Forum - View topicNEWS: Japanese Law Office Receives Bomb Threat Following Touhou Project Fans' Trademark Rights Contr
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510
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when you're done taking it easy
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Regalli
Posts: 113 |
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The same ‘not doing due diligence on someone trying to file a mark in a niche you don’t really know that well’ that seems to have led to some VERY odd trademark attempts in the US, I’d assume. (I remember a couple years back a self-pub romance author tried to trademark ‘cocky’ for use in titles and issue Amazon takedowns based off that, as well as the specific font she used for her titles. 1: The font license specifically excluded using it for trademarks. 2: To the shock of approximately no one, ‘cocky’ is a common title element for romances, including ones that preceded this particular author’s particular series. 3: Side note: A surprising number of authors pivot to the field from law careers. You can guess how it went from here.)
Not that that makes bomb threats any more appropriate for anyone involved in this. But yeah, my assumption is that a lot of times these lawyers look at the client’s claim and don’t know enough about the particular subcommunity to realize it’s shaky. And/or assume no one will challenge it even if it IS shaky, because that process tends to be involved. |
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Nate148
Posts: 509 |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturne_(video_game)
Law is wacky. |
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Dynamo-
Posts: 80 |
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LeBron James tried to trademark “Taco Tuesday” somewhat recently. Lol |
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Tripple-A
 Posts: 383 Location: Hamburg, Germany |
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Not to approve of the threats, but what kind of idiot thinks that they can trademark Yukkuri?
That's an almost 20 year old Touhou fandom meme, she can't prove that she is the creator of the Yukkuri, ZUN would also have a say in it as the creator of Touhou and last but not least, Touhou in general is beloved partly because of its doujin culture and trying to trademark a meme you've created (which she certainly did not) would go against that spirit. |
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MrTerrorist
Posts: 1348 |
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I haven't heard about Yukkuri for a long time since avoiding it for reasons left best unsaid.
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Electric Wooloo
Posts: 315 |
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Same Thankfully that seems to have largely faded by now The phrase itself is still around though and the fact that this could be trademarked is ridiculous |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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All parties are dumbasses, the people issuing the threats, the law firm for not throwing this trademark proposal out, and Yuzuha for not only trying to trademark the Yukkuri but charging nearly $800 for a license, even patent trolls charge less for the most part.
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sadoldguy
Posts: 68 |
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What is it with otaku culture and death threats? Or is this just one of the laws of large numbers that unlikely events are bound to happen with a large enough number of events/people?
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Jeff Bauersfeld
Posts: 109 |
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The latter. I don't have any data, but I'd imagine any decently sized Fandom or grouping will have more or less the same incidence of death threats. Excitedable, socially maladjusted people can be found everywhere. For instance, there's been plenty of death threats and actual murders of umpires and referees for supposed bad calls in the sports Fandom. |
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Electric Wooloo
Posts: 315 |
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"What it is" is this is a fandom (Anime/Japanese culture) that you follow and so you're exposed to seeing reports of them more than death threats in the competitive BINGO scene. Also I'd wager part of it is existing bias against "those weird otaku" in Japan to report more on these things than a death threat from an estranged marriage |
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kakugo complete
Posts: 73 |
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be gay do crimes
property can be replaced |
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Dark Mac
Posts: 321 |
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too bad bombs also kill people inside buildings |
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Regalli
Posts: 113 |
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Also, even if bomb threats weren’t, you know, death threats, ‘property can be replaced’ is a wild thing to say justifying threats of violence over an intellectual property dispute. Plus, this was the law firm that got those threats. It’d still be terrible being sent to Yuzuha, because death threats, but the law firm didn’t force her to make a trademark claim with them. It’s most likely she wanted to file the claim first, needed a lawyer, and picked this firm for some reason. The only thing the law firm did wrong was not investigate that this claim is almost certainly not going to stand up once challenged for all the reasons others have brought up. Which, while not a smart move on their part, doesn’t seem to be all that unusual given all the examples of weird (though primarily English-speaking courts) trademarks that were challenged and found to be unenforceable. Niconico Video’s already discussing legal steps. I would not be at all shocked to hear ZUN challenging it, as well. The only thing accomplished here was making the maladjusted jerks who sent BOMB THREATS to a law firm look terrible, and if this is anyone’s first impression of the Touhou fandom as a whole I can’t imagine it’s a good one. |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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I really wish ANN would have reported the issue before the (stupid) bomb threat, because it is serious and shows (again) the misuse of trademarks and copyrights.
Nico commented today that they're holding a press conference on the 23th 15:00 JST to discuss the actions they will take (they mentioned talking with ZUN and "other parties"). There's a blog post (Japanese only) that explains the current situation: https://blog.nicovideo.jp/niconews/170666.html It's also worth mentioning that Yuzuha made a "veiled threat" to go after other synthetic voice movie types . That would mean, however, going after Yamaha and Crypton media as well, and I can see that not ending well for the Vtuber.... |
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