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Seth Godin Tries Out Brandjacking

outspokenmedia.com

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Re: Seth Godin Tries Out Brandjacking

#11

Post by MrMatt »

patio11 wrote: post #8
MrMatt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand the legalities of this. What is to stop a company listed on there from suing for trademark infringement?

If they're smart, the fact that precisely nothing would make Seth's day more than being sued by a large corporation trying to stamp down on the little guy trying to expose their horrible business practices. Seth can't get his new business venture onto the front page of the NYT by himself, after all -- he needs your legal department to make that happen. The rest of the Fortune 500 will promptly DDOS his order takers w…

So to summarize - This wouldn't constitute trademark infringement.

Re: Seth Godin Tries Out Brandjacking

#12

Post by mseebach »

MrMatt wrote: post #7
patio11 wrote: post #2

Like GetSatisfaction, stripped to its essentials this is "I have an authority domain and can rank for your brand name. Such a wonderful brand, would hate to see anything happen to it. $5,000 a year is cheap to you, isn't it?"

I'm not sure I understand the legalities of this. What is to stop a company listed on there from suing for trademark infringement?

It's not illegal to talk about a trademark or collect information about it, and present that. A newspaper article talking about a bunch of negative blogposts and tweets about a brand is not infringement, and Squidoo isn't much different.

It's illegal to try to pass yourself off as someone affiliated with or endorsed by someone when that's not the case by using their trademark. The five instances of the word "unofficial" all displayed prominently above the fold on the Squidoo pages should take care of that.

Re: Seth Godin Tries Out Brandjacking

#19

Post by calambrac »

After looking at the actual site, the worst thing about it turns out to be the logo. Seriously, the two squids holding tentacles is one of the most disturbing SFW images I've seen in a while.

Anyways, I don't see anything about this that's as horribly unethical as the picture the article is trying to paint. It's certainly not as bad as the Get Satisfaction fiasco, where GS was doing everything short of directly claiming to be an official support channel for companies that had no affiliation. This is just a lame aggregation with a lamer business model. I'm more disappointed in Seth for a lack of creativity, style, and value.

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