Julian Assange™

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden over allegations of rape and sexual assault, has applied to trademark his name, the Guardian reports:

The 39-year-old computer hacker - who will shortly be extradited to Sweden to contest the charges unless he wins an appeal on Thursday, 3 March - wants to protect his name for use in "public speaking services" and "entertainment services", it has emerged. Assange becomes the latest high-profile figure seeking to trademark his name. Sarah Palin, who famously likened Assange to an al-Qaida operative, has applied for similar protection for both herself and her daughter, Bristol Palin. Assange applied for the trademark on 14 February through his London-based law firm Finers Stephens Innocent. If granted, he will own the trademark to his name for the purposes of "news reporter services", "journalism", "publication of texts other than publicity texts" and "education services".

(via BB Submitterator, thanks Andy Booth)

Photo: Toby Melville / Reuters

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

Christ, what an Assange.
Purplecat

So it turns out that people are complex, multifaceted characters, capable of both “good” and “bad” in the same bundle of squishy chemical reactions, and that they defy simple labelling and placing in boxes.

Hoocoodanode?
Anonymous

Another reason to register a trademark is to gain control of a URL. Perhaps someone else owns JulianAssange.com?
- Michael Smith
  
  Perhaps someone else owns JulianAssange.com?
  
  Now thats bizarre.
MisterWiggles

HA HA HA HA HA – I love how everyone in these here parts WORSHIPPED Assange, and now he’s being revealed for the narcissistic dbag he has always been (just ask the people who know him).

Everyone fell over themselves trying to defend Assange as a journalist: WHAT F’ING JOURNALIST TRADEMARKS THEIR NAMES?!?!?
- DoctressJulia
  
  I am also amused. As well as disgusted. And saddened.
egoVirus

Utter douchebagâ„¢.

Is there a reason he’s stopped releasing the goods? I seem to have missed something between the point where he had serious information to share with the world, and this bizarre quasi-celebrity exercise in narcissistic masturbation.
- eviladrian
  
  By “stopped releasing the goods” do you mean that Wikileaks has continued to publish cables for the last four months without interruption? Because that’s what they’re doing.
  http://213.251.145.96/reldate/2011-02-28_0.html
  (Link goes to WL mirror, clicking may result in US citizens being collected by miniluv operatives for intensive love session)
- teufelsdroch
  
  Assangeâ„¢ just went full retard.
Anonymous

Assholiness is not a crime, nor does it represent evidence of guilt. The two are orthogonal.

Contrary to popular entertainment, the bad guys are not always preceded by threatening minor chords whenever they appear, nor do the good guys necessary get trumpet fanfares announcing their arrival.
Brillobreaks

I knew the moment I heard this that it would be the thing that finally snapped a certain crowd out of it. Not the now admitted rapes, not the insane and obviously wrong conspiracy theories, not the slut shaming and misogyny, not screwing over Manning, not attributing his legal problems to ‘radical feminists’… but trademarks. Deeply fucked up priorities people.
- Tristan Eldtritch
  
  Look, I think he’s capable of being a twat as much as the next person, but some of this stuff is ridiculous. “Not the now admitted rapes” what? Who’s admitted to anything? “Not screwing over Manning” how exactly has he screwed over Manning? What “insane and obviously wrong conspiracy theories” are you referring to? If a variety of powerful people were calling for your detention and/or death, don’t you think you might be a little panicky, viz a vie the intentions of powerful people towards you? And, referring to the other comments, since did being egotistical automatically equate with being a rapist? Oh, he’s promiscuous and full of himself, MUST be guilty. Why does that sound familiar?
eli

Can he really copyright his persona? I have serous doubts about its originality? Is the character Julian Assange inspired in Sanji of One Piece fame? Or is it the other way round? Can this be a coincidence?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98889321@N00/5479318599/
Chaoskitten

Look, he might be an egoist, but it doesn’t change the central issue in all this, that it’s better to have a media outlet capable of independently documenting and reporting Military and state abuses and obsfucations to the public, and that that is what is being judged and prosecuted via Assange and Manning.
I wouldn’t have the gall to set up something like wikileaks because I’m not egoistic enough to believe that I can. I think you’ll find anyone who manages to push their identity to the forefront of human global attention is going to be an egoist. It just goes with the territory.
- mkultra
  
  I don’t know that was holds most people back from engaging in Wikileaks-like behavior is the fear that they would not be able to succeed in that mission. A much more reasonable fear is that you would be doing more harm than good, and don’t have the ability to tell with 100% certainty what would be “safe” to release, and what could potentially get people killed.
  
