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Governor of Amazonas wants to charge Amazon royalties for use of the brand
- mrtksn 3y agoThis is like when city of Batman in Turkey requested royalties from Warner Bros for using the name Batman. Also, it's like when the country Iceland suing Iceland supermarkets chain, which is an ongoing dispute.
- dghughes 3y agoI think the Apache name is also an ongoing dispute by the Apache nation (the actual people) vs the Apache Software Foundation.
- kevindamm 3y agoIIRC, it was named that for being a patchy system, though?
- fuzztester 3y agoYes, it was called A patchy server initially, and then that was made into a wordplay on the term Apache, and they used a colourful feather as a logo. There is also sn interesting anecdote about Apache devs, IBM and open source.
- bitwize 3y agoHas the Apache Nation had a dispute with the ASF? Or just some activism group? Not that it matters, really. The all-girls' Catholic school, Ursuline Academy of New Orleans, has a sorority system based on year of graduation. The classes/sororities were called Skips (Skipperettes), Macs (Merry Macs), Sioux, and Leps (Leprechauns). The school sought, and received, permission from the Sioux Nation to use the Sioux name. Despite this, after Black Lives Matter happened there was a nationwide reexamination of whiteness's impact on our culture, particularly with regard to cultural appropriation, and the decision was made to change the name of the Sioux class to Phoenixes (or Nix for short). So the Apache Software Foundation probably won't be named such for much longer.
- redwasp 3y agoThe Iceland v Iceland Foods debacle was at least a bit more understandable- the country wasn't particularly happy with the trademark, but took the matter to court after the food company "sought in 2016 to prevent various Icelandic producers from using the word ‘Iceland’ to describe their goods." https://trademarklawyermagazine.com/the-cold-never-bothered-them-anyway-revisiting-the-iceland-trademark-dispute/ https://trademarklawyermagazine.com/the-cold-never-bothered-...
- merry_flame 3y agoFrom the Wikipedia, 'The dispute arose once more when the supermarket tried to stop the trademark "Inspired by Iceland" from being branded on Icelandic groceries in 2015.' That seems cheeky, to put it mildly… Fortunately, it seems the country essentially won their case in December 2022 and the EU trademark has been cancelled. (“The monopolisation of a country name cannot lead to the inequitable situation in which traders with real and genuine connection to a certain geographic location are forced to constantly ‘look over their shoulder’ when referring to the real geographical origin of goods and service,” the summary documents say.)
- reissbaker 3y agoNext, Greece will charge Amazonas royalties for using their brand, since the Amazons were ancient Greek myths.
- FredPret 3y agoIf Greece starts doing this, they can levy a tax on most things in the Western world!
- dontupvoteme 3y agoBetter yet, just a tiny 1-2% tax on any project, program or company that ever used anything Greek as a codename. Keeps you under the radar
- FredPret 3y agoPlus a usage tax on Greek-derived words!
- hardlianotion 3y agoand/or mathematical notation.
- tomrod 3y agoOracle, Delphi, Minotaur, Ikarus, what else?
- FredPret 3y agoI feel like almost every European word has a Greek root deep down. Even the Latin ones sometimes come from Greek.
- ninjaranter 3y agoAlpha, Beta etc :)
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- m463 3y agoWell at least amazon has learned to start using nonsense upper case brand names going forward.
- causality0 3y agoDon't most places have rules barring IP protection for the names of places? Like the US federal government can't sue "USA Super Nail Salon".
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoA sort of edge case is when Atlanta startup 'Beltline & Co' had to change their name because it conflicted with the Atlanta Beltline, a multiuse trail system encircling the central part of the city. The Beltline is certainly a place, but it only has a cohesive form due to the Beltline project being developed by Atlanta BeltLine Inc. and Atlanta BeltLine Partnership.
- dontupvoteme 3y agoHas this ever worked?
- pugworthy 3y agoTillamook Creamery (Tillamook Oregon) has been legally aggressive for a while to make sure they have the exclusive on the name "Tillamook" in food related products. Of course that's also the name of a town there, as well as the county it's in. That and it's the name of a local Native American tribe.
- pqdbr 3y agoAs a Brazilian, I can testify that we’re all deeply ashamed of this stupidity. It has even become a meme.
- dylan604 3y agoAt least your guy is trying to make money instead of whatever our guys are doing <shrugs> Trying to see it as half full??
- kbutler 3y ago...to take money... Our guys are trying to create money ex nihilo.
- _hcuq 3y agoMoney is always created out of nothing.
- pqdbr 3y agoThe governor even made a video [1]. A professionally produced video (which means expensive, obviously paid by the taxpayer) to convince (!?) Jeff Bezos. What does he really expect? That Jeff will go "Yeah, you got me, I was waiting for this, here are some billions of dollars to you" ? [1] (Note it's from one year ago) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYeYCqsD1hg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYeYCqsD1hg
- abetancort 3y agoPure nonsense.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Stratoscope 3y agoMy last name is Geary, so I should get a royalty on every app that uses a gear-y icon for settings. And Walter Bright certainly deserves a royalty on every brightness control!
