10 ms·

It's the real thing

108 points by ezl 13y ago

mathattack 13y ago
I may be wrong, but legally Coca-Cola had to protect the slogan, otherwise they would lose the copyright, no? The "our advertising will help you" defense doesn't hold up in court. Can any lawyers confirm?
- drcube 13y ago
  No, you have to defend trademarks, or else eventually lose them. Was "It's the real thing" trademarked? And furthermore, trademarks are only usually enforced among competitors. Apple Computer can't sue Apple Dry Cleaning for trademark infringement. Well they can, and occasionally do, but it isn't a given that they will win. Usually you have to show damages, and Apple Computer isn't damaged in any way by having a dry cleaner use the name of a popular fruit. Similarly, I don't think Coca-Cola lost anything by having the phrase "it's the real thing" associated with a literary work. My question for the lawyers: Does a letter like this count as "defending a trademark"? Or would Coca-Cola have had to actually take these publishers to court over it?
  - joezydeco 13y ago
    uspto.gov trademark search shows: Word Mark IT'S THE REAL THING Owner (REGISTRANT) The Coca-Cola Company CORPORATION DELAWARE ONE COCA COLA PLAZA Atlanta GEORGIA 30313 Registration Date December 7, 2004 Goods and Services IC 032. US 045 046 048. G & S: Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]. FIRST USE: 19421231. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19421231 The registration/renewal date is no use, but the first use date shows 12/31/1942. Just as Coca-Cola asserts in their letter.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      That should be disallowed -- a company owning english phrases like "it's the real thing" or "just do it". If it was up to me, I would allow only for trademarks in synthetic, non-english words. E.g "Soylent" or "Pepsi" or "McBurger". Not for actual english words ("Windows") or phrases.
      - zokier 13y ago
        Trademarks are limited in scope. Note how in the parent comment the phrase is trademarked in relation to "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]. " You should be able to use the phrase outside that context. Of course you might have fun time in court defending that right.
      - joezydeco 13y ago
        I believe that is why a classification also needs to be attached to the application (e.g. "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks"). While Coke may be asserting they own the trademark for "It's the Real Thing", they're being a little oblique with the fact that they only have it for soft drinks and not printed publications. So it seems Coke is trying to bully the publisher when the publisher seems to know that they are in a different classification. They are pretty much saying this in a sarcastic way in their reply.
      - tehwalrus 13y ago
        As others have said, it's within limited scope. cf: "Lies: and Lying Liars Who Tell Them (A Fair and Balanced look at the right)" http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lying-Liars-Tell-Them/dp/0452285216 http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lying-Liars-Tell-Them/dp/04522852... - was sued by Fox News because they own "Fair and Balanced." The suit was thrown out, because it's selling a book, not the news.
      - dsr_ 13y ago
        Read more carefully. CC owns the use of that phrase ONLY in terms of describing non-alcoholic beverages and beverage mixes. I suppose a court might find that using it to describe, say, bourbon, would be an infringing use, even though CC does not claim alcoholic beverages. More so if the packaging or flavor was intended to mimic a cola. But you could market your new line of toilet paper or watches or hippo-hide whips as The Real Thing, and Coke would have no more of a leg to stand on than they did with the book publisher. It's also appropriate to note that the company claiming the trademark must actually use it reasonably often -- you can't claim "Softer than a cloud" for your waterbeds and then not use it for some number of years. That one will be trickier, though.
    - a-priori 13y ago
      Right, clearly they do have the trademark on the phrase. But the mark is limited in scope to things related to "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]". So they have no right to enforce it in reference to a book or book advertisement, as they tried to do here.
      - nickff 13y ago
        To be clear, they registered its use for "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]", but they can still claim someone is violating a non-registered trademark.
  - ben010783 13y ago
    Using Apple Computer as an example is funny because it's similar to what happened when Apple Corps sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer). I don't understand how a computer company would harm the holding company for the biggest band to ever exist, but this fight went on for over two decades.
    - krallja 13y ago
      Until this fight was resolved, The Beatles were not on iTunes. Steve Jobs was a huge fan of The Beatles.
- rmc 13y ago
