Rupert Murdoch has never met an irrational fear of the Boomer set that he couldn't exploit for cash. Which is why Fox News filed a trademark for "OK Boomer" earlier this month, just weeks after the current media meme trend of the term took off.
There's nothing unique about Fox's move here. In all honesty, it's probably a rational money-making decision for a lecherous media conglomerate that feeds on the souls of Baby Boomers to make a profit. They're not the first ones to try it, either. On Halloween—twelve days before Fox filed their paperwork—Kevin Yen of Little Neck, NY filed an "OK Boomer" merchandise trademark. Rustbelt Creations joined the party on November 12, in hopes of making some stickers, decals, and temporary tattoos; this application even includes the trademark "…," which Boomers love to use in place of all other punctuation, particularly when discussing the insidious machinations of George Soros. On November 13, William Grundfest of Los Angeles filed a trademark for "OK BOOMER!" with an exclamation point, which is obviously going to be a ticketed evening of live entertainment including plays, concerts, and lectures.
There's a good chance that none of these trademarks will be approved—like Lebron James's "Taco Tuesday" trademark attempt, the office might deem the phrase to be too ubiquitous. Read the rest
SCP Foundation is an online shared world whose members create delightful fiction, movies, games and other media. It's a sprawling, global, friendly phenomenon, licensed under Creative Commons.
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The CN Tower is a giant radio antenna and tourist attraction on Toronto's lakeshore; it's an iconic part of the city's skyline, and has been since it was built at taxpayer expense; today, it's owned by a Crown Corporation that insists that any reproduction of the Tower is a trademark violation.
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Update: The USPTO has withdrawn this from publication for "further review."
Michael-Scott Earle, a self-publisher of "pulp harem fantasies" is seeking a trademark on the use of "Dragon Slayer" in connection with fantasy novels.
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At this week's B-Sides Manchester security conference, James Williams gave a talk called "Next-gen AV vs my shitty code," in which he systematically revealed the dramatic shortcomings of anti-virus products that people pay good money for and trust to keep them safe -- making a strong case that these companies were selling defective goods.
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Back in May, indy romance author Faleena Hopkins embarked on a second career as a trademark troll, threatening to sue peers who use the word "cocky" in the titles of their romance novels, forcing people to take down books they'd written.
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You'll recall that self-published romance author Faleena Hopkins undertook the sociopathic step of registering a trademark on the word "Cocky" in the titles of romance novels and then had her rivals' works removed from Amazon, threatening to sue any writer who used the common word in a title in the future.
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Romance author Faleena Hopkins earned the wrong kind of notoriety when she registered a trademark on the word "cocky" for use in romance novel titles and then began indiscriminately threatening to sue her peers for using this common trope.
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Over the past 20 years, the world has become a lot more cognizant of the risks of unbalanced copyright, as what was once a way to help creators gain leverage over publishers, studios and labels became a rubric for mass surveillance, unaccountable censorship and monopolism.
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