  For an egotist, it’s much simpler: “If people get killed, obviously they were bad people, if they weren’t bad people it’s someone else’s fault, and who cares anyway as long as I get on CNN?”
  - Chaoskitten
    
    I don’t see how an organisation like wikileaks could possibly be doing more harm than an entrenched culture of militarism, completely unexamined if not thoroughly propagandised by its national media, doing the ethnic cleansing groundwork for corporations which themselves directly or indirectly control both the political process and the vast majority of the media which shape our interpretation of the world.
    There’s no 100% certainty dealing with any complex system, let alone ones as volatile as social action, politics or the military. The desire for 100% certainty is what leads to horrors like fully armed gunships firing on unarmed civilians, the overwhelming invasion of oil-bearing countries to assure supply, and the narrowing of the democratic political process to a choice between two versions of the same thing. To have 100% certainty you have to have absolute control.
    And I seriously doubt that the main motivation for setting up wikileaks and releasing information through it was in order to get on CNN.
Anonymous

TO those accusing the BB’ers of worshipping at JA’s feet like he was Zombie Reagan or something – remember that most posters feel the leak of information and publicization was the important part, and this single person was not the important part. Unfortunately, those incapable of critical thinking also enjoy lionizing/demonizing a single face or person, as if that single person was the Decider making the magic happen.

JA can go sh*t in a tricornered hat for all I care; the undeniable impact of the leaks are what reverberate through the world right now. I appreciate the fact that he helped make the leaks public and keep them visible when many sought to disappear the leaker and put the genie back in the bottle.
truckeetown

Yep, although wikileaks is very important and I applaud him for it, Julian AssangeÂ© himself certainly does appear to be quite the douchenozzle.
Lelielle

When and if he gets to Sweden, they should take a blood/urine test for Charlie Sheen use…
Arbed

Hey, has anyone considered that this story might not be true? It first appeared 9 hours ago and was quickly retweeted by a Guardian journalist, then bumped up by another Guardian piece on it. Now, the Guardian are no friends of Assange, as we all know by now. The odd thing is in the Twitter history the story seemed to originate from Wikileaks Legal. I’ve checked and I can’t find any trace of this organisation actually existing, which is odd, don’t you think? And none of these articles that are spreading like wildfire have a quote from Assange’s lawyers – Finers Stephens Innocent – confirming it’s true. Don’t journalists do that sort of thing any more – get a quote from a source to confirm the story? Just a thought.
- Simon Bradshaw
  
  @Arbed,
  
  You can see the application here.
  
  And in respect of your other questions, look at who is listed as the proprietor.
  - Anonymous
    
    An ONLINE application form? Oh, sure – that proves it then, beyond any doubt. The Guardian journalist who originally re-tweeted this story – from “Wikileaks Legal” (go on, try to find them) is Esther Haddley. She’s known for her anti-Assange stance. There is also PROOF that the Guardian is censoring links to an external website that poses quote-unquote “a potential legal risk” for them. Go check out Professors Blogg (exact spelling required for Google).
shadowfirebird

I honestly did not think that you could do this.

Presumably he’s not the only person with that name…
Anonymous

Look carefully at who is spreading the dirt on Assange. Read this:

Private Eye Magazine Lied To Assange.

â€œHypocrisy is the Great English Viceâ€

‘Private Eye’ is a magazine which expresses a particularly strong moral dislike of misogyny, anti-feminism, holocaust denial and anti-Semitism â€“ in public that is. Behind the scenes at ‘Private Eye’, things are rather different.

‘Private Eye’ appeared to be so obviously concerned that Julian Assange might have caused harm to women and Jewish people, I took them at their word and wrote to Ian Hislop. My letter warned of something far more dangerous and sinister than Assange’s alleged crimes.