  You have to defend trademarks not copyright. If copyright had similar restrictions (and I wish it did!), you would be able to get away with copying a copyrighted DVD on the grounds that it was copied a lot.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway2048 13y ago
    getting a bit offtopic here, but the doctrine of laches means you have to actively persue many legal rights, including copyright, or after a length of time, you will not be eligible for remedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity) This is a strong legal basis for abandoned works infact being safely usable. If somebody sleeps on their rights for 10/20/30 etc years, and the waits for a big payday to act, its not equitable and in good faith.
    - Vivtek 13y ago
      Wish that one applied to patents.
      - throwaway2048 13y ago
        It may infact be, unsure if its ever been tried as a defense.
      - rmc 13y ago
        Well patents only last about 20 years normally (compared to copyright lasting many times long), so it's less of an issue. I agree that it should apply to patents aswell.
- lutusp 13y ago
  IANAL, but I know this issue. To protect an advertising slogan, the plaintiff must show that other uses of their slogan will confuse the public and materially injure the plaintiff's interests. For example, there was once a restaurant named "McDonald's", owned by someone named McDonald. The restaurant existed before there was a McDonald's chain of restaurants, and the restaurant name corresponded with the owner's name. Notwithstanding all that, the corporate giant McDonald's was able to force the owner of the restaurant to change the name on the ground that the original name would mislead the public. EDIT: I researched this further, and it turns out there have been several "McDonald's" restaurants that came to the attention of the corporate giant -- some legal actions succeeded, some failed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_legal_cases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_legal_cases Defenses of everyday phrases like "It's the real thing" can only succeed if the plaintiff can show there is a real probability of public confusion or injury to commerce or reputation -- it's not enough to say that the phrase is in wide use. A counterexample is Apple Computer and Apple Music (the latter owned by the Beatles). In this case it was decided that, because they were in different businesses, there was no great likelihood of public confusion.
  - zokier 13y ago
    > In this case it was decided that, because they were in different businesses, there was no great likelihood of public confusion Until iTunes was released.
    - krallja 13y ago
      iPod (2001) came out before iTunes. The original Macintosh (1984) had very powerful sound hardware for the time.
  - drcube 13y ago
    > A counterexample is Apple Computer and Apple Music (the latter owned by the Beatles). In this case it was decided that, because they were in different businesses, there was no great likelihood of public confusion. That's a bad example because Apple Computer eventually did enter the music business, with itunes, contrary to an earlier court's ruling that they stay out of that industry. I think they ended up just paying Apple Music a ton of money. So that's basically a case of infringing trademark, but having enough money to pay off the company whose mark you're infringing. As we all know, enough money solves any problem.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  True or not, I don't consider "the law says I have to" a valid excuse for acting like an asshole. Corporate goons love to sanctimoniously declare that they have no choice but to be selfish fucks, but they sure aren't using any of their billions of dollars of lobbyist money to get the law changed.
  - 300bps 13y ago
    Does the law even need to be changed though? Their duty is to pursue non-licensed use of their trademark. Could they not grant the innocent book seller in this case a non-transferable license for a specific purpose for a paltry sum? They would then reserve the right to pursue non-licensed infringement of the trademark.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    In the case of trademarks, if it's a valid complaint (and this one clearly isn't) and you choose not to prosecute, you have a weaker case the next time. So if McDonalds sees someone open up a McDonny's with similar menu items, they have to go after the trademark infringement. Otherwise they have no case when Burger King pulls the same stunt.
relix 13y ago
Offtopic: I loathe it when people project agreement on their "opponent" like this: "We believe you will agree [you shouldn't use our slogan]". If he agreed, he wouldn't have used that statement in the first place. I've had it a few times where people who disagreed with something I wrote or did start their statement with "Surely you understand that [you shouldn't do what you did]". No, surely I don't, that's the reason we have this disagreement in the first place.
- fluidcruft 13y ago
  You should appreciate that you loathe it because it's effective.
  - ganeumann 13y ago
    Edit: "I am sure you appreciate that you loathe it because it's effective."
- zipppy 13y ago
