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'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

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Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#91

Post by HBKXNCUO »

CM30 wrote: post #87
HBKXNCUO wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We still allow people to publicly criticize products. Yes, but you're not allowed to harm people or businesses by knowingly making false statements about the product in your criticism. I would guess that a negative fictional portrayal of the product would run afoul of that. Satire often uses branding that is fake but similar enough to the real thing that it's obvious what it's meant to portray.

Hmm, I swear quite a few ads often attack rival brands by name, and make them out as significantly worse on questionable grounds. Like many console war era ads in the gaming industry, which were very happy to tear rivals to shreds over things that didn't match reality. So it seems there are definitely ads that attack competitors or make false statements about their products, and they don't all get banned/spark lawsui…

The plaintiff would have to show that they lost revenue as a result of the false statements, which I would think would be particularly difficult to do in that case, because portrayals made openly by a competitor are not as likely to harm the reputation of the company as are portrayals made by someone who does not obviously have anything to gain from the negative portrayal. But that's just a guess.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#92

Post by mnemonicsloth »

Swizec wrote: post #14
solinent wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard example I've heard is for Trampoline. No one calls them rebound tumblers anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampo... I think this is really just a case of lawyers being super-protective. It also pays well, I'm sure. I think a words like Humvee or even Google have coloquially already lost their meaning--their meaning is polymorphic, it's only a matter of time (100 years is a m…

Trader Joe’s makes the best kleenex. And my iPhone captures the best kodak moments. I also enjoy facetiming via Slack. And of course googling for music is best done on Spotify.

Hardly anybody remembers nowadays but Elevators and Fridges used to be brand names (of the Otis Elevator company and Frigidaire, respectively). So the endpoint of nobody remembering that your IP is IP has been reached in practice.

And more recently there's the PC, which became detached from IBM in record time.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#93

Post by doperroper »

filoleg wrote: post #13
djsumdog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, so this serve the companies interest because they're trying to defend their trademark; even if they failed. I doubt Humvee is in danger of becoming a generic term (Jeep is more likely; I cannot tell you much my it annoyed me my ex called her Suzuki 4x4 a "Jeep" .. it's not a Jeep! It's a 4x4 or off-roader.." but if they enter into other trademark battles, the opposing council can't say "Well they haven't tried t…

Interesting you bring up a point about Jeep. Never once in the US I've heard of a non-Jeep-made SUV referred to as a "Jeep". But back when I lived in Russia, every single SUV was referred to as a "Jeep". I don't even know of another word for SUV in Russian. Not trying to argue against you btw, I just personally find stuff like this interesting. EDIT: just checked the wikipedia page for SUV in russian, and yep, in the…

i can answer that. russians are retarded (source: am russian). they see a new thing, and think anything written on the side is the name of it. Examples: marker =flomaster. clearly flow master, name of the guys who made the first marker seen in russia. hard drive =winchester. the model of the first hdd seen by russians. and don't try to tell them black olives are olives. they're masleeny, translating to 'oily'. because the first green oluves russians saw were in water, and the black ones were in oil. so they're not olives.

not limited to russians. i hangul, pantyhose is 'pantysuitking'

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#94

Post by LatteLazy »

smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

In the US you generally have to pay your own fees, even if you successfully defend a suit. So I guess it makes sense for Humvee: they need a legal department for when there are real lawsuits. They have to pay them all the time, as they don't know when a real suit will hit them. So in the mean time, why not file frivolous bs like this? The margin cost is zero. If a real suit comes in, you just drop the bs one. And you might get an insane judge and actually win! And if you don't, at least it kept everyone busy for a year.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#95

Post by LatteLazy »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #22
smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Even worse in case of other vehicles like racing cars. Imagine a racing game in which Porsche cars are slowest and break more often than other cars. You wouldn't want your brand to be associated with that, even if it's a videogame. Or imagine a completely broken game with popular car. Bi…

Having lost the suit and left COD with a legal bill, it would serve them right if the in fame version were nerfed and all painted pink...

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#96

Post by rhinoceraptor »

filoleg wrote: post #13
djsumdog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, so this serve the companies interest because they're trying to defend their trademark; even if they failed. I doubt Humvee is in danger of becoming a generic term (Jeep is more likely; I cannot tell you much my it annoyed me my ex called her Suzuki 4x4 a "Jeep" .. it's not a Jeep! It's a 4x4 or off-roader.." but if they enter into other trademark battles, the opposing council can't say "Well they haven't tried t…

Interesting you bring up a point about Jeep. Never once in the US I've heard of a non-Jeep-made SUV referred to as a "Jeep". But back when I lived in Russia, every single SUV was referred to as a "Jeep". I don't even know of another word for SUV in Russian. Not trying to argue against you btw, I just personally find stuff like this interesting. EDIT: just checked the wikipedia page for SUV in russian, and yep, in the…

One example I can think of, is in 'Gimme the Loot', Biggie refers to an 'Isuzu Jeep'.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#97

Post by LatteLazy »

wmf wrote: post #11
smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

Video games were paying licensing fees to arms makers for a while so they just wanted in on that.

Really? Who has done that?

Edit, Google says some people did it till 2013...

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#98

Post by Supermancho »

smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

> the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious.

The CoD brand makes enough money to blink at. I'm 100% sure that one strategy was to win the suit and demand license fees for use of the name.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#99

Post by rospaya »

saagarjha wrote: post #16
CM30 wrote: post #15

Have to be honest, I've always thought complaints about trademarked products in works of fiction were a silly thing to begin with. Why shouldn't a fictional universe feature products and businesses found in the real world? Are we supposedly to randomly assume all other universes don't have humvees or macbooks or the Red Cross? Who's to say the same people/companies/organisations would even be responsible in that work…

What if I took your product and had it fail spectacularly in my movie?

This reminds me of Apple's policy recently made public by director Rian Johnson, that can spoil multiple movies.

* SPOILER AHEAD *

While Apple will let you use an iPhone on film, they won't approve it being used by a villain.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#100

Post by MereInterest »

solinent wrote: post #9
crooked-v wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called trademark erosion. An example of this historically would be aspirin, which was originally a trademarked brand name of Bayer but was legally ruled in 1918 and 1921 to have become genericized, because the company took no actions to prevent others from using the name. This generally only applies when non-holders use the trademark to market in the same field as the original business, though: not "we went t…

The standard example I've heard is for Trampoline. No one calls them rebound tumblers anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampo... I think this is really just a case of lawyers being super-protective. It also pays well, I'm sure. I think a words like Humvee or even Google have coloquially already lost their meaning--their meaning is polymorphic, it's only a matter of time (100 years is a m…

Wikipedia has a good list of trademarks in various states of becoming generic. It's interesting to read and think how silly it is how many terms still have protection despite not having any mental association with a particular company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

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