May 29 2006
Astonishing Silence From an Otherwise Loud Mouth
Tom Raftery is surprised at freedom of speech advocate Cory Doctorow’s utter silence on O’Reilly suing a conference for daring to have the words “Web 2.0″ in the name of it. Apparently, like most corporate greedbags, O’Reilly trademarked the generic term Web 2.0, and then sent a cease and desist letter to the organizers. After a snarky reply (which was utterly hysterical), O’Reilly gave in and allowed the privilege of using the trademark.
That’s all well and good, but then Tom made an observation, and that was that the only word that could be head from Cory on the subject was this piece of non-committal crap.
I’m not the kind of person to criticize folks for what they aren’t blogging. I used to get all outraged and annoyed over people not blogging something or whatever else. I’ve grown up a lot since then. What Cory’s done here is so much worse, though, that I can’t even begin to categorize it. In fact, I kind of wish he would’ve just ignored the issue rather than commented on it because he was the only writer on Boing Boing I actually respected, but now he’s just as useless to me as Pescovitz, Frauenfelder, and the worst of them all, Xeni the Vacuous Hole Jardin.
When someone should know better, and they write something on one of their pet subjects that’s totally off-base, you have to wonder if it’s intentional. In fact, there’s enough evidence, as Tom points out, to prove that not only was it intentional, but borderline deceptive.
At first glance the article seems even-handed, reasonable even, until you realise that Cory has only linked to two articles in his post: 1) the O’Reilly response and 2) John Battelle’s response (John Battelle has a working relationship both with Cory and O’Reilly).
Then consider Cory’s language, he says that the dispute has been resolved amicably and that O’Reilly’s
has granted the con[ference] permission to use “Web 2.0? in its name
I’m sorry, what? They have granted us permission to use the phrase Web 2.0 in our conference? Wow, that was really generous of them, NOT. Should we also apply to them for permission to use the word “conference” in our conference title?
I wouldn’t expect this sort of conduct out of Cory. Granted, I’ve disagreed with things he’s written in the past, but he’s, if nothing else, consistent. Content providers are wrong to employ any means to protect their property (namely DRM), corporations and their lawyers and lawsuits are way overreaching with regards to trademark law, and the little guy is consistently being screwed by more restrictive and draconian methods.
I guess that only applies when you don’t have a cozy relationship with the company that supposedly oppresses? I mean, on its face, this case would be everything Cory would salivate at, and yet here he is writing that piece cited earlier which is, at the very least on the fence. At the very least, Cory seems to have become exactly what he claims to abhor the most.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing about this in the future and I can all but guarantee this isn’t the end of this. Somewhere some time down the line, someone is going to try to use the Web 2.0 trademark again, and this is all going to spark up all over again.
It will be interesting to see if Cory will have the balls to stand up to O’Reilly should they choose to enforce their “trademark.”
Technorati Tags: cory doctorow, tom raftery, web 2.0
May 30th, 2006 at 3:48 am
Everyone has the right to protect his intellectual property. But it appears that O’Reilly may not have protected his. A genericized trademark is “a trademark or brand name which is often used as the colloquial description for a particular type of product or service as a result of widespread popular or cultural usage.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark
I have read that in America and other countries, for years, there have been numerous conferences and other events with “Web 2.0” in the name.[http://blog.softtechvc.com/2006/05/the_web_20_lega.html] If this is true, then since O’Reilly and his company did not previously enforce their rights and send C&D letters to those conference organizers, it seems to me that “Web 2.0” has been allowed to become a genericized trademark. Hence, trademark rights may no longer be enforceable or at least it may be difficult for O’Reilly and crew to now enforce their rights. A long list of other genericized trademarks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks Also, see the very brief opinion of The Trademark Blog on this topic: http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2006/05/web_20_v_web_20.html
May 31st, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Cory posted a well written piece, where he makes some good points, and tries very hard to walk a strait line… But not with all that Foo Camp Kool-Aid on-board! His fan-boy intoxication (and perhaps conflicts-of-interest) were really showing.
I was very disappointed. Sounds like he just talked to John Battele or someone, heard it was “all settled” and incorrectly reported that, without checking. When he posted, most people following the story were aware that the issue had not been “resolved amicably” and permission had not yet been “granted” as Cory incorrectly reported.
The C&D letter was unfortunate, and perhaps understandable as a mistake. However, O’Reilly’s rude, clumsy, and ham-fisted response, shocked us all, as it seemed to contradict the basic principles of Web 2.0. This leaves many of us wondering if these people have any real clue about what it is they are hyping. I mean, how F-ing 1.0 can you get?
Eventually, Tim will have to embrace the only practical option: Convince CMP to withdraw any claim other than your actual conference title “Web 2.0 Conference.” Any other claim is very weak and clearly so offensive to many.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
insignificant thoughts » Blog Archive » Short Memories And Pukey Swooning
[...] After a huge public brouhaha over O’Reilly harassing the organizers of a conference that used Web 2.0 in its name, Tim O’Reilly comes out doing major damage control, deflecting blame, and exposing his ass for the rest of the web world to kiss. [...]