3 ms·

It feels manifestly wrong: these corporations want their brands to become household names and common parts of our culture but they want absolute control over ho

It feels manifestly wrong: these corporations want their brands to become household names and common parts of our culture but they want absolute control over how we think about them.

monero-xmr 3y ago
Considering it was a 9-0 unanimous decision, and we have large variation in ideology on the court, I think the issue and decision has more nuance than “corporations always win!!”.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  I didn’t say that nor am I arguing the merits of this particular case. It feels wrong how they want it both ways.
- DoughnutHole 3y ago
  The validity of the judgement and and the question of if corporations have too much power over their trademarks are separate issues. The court is almost certainly correct that the law of the land is that trademark protections are this strong. But trademark law is a creation of congress, and one can believe that the protections are excessive without believing that they are unconstitutional.
- flangola7 3y ago
  1. SCOTUS has made bad unanimous decisions before. For one, no one on the bench is an anti-capitalist, there's no 6-3 split on that matter. 2. Even if a ruling is in accordance with the law, the law itself may still be wrong. Iran courts ordering capital punishment for a gay couple is accurately upholding the law.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
toolz 3y ago
Which corporations? Jack Daniel's? In what ways have they worked towards having absolute control over our thoughts? To clarify, the reason I'm asking is it seems like you're attributing the combined malice of various corps to all corps, which is counter-productive to solving problems, in my opinion.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Fair. Corporations that are overly zealous about IP protection. Yes, this is subjective. Hence why I say feels like.
- bbor 3y ago
  Part of their complaint referenced in this decision was that the toy “associates jack Daniel’s with dog excrement” which I did laugh out loud in shock at when I first read it. It does seem a bit Orwellian, in the loosest sense - if I want to associate your brand with dog excrement then it’s my god given right!
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    Perfect example of how they want to control how you think about their brand. It’s not about brand confusion.
    - toolz 3y ago
      Personally I disagree with the ruling but also agree with Jack Daniels parent corp for trying to protect their image. If someone in my social group decided it would be funny to sell t-shirts with my face on it, with the phrase "shithead steve" or something on it, then I too would want to "control" the way people think of me by taking legal avenues to prevent the person from selling those t-shirts. After all, is it really pro-social to make profit at the expense of my reputation? Seems like a behavior society would be better off without.
      - Waterluvian 3y ago
        At the core of the First Amendment is, I think, the idea that there is no speech objectivity and if someone in particular is allowed to police speech, it will be policed in a very biased way (ie. by those with the power). That's why "a behaviour society would be better off without" is fundamentally problematic. It is likely obvious to any individual how to enumerate those behaviours, but good luck getting everyone to agree. And super good luck avoiding the endless growth of that list. I think that's partly why parody is so well-established as 1A protected and why why there's nothing legally problematic with a "Shithead Steve" shirt, as ugly as you and I would both find that to be. If people find the First Amendment to be a nuisance when they're trying to silence speech that they feel society would be better off without, then the amendment is doing its intended job.
Spivak 3y ago
Yeah, I think there should be an "iconic" test to this stuff. If your brand is a household name ("before I leave brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack") then you lose some amount of control over it. You still can't use the mark in the product segment of the mark and you can't imply the product is endorsed by the company but after that go hog wild. This is such a weird ruling because the product under consideration is something that should obviously be allowed but the law the court was asked to interpret was so cut and dry. IP law is too strong.
JackFr 3y ago
I don't think so. Jack Daniels spent a lot of money to make their logo and bottle widely known. Another company is 1) trying to make money off of that spend, and 2) destroying value created by Jack Daniels. Trademark law is a relatively non-contentious aspect of intellectual property as is evidenced by the 9-0 vote.
- derbOac 3y ago
  But the question is confusion over product in the same product area. It seems absurd to me that a reasonable person would confuse that dog toy parody with an actual Jack Daniels product. Also, unanimity per se doesn't necessarily mean the court is on the right side of things: I'm not sure that positions on, say, abortion necessarily translates into trademark positions. One nuance in this that seems to be lost though if I'm recalling the case correctly is that this isn't deciding the case, it's just saying it can't automatically be dismissed pre trial. So maybe that's where the unanimity comes into play. Still, between this and the Worhol case I'm concerned. Overall this doesn't seem like a good path to be going down in my personal opinion. To me a dog toy that's clearly a parody should be protected speech, probably more clearly than other things. It feels to me like there's this emerging zeitgeist of "commercial entities are above real criticism because they might be financially injured" which is absurd, and more than an individual would enjoy in terms of protection. Let's say you made a Trump brand dog toy? Would it be reasonable to say that is not protected speech because it infringes on his trademark?
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    >It seems absurd to me that a reasonable person would confuse that dog toy parody with an actual Jack Daniels product The Supreme Court did not rule on this question. In fact it seems like they agree with you. The decision is about something entirely different. >It feels to me like there's this emerging zeitgeist of "commercial entities are above real criticism". While the zeitgeist seems real, it should raise questions when examples like this are misinformation
josefx 3y ago
I feel the same way about digital signatures, companies want people to trust their signatures, but are they going to share the signing keys and let others in on the fun? No. Everyone just goes around saying its their keys, their identities, you can't let other people use them, what if someone abused them. As if there was more value in having a trusted identity than in the value of the money I could make from the rootkit I would sneak into Debian.
actuallyalys 3y ago
Note that the court didn't rule that this parody product couldn't be made, they ruled that courts have to use a stricter test than the Rogers test to determine whether the parody product is legal. Perhaps this ruling still gives corporations too much control, but it's far from "absolute control."