For decades, an individual has been churning out hate material and spreading it all over the internet. Not on hidden ‘Darknet’ sites and not even anonymously. It is all published under his own name and is easily obtainable from any of his numerous hate sites. Here are a few samples.

â€œIt is no coincidence that those at the forefront of the campaign for so-called ‘feminism’ are Marxists and Jews. Indeed, the whole ‘women’s liberation movement’ was the creation of Jews…â€

â€œ This was the hoax of the Jewish ‘holocaust’.â€

â€œThere are several excellent reasons why the story of “the Jewish holocaust” is a fictional tale – a product of Zionist propaganda – and why the so-called “evidence” which is produced, and which has been produced, in support of this story is suspect or false.â€

Strangely, ‘Private Eye’s abhorrence of anti-Semitism and its pious concern for the defence of feminists, evaporated completely as soon someone other than Assange was being accused. ‘Private Eye’ didn’t want to run the story and no, they wouldn’t even publish a letter on the subject.

So it seems Holocaust denial and misogyny are not the real issues for ‘Private Eye’. It is Julian Assange himself that they disapprove of.

But why Assange and not the author of the hate material ? Read a little further and you will begin to see that ‘Private Eye’ is a bit more pro-establishment than it would have us believe.

The purveyor of the hate material is a police informer, with alleged links to MI5. The authorities’ failure to arrest this man, even though he has published illegal hate material for thirty years, certainly supports this assertion.

My letter to ‘Private Eye’ explained that the hate sites are used as ‘honey traps’ to attract extremists for the purpose of ID theft. The information is then passed on to the authorities. The problem with this strategy is that, although some extremists are prompted to attempt acts of terrorism by the material, they are not always caught in time. This is what happened in London in 1999. A young man, heavily influenced by the informer’s hate material, set off a series of nail bombs before he was caught by the police. An unborn child and its mother and many others, were killed in these attacks. At the time the security services said that the police informer was not under surveillance, so they could not have prevented the loss of life. Now more than a decade later, the informer is still publishing his dangerous nonsense and nothing is done. So it looks as if the bomb victim’s families were lied to in 1999, because this person is an informer and they knew exactly what he was up to.

But ‘Private Eye’, the magazine which promotes itself as a fearless exposer of the truth, wont touch this story. They wont even allow any mention of the informer in their letters page. Yet Julian Assange is pilloried in every issue of the ‘Eye’, over allegations which at present haven’t even been tested in court.

Could it be that for ‘Private Eye’, Holocaust denial and manslaughter is O.K. If MI5 says it is?

Some very lucrative careers in the mainstream media have been launched on the back of ‘anti-establishment’ satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’. Next time you see a rich little guy on TV ‘defending to the death’ our right to free speech, just remember it doesn’t extend to the unborn child who was blown up before it had a chance to live.
semiotix

I was fine with this when Palinâ„¢ did it (or tried to do it, but I’m not going to quibble over her forgetting to sign the documents), and I’m fine with Assangeâ„¢ doing it. After all, trademarking is perfectly legal, and Assangeâ„¢ and Palinâ„¢ unquestionably have brands to protect. Assange-sans-â„¢ becoming Assangeâ„¢ won’t silence, censor, or subvert anyone else’s free speech. They just won’t be able to claim they’re Julian Assangeâ„¢ when they’re speaking.

I’m sure we’ll have many more threads in which we discuss Julian Assangeâ„¢, and I’ll be more than happy to extend to Julian Assangeâ„¢ the same courtesy I show Sarah Palinâ„¢ by always, always, always including the trademark symbol when I type his name.

On an unrelated topic, remember when Assangeâ„¢ threatened to sue the papers he was leaking to when they released things on a different schedule than he wanted, on the grounds that stolen Pentagon memos were his personal intellectual property? Yeah, good times.
Cowicide

How about some intellectual honesty in this thread, folks? If you are in here complaining and raging about Assange trademarking his name, you already hate him because:

A) You’re convinced he’s a rapist because apparently you were there in the bed with him and know what happened.

B) You think he’s a terrorist because he helped expose war crimes, murder and corruption in your name.

C) You’re jealous of the man because you’re an insignificant twat.