  Reminds me of this: "I don't disgree, but..." and then they go on to disagree.
  - jdmichal 13y ago
    Everything before "but" is a lie!
- wtvanhest 13y ago
  I also loathe it when people project agreement on the person they are arguing with. I do not think it is lost on you or I that it is an effective tactic to quickly find where the common ground and the real differences are in a set of beliefs or arguments.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    > I do not think it is lost on you or I that... I believe you will agree that this is just another way of saying, "I believe you will agree that..." Also I'm confused about the disagreement between your first sentence and your second one. I think you're saying that it's effective but that you loathe it nevertheless.
lutusp 13y ago
Nice article. It reminds me of a fight I had with Sun Computer (i.e. Sun Microsystems) some years ago, after I created a Web page that computed the sun's position / sunrise / sunset times for a given location (http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/sunrise http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/sunrise). Without thinking very deeply, I named my page "Sun Computer". Pretty soon, and without any nefarious intent on my part, my "Sun Computer" Web page ascended above the official "Sun Computer" corporate website in the search engine listings. Shortly thereafter I received a registered letter from a team of corporate lawyers who threatened to sue me for disregarding Sun's proprietary ownership of the word "Sun". My explanation that there is an astronomical body with that same name, and that my page provided information about said astronomical entity, fell on deaf ears. For some reason, the corporate lawyers couldn't bring themselves to simply say that my Web page was above theirs in the search rankings and I needed to do something about it. Instead, the correspondence was phrased entirely in threatening legalese, in terms of proprietary trademarks and public deceit. I finally figured out what the problem was, and renamed my page "Solar Computer". Problem solved.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rtfeldman 13y ago
  Reminds me of the nissan.com story. I wonder if that would have ended as quietly for them if they'd taken the same approach.
- dmdeller 13y ago
  Presumably you are referring to the former Sun Microsystems. The amusing thing to me about this story is that it's such a convoluted name that their own potential customers apparently can't remember it. And so, attempting to locate the computer company, they type the closest approximation they can manage, 'Sun Computer', into Google, which likely didn't rank as highly as yours precisely because that verbatim phrase, being technically incorrect, is unlikely to appear directly on their own web site or in anyone else's links to their web site. Names matter.
  - 13y ago
Shivetya 13y ago
Perhaps because of how they replied to Coca Cola is why the company did not pursue it further? There is a lot to say about politeness between responsible organizations. Not all big companies are staffed by hordes of idiots.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  They didn't pursue it further because they knew that they had no chance of prevailing in court: a trademark for a soft drink doesn't extend into a totally different domain, like books. If he would have replied "go ahead and sue me, you assholes", they would have reacted exactly the same way. Just like many of today's copyright trolls, Coca Cola was trying to intimidate Grove Press into capitulating without ever intending to take the matter to court.
markkanof 13y ago
I wonder if this would have been as effective today. In 1970 this communication was delivered and responded to via regular mail. So this correspondence likely took a week or more for the round trip, which doesn't require, but does I think encourage a more deliberate thoughtful approach to these kind of discussions. Today this communication might be delivered via email or some other near instantaneous form of communication which I think it more likely to lead to escalation. It's so easy to respond without thoroughly considering your response. While it certainly isn't prudent to act emotionally with legal matters, that certainly doesn't mean that people don't do it. I guess I just think it's interesting how technology has in some ways gotten ahead of people in terms of having healthy social interactions with other people.
- busyant 13y ago
  I generally agree. I don't know our it's the technology or the age or both, but those letters were far more cordial than I expected.
  - ciclista 13y ago
    I've made it a habit to wait for 24 hours to respond to an incendiary email. Allows both parties to calm a bit and the response is more balanced and eloquent.
RegEx 13y ago
Students in AP English in the US get to analyze rhetoric like this. I remember this as one of my favorite passages.
- SilasX 13y ago
  Same here. The teacher thought I was the Second Coming because I pointed out that the response involved a strawman (the bit about "people won't think our books are soda!"). Nowadays that's a trivial thing to notice.

