6 ms·

Am I wrong to be annoyed that they're ripping off the Ars Technica brand?

by chmullig 13y ago

jrockway 13y ago
You do know that "Technica" is Latin for technology, right? Ars was not the first English language publication to notice this. There are hundreds of others, including this one, "Clean Technica". (The truly non-lazy would have probably figured out the Latin word for clean and used that, but...) Your argument is like complaining that The New York Times ripped off The Washington Post's "the" brand.
- maxharris 13y ago
  If I were to create a startup incubator called "C Combinator," that would be as massive a ripoff as "cleantechnica.com" is. Most people (myself included) don't know Latin. The number of people that know Latin probably outnumbers the number of people that have heard of Haskell Curry, but both cases are the same in a crucial respect: some guy sees an interesting name/domain, and creates a ripoff site that rides off of the trail blazed by the originator. The fact that they didn't translate "clean" into Latin makes this conclusion inescapable for me. Here's the damage that the ripoff does: "Hmm - cleantechnica.com? That's probably a 'clean'-tech site made by the Arstechnica guys. I love Ars, so I'll go there and check it out." Suppose that cleantechnica.com puts up misinformation, which people attribute to Arstechnica, which causes people to reduce their visits to both sites - that's not good. True, not everyone will make that mistake. Arstechnica was there first, and the ripoff site should have to bear the costs of clearing up the confusion they've created.
maxharris 13y ago
cleantechnica.com is even less original than a chain of ice cream shops called "Frozen Rock Milkery" (For those that don't get the reference, here's the original chain that I'd be ripping off: http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/ http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/)

6 ms·

Am I wrong to be annoyed that they're ripping off the Ars Technica brand?

by chmullig 13y ago

Am I wrong to be annoyed that they're ripping off the Ars Technica brand?

jrockway 13y ago
You do know that "Technica" is Latin for technology, right? Ars was not the first English language publication to notice this. There are hundreds of others, including this one, "Clean Technica". (The truly non-lazy would have probably figured out the Latin word for clean and used that, but...) Your argument is like complaining that The New York Times ripped off The Washington Post's "the" brand.
- maxharris 13y ago
  If I were to create a startup incubator called "C Combinator," that would be as massive a ripoff as "cleantechnica.com" is. Most people (myself included) don't know Latin. The number of people that know Latin probably outnumbers the number of people that have heard of Haskell Curry, but both cases are the same in a crucial respect: some guy sees an interesting name/domain, and creates a ripoff site that rides off of the trail blazed by the originator. The fact that they didn't translate "clean" into Latin makes this conclusion inescapable for me. Here's the damage that the ripoff does: "Hmm - cleantechnica.com? That's probably a 'clean'-tech site made by the Arstechnica guys. I love Ars, so I'll go there and check it out." Suppose that cleantechnica.com puts up misinformation, which people attribute to Arstechnica, which causes people to reduce their visits to both sites - that's not good. True, not everyone will make that mistake. Arstechnica was there first, and the ripoff site should have to bear the costs of clearing up the confusion they've created.
maxharris 13y ago
cleantechnica.com is even less original than a chain of ice cream shops called "Frozen Rock Milkery" (For those that don't get the reference, here's the original chain that I'd be ripping off: http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/ http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/)