- WalterBright 3y agoI'm expecting your checks pronto!
- giantrobot 3y agoI use dark mode on all my devices. Checkmate.
- askiiart 3y agoI think the GNOME project owns you some cash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geary_(e-mail_client) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geary_(e-mail_client)
- sn00tz00t 3y agoAmazon.com Inc is feeding off the egregore of the Amazon rainforest. Its not a coincidence that the Rainforest retreats at the same pace Amazon.com's profits climb.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoDoes anyone in Amazonas use the word Amazon natively?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoIndonesia should also get royalties for Java.
- Affric 3y agoThey should try.
- jbandela1 3y agoThe governor should convince Google to build a data center there and paint it blue. Then it can be the Google Azure Amazon data center.
- terminous 3y ago[flagged]
- justin_oaks 3y agoGood ol' fashioned rent seeking. Why try to get money by creating value when you can skim money off people who do?
- peterlada 3y agoThe Greek prime minister wants to have a word...
- grecy 3y agoMy last name is "Grec", which is how you spell "Greek" in French. Every Greek yogourt container in Canada (and France) has my name plastered all over it - surely I deserve some cash!
- vulcan01 3y agoSlightly OT, but do you have Greek ancestry? It would be interesting if your last name was "Greek" in French because that was your family's distinguishing factor a long time ago.
- grecy 3y agoThe name originates in Poland (and I have a TON of distant family there). I know there are more than a few Grecs in France and around, so chances are there are some in Greece...
- leonheld 3y agoMaybe do something about the illegal mining and deforestation instead?
- soneca 3y agoIt was a political move to shame Bezos into donating money to the state using some reasoning that would make headlines (like this one) and spread the awareness of the tactic. Bezos, though, was smarter and did donated the money, but to the neighbor state of Pará (which also has the Amazon forest in its territory). So the public image blackmailing worked in a way, but the governor who did it did not get the money.
- mc32 3y agoIt’d be like New York suing someone with a business by the name of Nova Iorque” Or some gal selling “Eu ♡ NI!” stickers.
- soneca 3y agoOnly if New York was a poor state in a poor country and the gal selling stickers was one of the biggest company in the world.
- mc32 3y agoNah, either they have a legal leg to stand on or they don't. Now if Jeff and Co. had an issue with someone starting a company called 'A Amazonia', they defo would have a leg to stand on.
- soneca 3y agoMy initial comment was precisely to point out that this is not about being legal or not at all. It is a sort of “public image blackmailing”.
- sheeshkebab 3y agoAnd they should
- elzbardico 3y agoBrazilian here. Nobody takes this corrupt idiot seriously.
- merry_flame 3y agoIt would be nice if Amazon did something about the forest itself on the hand. I am personally saddened that the company is now top of mind for that name for probably most of humanity, despite the Amazon rainforest being the world's largest, is worth many billions and doesn't even support a massive rainforest-oriented conservation program. Same thought about brands benefiting from the aura of other non-persons including Red Bull (from the CITES-vulnerable krating/gaur, which has fewer than 1,000 individuals left in Thailand), Puma, Jaguar…
- aurizon 3y agoThis has some merit, as Bezos might decide he can do a good work for Amazon as well as for The Amazon with a small selectable field where customers can donate a small fee, that in the aggregate, might be large enough to make a difference if it is wisely and properly directed to the indigenes that have been screwed over by the diseases and 'bad manglement' delivered by the conquistadores, heirs/occupiers and their wide range of diseases. This fee must not be given to the ruling politicians ='slush funded', but must be directed where it can do trye benefits.
- otikik 3y agoWhy would he do that, precisely now? He has had plenty of opportunities to help in other quite worthy causes before.
- aurizon 3y agoHe has reached a point where functional as well as factual acts of redemption are needed. We have seen how their system has created huge volumes of worthless 'garbage in motion' - by this I mean goods of such low value, coupled with low quality that neither buyer nor seller wants it. It is also low in density, so Amazon has burdened the ship-return ecology with unmanageable volumes of GIM that some Chinese online sellers are having ¬¬80% or more cancellations and returned good - that they lack the funds to credit the buyer with a refund at all = large numbers have folded their tents and fled. This Christmas season will see a shipper/seller/buyer crash = collapse. Honest shipper/seller supply chains will be burdened with tens of thousands of freight cars filled with melanges of all this stuff - all low value, not worth moving/sorting/delivering. Wait and see how Dec/Jan/Feb unfold.
- khalilsautchuk 3y agoYeah man, a lot of people around the world, let's mention Dicaprio have never stepped foot in the amazon, i've never found anything about it. Companies should stop raising flags about ESG and Amazon rainforest and not do something about it.
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