108 points by ezl 13y ago

I may be wrong, but legally Coca-Cola had to protect the slogan, otherwise they would lose the copyright, no? The "our advertising will help you" defense doesn't hold up in court. Can any lawyers confirm?

drcube 13y ago
No, you have to defend trademarks, or else eventually lose them. Was "It's the real thing" trademarked? And furthermore, trademarks are only usually enforced among competitors. Apple Computer can't sue Apple Dry Cleaning for trademark infringement. Well they can, and occasionally do, but it isn't a given that they will win. Usually you have to show damages, and Apple Computer isn't damaged in any way by having a dry cleaner use the name of a popular fruit. Similarly, I don't think Coca-Cola lost anything by having the phrase "it's the real thing" associated with a literary work. My question for the lawyers: Does a letter like this count as "defending a trademark"? Or would Coca-Cola have had to actually take these publishers to court over it?
- joezydeco 13y ago
  uspto.gov trademark search shows: Word Mark IT'S THE REAL THING Owner (REGISTRANT) The Coca-Cola Company CORPORATION DELAWARE ONE COCA COLA PLAZA Atlanta GEORGIA 30313 Registration Date December 7, 2004 Goods and Services IC 032. US 045 046 048. G & S: Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]. FIRST USE: 19421231. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19421231 The registration/renewal date is no use, but the first use date shows 12/31/1942. Just as Coca-Cola asserts in their letter.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    That should be disallowed -- a company owning english phrases like "it's the real thing" or "just do it". If it was up to me, I would allow only for trademarks in synthetic, non-english words. E.g "Soylent" or "Pepsi" or "McBurger". Not for actual english words ("Windows") or phrases.
    - zokier 13y ago
      Trademarks are limited in scope. Note how in the parent comment the phrase is trademarked in relation to "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]. " You should be able to use the phrase outside that context. Of course you might have fun time in court defending that right.
    - joezydeco 13y ago
      I believe that is why a classification also needs to be attached to the application (e.g. "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks"). While Coke may be asserting they own the trademark for "It's the Real Thing", they're being a little oblique with the fact that they only have it for soft drinks and not printed publications. So it seems Coke is trying to bully the publisher when the publisher seems to know that they are in a different classification. They are pretty much saying this in a sarcastic way in their reply.
    - tehwalrus 13y ago
      As others have said, it's within limited scope. cf: "Lies: and Lying Liars Who Tell Them (A Fair and Balanced look at the right)" http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lying-Liars-Tell-Them/dp/0452285216 http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lying-Liars-Tell-Them/dp/04522852... - was sued by Fox News because they own "Fair and Balanced." The suit was thrown out, because it's selling a book, not the news.
    - dsr_ 13y ago
      Read more carefully. CC owns the use of that phrase ONLY in terms of describing non-alcoholic beverages and beverage mixes. I suppose a court might find that using it to describe, say, bourbon, would be an infringing use, even though CC does not claim alcoholic beverages. More so if the packaging or flavor was intended to mimic a cola. But you could market your new line of toilet paper or watches or hippo-hide whips as The Real Thing, and Coke would have no more of a leg to stand on than they did with the book publisher. It's also appropriate to note that the company claiming the trademark must actually use it reasonably often -- you can't claim "Softer than a cloud" for your waterbeds and then not use it for some number of years. That one will be trickier, though.
  - a-priori 13y ago
    Right, clearly they do have the trademark on the phrase. But the mark is limited in scope to things related to "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]". So they have no right to enforce it in reference to a book or book advertisement, as they tried to do here.
    - nickff 13y ago
      To be clear, they registered its use for "Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, soft drinks [ ; syrups, concentrates and powders for making beverages, namely, soft drinks]", but they can still claim someone is violating a non-registered trademark.
- ben010783 13y ago
