Paraphrasing from one of the comments there:
IMAX's legal counsel failed to see the big picture.
IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
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Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#82Someone refer them to Charles Carreon, pronto!
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it does not create "consumer confusion". Consumer confusion means consumers might be lead to think Product A, with a far to similar a name to Product B, literally is Product B. It's not at all about relative value comparison like "as good as" or "better than". You can put competitor products' names on your package , in your advertising , to make comparisons. Facebook could make ads selling themselves as "Facebook…
If someone (such as OP) believes that SteamVR can be a competitive experience with IMAX, then they can believe it can be certified or licensed by IMAX. Thus consumer confusion is possible here. And there's a difference in saying "Twice the resolution of IMAX!" (for example) and saying "It's like having an IMAX theater in your house." Those aren't the same kinds of statements.
"Like" is not the same as "is". For a consumer to be confused, it would be no fault of the speaker, because the speaker expressed themselves correctly. Your argument is that users could misinterpret what is said, willfully ignore the meaning of words. By that standard, I could say "my product has nothing to do with IMAX" and someone could choose to ignore it and say "he said IMAX! It must be IMAX." No court is going to apply such a standard, because it is ludicrous.
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#84Paraphrasing from one of the comments there: IMAX's legal counsel failed to see the big picture.
I see what you did there. However, I think they do see the big picture. VR is a huge threat to their marketshare; if relatively small screens and a couple nice lenses can give an experience people find comparable, it's going to be a lot harder to sell their gear at their current price points. The fact that VR's getting to the point where some people are finding it comparable to the "IMAX Experience" is showing that in a generation or two, it will be there for the majority of people.
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#85I can only imagine the precious 5 seconds of thought given to the decision to respond to Ars by the IMAX Chief Admin Officer:
"Hmm, we know we have nothing to stand on here, but if we politely ask Ars to remove references to IMAX and they do, matter ends there. If Ars doesn't comply, we just lost 5 minutes of drafting this pointless letter. Nothing really to lose."
Hits send.
The irony? IMAX is now paying the real cost of that poor decision. Bad publicity and worse - the revelation that they are insecure about and feel threatened by emergent technologies. Talk about pissing on your own product.
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
But who is calling just any theater "IMAX"? If I say to my wife, "hey let's go to the IMAX", she's going to ask me why we would pay that much when we can just go to the theater instead. If there's any dilution of the IMAX brand going on, it's by IMAX themselves by constantly lowering their standards. Something else you have to consider is intent. It doesn't seem that Ars intended to dilute IMAX's brand by publishing…
>But who is calling just any theater "IMAX"? I'm not saying any theater but I have noticed that some visitors to Epcot refer to the Canada and China 360-degree movies as "IMAX". The actual designation is "CircleVision 360". But people don't remember that 7-syllable trademark. The first word that comes to the tip of their tongue is "IMAX" because that word has become a placeholder for " any immersive large screen expe…
Kleenex could have rebranded as Snot Rag. "Hand me a Snot Rag?, I need to clean my glasses."
The difference is that Kleenex facial tissues and Otis Escalators (moving staircases?) are unique terms that have no other well known counterparts or alternative generic terms. It is unlikely that IMAX is going to replace the generic term movie theater, and even less likely that the general public is going to distinguish between movie theater and large screen format movie theater -- it's just a bigger screen for what is otherwise the same.
Do people make a distinction between THX and Dolby Digital sound systems in theaters and say let's go see something at the THX or Dolby Digital? That doesn't happen because those technologies only contribute to the experience, they don't define it as something unique.
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trademark erosion is about using a trademark to describe a similar but differently-branded product. Like if you said, "I saw Star Trek at the IMAX last night" when in fact that theater is not IMAX©®™ƒ branded, but some other big-screen movie theater. Real-life examples include "give me a kleenex" when you just want any random facial tissue, "give me a coke" when you're just asking for any soft drink (this use is comm…
> "I saw Star Trek at the IMAX last night" This is actually still an example of trademark erosion, even if referring to an actual IMAX theater. This is using the brand to refer to the abstract thing. It's not an IMAX. It's an IMAX theater . For a relevant example, look at Google's guidance to journalists. They say not to write "I googled X", but "I searched for X using Google". Using "google" as the verb, even when l…
Right, I think that's what was written. The post said that that use of IMAX would be trademark erosion.
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#88IMAX demands are ridiculous, but Ars's claim that IMAX is merely used as an example of "something awesome" is dubious when high quality VR happens to provide a substitute for going to an IMAX theater. This is why IMAX is annoyed: they understand that VR is a huge threat to their business. The reason watching a movie on a very large screen is better than watching it up-close on a small screen is that in the case of th…
> With VR, you can effectively simulate an infinitely large screen infinitely far away. In theory. But the "further" away you project the virtual movie screen, the higher the resolution of the VR headset needs to be to support it. And considering that VR screens are already an inch from your face (and thus require a high-ish resolution to just basically "work") we're talking about better-than-exist resolution screens…
Glass is not VR and it isn't even AR. It is a HUD and head mounted sensor array.
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#89I can imagine SteamVR later putting up a marketing site quoting Ars' original article headline like this:
"SteamVR ... feels like an 'IMAX in your house'" --Ars Technica
Re: IMAX’s absurd attempt to censor Ars
#90I can imagine SteamVR later putting up a marketing site quoting Ars' original article headline like this: "SteamVR ... feels like an 'IMAX in your house'" --Ars Technica Is it possible that people would start confusing SteamVR and IMAX then?
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