It feels manifestly wrong: these corporations want their brands to become household names and common parts of our culture but they want absolute control over how we think about them.

monero-xmr 3y ago

Considering it was a 9-0 unanimous decision, and we have large variation in ideology on the court, I think the issue and decision has more nuance than “corporations always win!!”.

Waterluvian 3y ago
I didn’t say that nor am I arguing the merits of this particular case. It feels wrong how they want it both ways.
DoughnutHole 3y ago
The validity of the judgement and and the question of if corporations have too much power over their trademarks are separate issues. The court is almost certainly correct that the law of the land is that trademark protections are this strong. But trademark law is a creation of congress, and one can believe that the protections are excessive without believing that they are unconstitutional.
flangola7 3y ago
1. SCOTUS has made bad unanimous decisions before. For one, no one on the bench is an anti-capitalist, there's no 6-3 split on that matter. 2. Even if a ruling is in accordance with the law, the law itself may still be wrong. Iran courts ordering capital punishment for a gay couple is accurately upholding the law.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

toolz 3y ago

Which corporations? Jack Daniel's? In what ways have they worked towards having absolute control over our thoughts? To clarify, the reason I'm asking is it seems like you're attributing the combined malice of various corps to all corps, which is counter-productive to solving problems, in my opinion.

Waterluvian 3y ago
Fair. Corporations that are overly zealous about IP protection. Yes, this is subjective. Hence why I say feels like.
bbor 3y ago
Part of their complaint referenced in this decision was that the toy “associates jack Daniel’s with dog excrement” which I did laugh out loud in shock at when I first read it. It does seem a bit Orwellian, in the loosest sense - if I want to associate your brand with dog excrement then it’s my god given right!
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Perfect example of how they want to control how you think about their brand. It’s not about brand confusion.
  - toolz 3y ago
    Personally I disagree with the ruling but also agree with Jack Daniels parent corp for trying to protect their image. If someone in my social group decided it would be funny to sell t-shirts with my face on it, with the phrase "shithead steve" or something on it, then I too would want to "control" the way people think of me by taking legal avenues to prevent the person from selling those t-shirts. After all, is it really pro-social to make profit at the expense of my reputation? Seems like a behavior society would be better off without.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      At the core of the First Amendment is, I think, the idea that there is no speech objectivity and if someone in particular is allowed to police speech, it will be policed in a very biased way (ie. by those with the power). That's why "a behaviour society would be better off without" is fundamentally problematic. It is likely obvious to any individual how to enumerate those behaviours, but good luck getting everyone to agree. And super good luck avoiding the endless growth of that list. I think that's partly why parody is so well-established as 1A protected and why why there's nothing legally problematic with a "Shithead Steve" shirt, as ugly as you and I would both find that to be. If people find the First Amendment to be a nuisance when they're trying to silence speech that they feel society would be better off without, then the amendment is doing its intended job.

Spivak 3y ago

Yeah, I think there should be an "iconic" test to this stuff. If your brand is a household name ("before I leave brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack") then you lose some amount of control over it. You still can't use the mark in the product segment of the mark and you can't imply the product is endorsed by the company but after that go hog wild. This is such a weird ruling because the product under consideration is something that should obviously be allowed but the law the court was asked to interpret was so cut and dry. IP law is too strong.

JackFr 3y ago

I don't think so. Jack Daniels spent a lot of money to make their logo and bottle widely known. Another company is 1) trying to make money off of that spend, and 2) destroying value created by Jack Daniels. Trademark law is a relatively non-contentious aspect of intellectual property as is evidenced by the 9-0 vote.

derbOac 3y ago
But the question is confusion over product in the same product area. It seems absurd to me that a reasonable person would confuse that dog toy parody with an actual Jack Daniels product. Also, unanimity per se doesn't necessarily mean the court is on the right side of things: I'm not sure that positions on, say, abortion necessarily translates into trademark positions. One nuance in this that seems to be lost though if I'm recalling the case correctly is that this isn't deciding the case, it's just saying it can't automatically be dismissed pre trial. So maybe that's where the unanimity comes into play. Still, between this and the Worhol case I'm concerned. Overall this doesn't seem like a good path to be going down in my personal opinion. To me a dog toy that's clearly a parody should be protected speech, probably more clearly than other things. It feels to me like there's this emerging zeitgeist of "commercial entities are above real criticism because they might be financially injured" which is absurd, and more than an individual would enjoy in terms of protection. Let's say you made a Trump brand dog toy? Would it be reasonable to say that is not protected speech because it infringes on his trademark?
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  >It seems absurd to me that a reasonable person would confuse that dog toy parody with an actual Jack Daniels product The Supreme Court did not rule on this question. In fact it seems like they agree with you. The decision is about something entirely different. >It feels to me like there's this emerging zeitgeist of "commercial entities are above real criticism". While the zeitgeist seems real, it should raise questions when examples like this are misinformation

josefx 3y ago

I feel the same way about digital signatures, companies want people to trust their signatures, but are they going to share the signing keys and let others in on the fun? No. Everyone just goes around saying its their keys, their identities, you can't let other people use them, what if someone abused them. As if there was more value in having a trusted identity than in the value of the money I could make from the rootkit I would sneak into Debian.

actuallyalys 3y ago

Note that the court didn't rule that this parody product couldn't be made, they ruled that courts have to use a stricter test than the Rogers test to determine whether the parody product is legal. Perhaps this ruling still gives corporations too much control, but it's far from "absolute control."