Deal With Criminals Near His Car Wash
It's even worse...
OK, I skimmed through some of the archived stories about the car wash, and the city looks even worse. According to those stories, the owner, apparently recognizing that Dallas PD wasn't going to do the job he needed, formed a PID (an association of local businesses) to collect extra taxes for security and trash pickup. There were some such services for a time, but they stopped (but the taxes did not).
On the post: City Of Dallas Shuts Down Business Of Man Who Called Cops Over 100 Times In 20 Months To Deal With Criminals Near His Car Wash
414 pages = 130 calls
Headline is incorrect; as the article states, it's 414 pages of calls, not 414 calls. By my count, there were 130 calls, as each call takes 2 to 6 pages (most are in the 3-4 page range; average is about 3.2 pages). Still an awful lot of calls, but let's be accurate here.
On the post: Canadian Brewery Changes Name Of Brew Due To Peanut Butter Company Bully That Doesn't Ship In Canada
Not as weak as some similar stories...
I'm going to give Skippy half a point here, because unlike some of the other trademark stories that have been covered here, there is actually peanut butter used in the beer, and someone could theoretically think, given the name, that the peanut butter used is Skippy -- similar to how Oreo has licensed their trademark for candy bars and pudding. However, the "not currently sold in Canada" aspect does still make this a trademark bully situation. Plus, the graphic design, if you can call it that (a simple black-on-white block lettered label) in no way resembles the peanut butter (yes, I watched the linked video to find that out -- along with the new name, "Illuminutti").
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