That said, I think this is a bad move on his part, but it hardly deserves all this teeth gnashing and shrill diatribes against him. Hey, if he’s found guilty of rape, etc beyond a reasonable doubt, I’ll be very disturbed with the man too. But, I wasn’t there and he’s not been found guilty of ANYTHING.
Anonymous

everything about j-ass keeps coming up “shitloads of money” and if that doesn’t worry you, it should.
- Chaoskitten
  
  Good call.
Anonymous

Just a thought: Assuming Assange hasn’t officially downed a bottle of crazy pills, could trademarking his name be a attempt to buffer actions similar to the ones HBGary was planning to take? I’m talking about faking Wikileaks documents and, potentially, articles written by Assange himself.

If his name is trademarked, and an organization fakes a document purported to be written by him, it certainly makes it easier to take legal action against the culprit.

That, or, y’know, crazy pills.
eviladrian

Wikileaks is kinda like Napster about 10 years ago, remember how Shawn Fanning was always being so cocky and wearing “shared” Metallica shirts and generally starting shit? But eventually Napster got shut down, and that was the end of file sharing, right?

Oh wait, I mean Napster was the tiny tip of a massive iceberg called BitTorrent, imagine what the thing that comes after Wikileaks is going to be like! CIA spooks will look back on the days when Assange was their biggest problem with fondness and bittersweet regret, they’ll put flowers on his grave…
ericmartinex1

I was worried that a month long news-cycle would go by without Julian’s wisdom.

The Assangists are it again…they will rationalize the actions of their god despite any other evidence to the contrary since – in their eyes – everyone else drank the right-wing cool aid, is hopelessly lost, CIA hitman/plutonium cocktails always around the next corner. The masses are not as enlightened as the albino Martin Luther King/Ellsberg/Allah/Jesus/Buddha/Ghandi/Noble Prize Winner/Libya Liberator. Julian dropped a lot Truth on the world and the sheeple are not appreciative of it.

Julian should kiss Bradley’s feet, suck his toes, and give his full Swiss Bank account for all the public recognition he has received from the true fall guy.
petsounds

Frankly it’s not my concern what he does in his private life or how much of an ass he is. What he has done with Wikileaks is important, and the rest of it is tabloid watercooler talk. How about more focus on Wikileaks cable releases instead? There are lots of interesting cables that are being overlooked by the mainstream press.

And was it really necessary to dig up the most unflattering image of Assange I’ve seen?
ericmartinex1

“I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest. If you have a problem with me, piss off.”

Google for source if confused or +100 points for anyone that can guess who said it.

Attribution and saying you represent an organization (and by extension its actions) is not important I guess.
RebNachum

C, waBa.
BBNinja

I felt sorry for Assange at first. This kind of moronic stuff you can almost give a pass to Palin for because you expect it from her in the same way you expect an infant to crap it’s pants.

But for Assange it certainly seems like this arrogant narcissist egotist that he’s been painted as by others is more truth than media conspiracy.
mkultra

In a contest of Assangeâ„¢ vs. Palinâ„¢… dang. That they are both trying to use a similar tactic doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

I guess in her favor, at least Palin (although a moronic, despicable individual IMO) isn’t being accused of sexual assault.

I fully anticipate the tinfoil-hat wearing wikileaks fanbois to now repeat their misogynistic claims of a CIA honeytrap (the same people who embraced Hans Reiser’s innocence, unsurprisingly), but the leaked police reports are oh-so-very believable and completely in line with this guy’s very, VERY well-documented egotism.
- wrybread
  
  I find it ironic that someone posting under the name “mkultra” is discounting the possibility of dirty tricks engineered by the CIA.
- Cowicide
  
  the leaked police reports are oh-so-very believable and completely in line with this guy’s very, VERY well-documented egotism.
  
  You should listen to yourself. Guilty until proven innocent, eh? And trademarking his name is just all the more concrete “evidence” we need to prove that Assange is noting more than a rapist, right?
  
