{"id":461,"date":"2006-05-31T10:10:07","date_gmt":"2006-05-31T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=461"},"modified":"2006-05-31T10:29:59","modified_gmt":"2006-05-31T18:29:59","slug":"truth-is-stranger-than-fiction-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/?p=461","title":{"rendered":"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION DEPARTMENT"},"content":{"rendered":"

It's funny. I know pretty much everyone in this bizarre thread<\/a> by Tom Raftery, and can't actually believe my eyes as I read it.   I wonder if, when we get all the other licensing issues worked out in the identity sphere, we'll find out Dick Hardt<\/a> has trademarked Identity 2.0? (just joking, I think!)<\/p>\n

Marc Canter called Cory Doctorow out<\/font><\/a> yesterday. He said:<\/p>\n

Cory Doctorow is one of the leading critics of DRMs, DMCA, copyright laws and the status quo – which often pits lawyers vs us. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worked for the EFF for years and helped found the #1 blog – Boing Boing. <\/p>\n

But he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a close buddy of Tim O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly and Rael Dornfest and helps create the Etech conference every year – which is the cornerstone of the O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly Web 2.0 empire.<\/p>\n

So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gone be back and scanned BoingBoing over the last 36 hours – and guess what?<\/p>\n

I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find a statement from Cory on his good buddy Tim – suing Tom Raftery – who is now MY good buddy, since I did a podcast with him, met him in Dublin at a Web 2.0 event and will be going to Cork – in November to speak.<\/p>\n

I take shit like this personally.<\/p>\n

So this is a public all out to Cory \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hey Cory – wassup dude? Which side are you on?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/div>\n

Cory has subsequently come out of the woodwork<\/font><\/a> with as biased a piece on this Web 2.0 furore as I have seen outside of the O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly blog<\/font><\/a>.<\/p>\n

At first glance the article seems even-handed, reasonable even, until you realise that Cory has only linked to two articles in his post: 1) the O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly response and 2) John Battelle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response (John Battelle has a working relationship both with Cory and O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly).<\/p>\n

Then consider Cory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s language, he says that the dispute has been resolved amicably and that O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/p>\n

has granted the con[ference] permission to use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Web 2.0\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 in its name<\/div>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sorry, what? They have granted us permission<\/em> to use the phrase Web 2.0 in our conference? Wow, that was really generous of them, NOT. Should we also apply to them for permission to use the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153conference\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in our conference title?<\/p>\n

What if I trademarked the name Cory Doctorow here in Ireland. It wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be that hard, there can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be that many Cory Doctorow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s here. Then say I got my legal team to send threatening cease and desist letters to Cory Doctorow saying I had trademarked that name in Ireland and that he had better refrain from using the name in the US. Then say I finally relented, called off the legal dogs, and said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ok Cory, you can use the name Cory Doctorow – I will give you my permission to use it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Would Cory feel I had been particularly generous to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcallow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 him to use the name?<\/p>\n

Of course not. Similarly, a trademark issued in the US has no jurisdiction whatsoever in Ireland. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have no trademark for the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Web 2.0\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 in Ireland. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s did not grant us permission to use the term – they had no authority over our use of the term in the first place.<\/p>\n

Cory, if you are going to write a biased post that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fine, everyone is entitled to that but you should really disclose your relationships with the parties you blog about (and link to the relevant posts rather than only linking to your friends).<\/p>\n

UPDATE – Robert Hyndman has a fabulous post <\/font><\/a>on the selfishness of trying to trade mark a term as generic as Web 2.0.
\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let the bells ring and the banners fly. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Reilly has granted an Irish conference permission to use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Web 2.0\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 in its name…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}