  Using Apple Computer as an example is funny because it's similar to what happened when Apple Corps sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer). I don't understand how a computer company would harm the holding company for the biggest band to ever exist, but this fight went on for over two decades.
  - krallja 13y ago
    Until this fight was resolved, The Beatles were not on iTunes. Steve Jobs was a huge fan of The Beatles.
rmc 13y ago
You have to defend trademarks not copyright. If copyright had similar restrictions (and I wish it did!), you would be able to get away with copying a copyrighted DVD on the grounds that it was copied a lot.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway2048 13y ago
  getting a bit offtopic here, but the doctrine of laches means you have to actively persue many legal rights, including copyright, or after a length of time, you will not be eligible for remedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity) This is a strong legal basis for abandoned works infact being safely usable. If somebody sleeps on their rights for 10/20/30 etc years, and the waits for a big payday to act, its not equitable and in good faith.
  - Vivtek 13y ago
    Wish that one applied to patents.
    - throwaway2048 13y ago
      It may infact be, unsure if its ever been tried as a defense.
    - rmc 13y ago
      Well patents only last about 20 years normally (compared to copyright lasting many times long), so it's less of an issue. I agree that it should apply to patents aswell.
lutusp 13y ago
IANAL, but I know this issue. To protect an advertising slogan, the plaintiff must show that other uses of their slogan will confuse the public and materially injure the plaintiff's interests. For example, there was once a restaurant named "McDonald's", owned by someone named McDonald. The restaurant existed before there was a McDonald's chain of restaurants, and the restaurant name corresponded with the owner's name. Notwithstanding all that, the corporate giant McDonald's was able to force the owner of the restaurant to change the name on the ground that the original name would mislead the public. EDIT: I researched this further, and it turns out there have been several "McDonald's" restaurants that came to the attention of the corporate giant -- some legal actions succeeded, some failed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_legal_cases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_legal_cases Defenses of everyday phrases like "It's the real thing" can only succeed if the plaintiff can show there is a real probability of public confusion or injury to commerce or reputation -- it's not enough to say that the phrase is in wide use. A counterexample is Apple Computer and Apple Music (the latter owned by the Beatles). In this case it was decided that, because they were in different businesses, there was no great likelihood of public confusion.
- zokier 13y ago
  > In this case it was decided that, because they were in different businesses, there was no great likelihood of public confusion Until iTunes was released.
  - krallja 13y ago
    iPod (2001) came out before iTunes. The original Macintosh (1984) had very powerful sound hardware for the time.
- drcube 13y ago
  > A counterexample is Apple Computer and Apple Music (the latter owned by the Beatles). In this case it was decided that, because they were in different businesses, there was no great likelihood of public confusion. That's a bad example because Apple Computer eventually did enter the music business, with itunes, contrary to an earlier court's ruling that they stay out of that industry. I think they ended up just paying Apple Music a ton of money. So that's basically a case of infringing trademark, but having enough money to pay off the company whose mark you're infringing. As we all know, enough money solves any problem.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
True or not, I don't consider "the law says I have to" a valid excuse for acting like an asshole. Corporate goons love to sanctimoniously declare that they have no choice but to be selfish fucks, but they sure aren't using any of their billions of dollars of lobbyist money to get the law changed.
- 300bps 13y ago
  Does the law even need to be changed though? Their duty is to pursue non-licensed use of their trademark. Could they not grant the innocent book seller in this case a non-transferable license for a specific purpose for a paltry sum? They would then reserve the right to pursue non-licensed infringement of the trademark.
- mathattack 13y ago
  In the case of trademarks, if it's a valid complaint (and this one clearly isn't) and you choose not to prosecute, you have a weaker case the next time. So if McDonalds sees someone open up a McDonny's with similar menu items, they have to go after the trademark infringement. Otherwise they have no case when Burger King pulls the same stunt.