  Never mind war crimes, murder and corruption in your name… you’re too busy having a conniption fit over Assange.
scifijazznik

Man, ever since the Are You Being Served post, I just…wow…yeah.
- holtt
  
  Yup
Stephen

{If granted, he will own the trademark to his name for the purposes of “news reporter services”}

Just wait until he starts suing newspapers which portray him in a negative light for trademark infringement in the use of his name!
nlvivar

I don’t know about this… I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen this guy before on BBC TV.

Mr Humphries? Could you please help this gentleman?
http://manolomen.com/images/John%20Inman%20as%20Mr.%20Humphries.jpg
johnphantom

Yeah as far as I am concerned, now he has crossed the line into douche-bag territory.

Have fun with him in your courts, Sweden.
- EH
  
  The snap-judgement area of your brain finally got enough info to do its job?
  - holtt
    
    EH, the world is BRIMMING with snap judgements. This blog is BRIMMING with them both in posts and comments. But, that’s just my opinion that I had to slam out in a comment without hardly thinking.
  - chawke
    
    ‘EH in reply to johnphantom
    The snap-judgement area of your brain finally got enough info to do its job?’
    
    Assange you EH!!!
    
    ;)
- wigg1es
  
  If there’s one place I’d be okay going to prison, it would probably be Sweden.
Anonymous

WTF? That is not what trademark law is for. Who invented such a silly concept as trademarking your own name? Impossible, impractical, and really really dumb to even try. It’s like a Mighty Boosh sketch – going to copyright my face…
Zadaz

Now he’s taking the corporate D-bag model to heart: Make something people rely on and then make people uneasy to use it because of your D-baggy behavior.

(And did anyone notice last week that suddenly Wikileaks went from Villain of Freedom to the savior of mankind as they praised it for leaking all the weird shit that Gaddafi is in to?)
Antinous / Moderator

Are we still good using J-Ass?
technogeek

He can certainly apply for trademark.

But it won’t do much except prevent others from publishing the same kinds of material using his name. If he expects more than that, he’s wasting his money and his lawyer is swindling him.
- smr
  
  It’s even narrower than that. It’ll just prevent others from advertising and selling the same kinds of material using his name. A trade mark doesn’t mean you own the word or something.
apenzott

Diplomatic immunity; don’t leave the UK without it.

Perhaps before he is extradited, the UK would give Julian Assange diplomatic immunity and under an agreement with Sweeden, allow the rape case to proceed, but assert immunity for any other crimes and extraditions.

I can see the US, trying to extradite Julian Assange from Sweeden with his UK diplomacy credentials.
Anonymous

I find â€œentertainment servicesâ€ strangely ironic, considering the four-or-so love children and his purported love life. But aren’t those services quite illegal in quite some parts of the world?
Avram / Moderator

What’s with this weird outbreak of hostility? The guy’s a globally-known celebrity with a distinctive name, who wants to start a business and rake in big speaking fees. Why shouldn’t he trademark his name?

It’s not like he can use the trademark to control news reporting about himself, because trademark doesn’t work that way. If it did, you’d never have heard about the big BP oil spill, or the Exxon Valdez disaster, or any other corporate shenanigans.
- Cowicide
  
  What’s with this weird outbreak of hostility?
  
  Mental weaklings don’t like it when their noses are pushed into their own shit on the floor. They’d rather attack the anyone else than actually deal with the harsh reality that they are complicit in allowing war crimes, murder and corruption in their names unabated.
  
  The seething hatred for who they are and what they’ve let their masters makes these lapdogs wild with misguided hostility.
  
  Watch the ignorant lapdogs gnash their teeth at the person who’s trying to free them out of their squalid cage. It’s sad, it’s pitiful… they are the lost.
- Brainspore
  
  What’s with this weird outbreak of hostility? The guy’s a globally-known celebrity with a distinctive name, who wants to start a business and rake in big speaking fees. Why shouldn’t he trademark his name?
  
  Is this a common practice for people who make money from speaking fees? Other than Sarah Palinâ„¢, I mean.
  - Avram / Moderator
    
    It’s pretty common for a wide variety of celebrities. See this other Guardian article for some names and context.
Rob Gehrke

Dershowitz
The dessert / dinner thing
T-shirts / mugs
The Domsheidt-Berg book (the excerpts of which seem trite and fishy to me)
Now this
It’s all starting to approach my “uncomfortable” zone.