relix 13y ago

Offtopic: I loathe it when people project agreement on their "opponent" like this: "We believe you will agree [you shouldn't use our slogan]". If he agreed, he wouldn't have used that statement in the first place. I've had it a few times where people who disagreed with something I wrote or did start their statement with "Surely you understand that [you shouldn't do what you did]". No, surely I don't, that's the reason we have this disagreement in the first place.

fluidcruft 13y ago
You should appreciate that you loathe it because it's effective.
- ganeumann 13y ago
  Edit: "I am sure you appreciate that you loathe it because it's effective."
zipppy 13y ago
Reminds me of this: "I don't disgree, but..." and then they go on to disagree.
- jdmichal 13y ago
  Everything before "but" is a lie!
wtvanhest 13y ago
I also loathe it when people project agreement on the person they are arguing with. I do not think it is lost on you or I that it is an effective tactic to quickly find where the common ground and the real differences are in a set of beliefs or arguments.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  > I do not think it is lost on you or I that... I believe you will agree that this is just another way of saying, "I believe you will agree that..." Also I'm confused about the disagreement between your first sentence and your second one. I think you're saying that it's effective but that you loathe it nevertheless.

lutusp 13y ago

Nice article. It reminds me of a fight I had with Sun Computer (i.e. Sun Microsystems) some years ago, after I created a Web page that computed the sun's position / sunrise / sunset times for a given location (http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/sunrise http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/sunrise). Without thinking very deeply, I named my page "Sun Computer". Pretty soon, and without any nefarious intent on my part, my "Sun Computer" Web page ascended above the official "Sun Computer" corporate website in the search engine listings. Shortly thereafter I received a registered letter from a team of corporate lawyers who threatened to sue me for disregarding Sun's proprietary ownership of the word "Sun". My explanation that there is an astronomical body with that same name, and that my page provided information about said astronomical entity, fell on deaf ears. For some reason, the corporate lawyers couldn't bring themselves to simply say that my Web page was above theirs in the search rankings and I needed to do something about it. Instead, the correspondence was phrased entirely in threatening legalese, in terms of proprietary trademarks and public deceit. I finally figured out what the problem was, and renamed my page "Solar Computer". Problem solved.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rtfeldman 13y ago
Reminds me of the nissan.com story. I wonder if that would have ended as quietly for them if they'd taken the same approach.
dmdeller 13y ago
Presumably you are referring to the former Sun Microsystems. The amusing thing to me about this story is that it's such a convoluted name that their own potential customers apparently can't remember it. And so, attempting to locate the computer company, they type the closest approximation they can manage, 'Sun Computer', into Google, which likely didn't rank as highly as yours precisely because that verbatim phrase, being technically incorrect, is unlikely to appear directly on their own web site or in anyone else's links to their web site. Names matter.
- 13y ago

Shivetya 13y ago

Perhaps because of how they replied to Coca Cola is why the company did not pursue it further? There is a lot to say about politeness between responsible organizations. Not all big companies are staffed by hordes of idiots.

greenyoda 13y ago
They didn't pursue it further because they knew that they had no chance of prevailing in court: a trademark for a soft drink doesn't extend into a totally different domain, like books. If he would have replied "go ahead and sue me, you assholes", they would have reacted exactly the same way. Just like many of today's copyright trolls, Coca Cola was trying to intimidate Grove Press into capitulating without ever intending to take the matter to court.

markkanof 13y ago

I wonder if this would have been as effective today. In 1970 this communication was delivered and responded to via regular mail. So this correspondence likely took a week or more for the round trip, which doesn't require, but does I think encourage a more deliberate thoughtful approach to these kind of discussions. Today this communication might be delivered via email or some other near instantaneous form of communication which I think it more likely to lead to escalation. It's so easy to respond without thoroughly considering your response. While it certainly isn't prudent to act emotionally with legal matters, that certainly doesn't mean that people don't do it. I guess I just think it's interesting how technology has in some ways gotten ahead of people in terms of having healthy social interactions with other people.

busyant 13y ago
I generally agree. I don't know our it's the technology or the age or both, but those letters were far more cordial than I expected.
- ciclista 13y ago
  I've made it a habit to wait for 24 hours to respond to an incendiary email. Allows both parties to calm a bit and the response is more balanced and eloquent.

RegEx 13y ago

Students in AP English in the US get to analyze rhetoric like this. I remember this as one of my favorite passages.

SilasX 13y ago
Same here. The teacher thought I was the Second Coming because I pointed out that the response involved a strawman (the bit about "people won't think our books are soda!"). Nowadays that's a trivial thing to notice.