×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more
You are welcome to look at the talkback but please consider that this article is over 6 years old before posting.

Forum - View topic
Adult Website Cosplay Deviants Relinquishes Trademark of 'Cosplay is NOT Consent' Phrase


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6203
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 7:24 pm Reply with quote
I can't even believe you can trademark something like this. It's not exactly a unique phrase.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
TsukasaHiiragi



Joined: 24 Feb 2010
Posts: 179
PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 8:44 pm Reply with quote
Sadly, you can trademark pretty much anything these days. Look what happened with the No Man's "Sky" case, since Sky TV trademarked that word, Hello Games had to pay them off.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Emerje



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7344
Location: Maine
PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:55 pm Reply with quote
TsukasaHiiragi wrote:
Sadly, you can trademark pretty much anything these days. Look what happened with the No Man's "Sky" case, since Sky TV trademarked that word, Hello Games had to pay them off.

Even Microsoft couldn't do anything about their "sky" copyright. The original name for their OneDrive cloud service was SkyDrive until they were forced to change it despite being spelled out as one word.

In this case I think if his reasoning for having the trademark are so noble then he should have kept it since the next person to take it may not be so well intended.

Emerje
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
valoon



Joined: 01 Apr 2015
Posts: 172
PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 10:37 pm Reply with quote
that's the biggest bullshit i had to hear this month and the month only started...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Joe Carpenter



Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:27 pm Reply with quote
Cosplay Deviants had a panel had a local convention I attended in 2014 complete with a panel discussion of "cosplay is not consent"

Most of it seemed like pretty common sense stuff to me, like asking someone before you take their photo and not grabbing or manhandling anybody, but evidently common sense must have been lacking for this to be necessary.

It's a shame because cosplay should be a fun and safe thing, especially if a girl decides to dress in a pretty racy costume, she should feel safe no matter how much skin she's showing.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2527
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:01 am Reply with quote
it seems to me that Mr Doerner is being a bit of a TM/Patent "troll". He probably found that the phrase was too present in the public domain before his filing and nobody was willing to pay his price or just told him to "get lost". I remember the panels at AX going back several years and if Cosplay Deviants was using it before the filing, legally they lost all rights to redress.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:45 am Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
it seems to me that Mr Doerner is being a bit of a TM/Patent "troll". He probably found that the phrase was too present in the public domain before his filing and nobody was willing to pay his price or just told him to "get lost". I remember the panels at AX going back several years and if Cosplay Deviants was using it before the filing, legally they lost all rights to redress.


So, IOW:
Quote:
In his statement on Tuesday, Doerner addressed the reason for his decision to relinquish the trademark. "The attention brought to the Cosplay is NOT Consent movement with this could have been an opportunity to bring the issue to the spotlight again," he said. "Instead, it got turned into a conversation - not about the movement - but about the opinions about me, my business, and my motivations."

instead of all the discussions of the bringing the issues forward that he hoped for, he discovered the fan conversations kept turning to the subject of what a greedy SOB everyone thought he was. Bummer.

And the hypocrisy that it came from a cosplay-porn site (and a pretty darn amateur one, compared to some of the more professional out there) barely even entered the conversation, since the "Greedy SOB" topic kept being so first and foremost.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber



Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 3017
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:25 am Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
He probably found that the phrase was too present in the public domain before his filing and nobody was willing to pay his price or just told him to "get lost".


With what's been going on in the world of cosplay this past month, I wouldn't go around casting aspersions on anyone in the cosplay community unless I personally knew the dude. They're a pretty agitated bunch right now.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4442
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:09 pm Reply with quote
I'm a little confused about the quotes in the article. Doerner said that he started the trademark process to keep it from being leveraged for profit. Leveraged by whom? Others besides his business? It seems like conventions were using it in a policy sense, and not to make any money. Or did he want to allow that, but prevent it from being used by other sites, etc?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber



Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 3017
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:31 pm Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
I'm a little confused about the quotes in the article. Doerner said that he started the trademark process to keep it from being leveraged for profit. Leveraged by whom?


His claim is that he started the website CosplayIsNotConsent.org with the intent to use it as a hub for advocacy (when I hear issue-oriented sites described like that, I assume that they are centered around curated collections of links to things happening on other websites, similar to the way sites like We Hunted the Mammoth operate... that doesn't seem to be the case here, though), but that some convention wanted to buy the website and use it - and the phrase "Cosplay Is Not Consent" - for marketing purposes.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Lord Oink



Joined: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 876
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:56 pm Reply with quote
Joe Carpenter wrote:
Most of it seemed like pretty common sense stuff to me, like asking someone before you take their photo and not grabbing or manhandling anybody, but evidently common sense must have been lacking for this to be necessary.

It's a shame because cosplay should be a fun and safe thing, especially if a girl decides to dress in a pretty racy costume, she should feel safe no matter how much skin she's showing.


Molesting is one thing, but you don't need permission to photograph someone in a public place. You automatically give consent to be filmed or photographed if you enter a place of business or are in a public area.

BodaciousSpacePirate wrote:
With what's been going on in the world of cosplay this past month, I wouldn't go around casting aspersions on anyone in the cosplay community unless I personally knew the dude. They're a pretty agitated bunch right now.


Please don't cite Polygon as a source, they usually report the opposite of what actually happened.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber



Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 3017
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:34 pm Reply with quote
Lord Oink wrote:
Molesting is one thing, but you don't need permission to photograph someone in a public place. You automatically give consent to be filmed or photographed if you enter a place of business or are in a public area.


Breaking the law =/= being an asshole
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2403
PostPosted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:38 am Reply with quote
BodaciousSpacePirate wrote:
Lord Oink wrote:
Molesting is one thing, but you don't need permission to photograph someone in a public place. You automatically give consent to be filmed or photographed if you enter a place of business or are in a public area.


Breaking the law =/= being an asshole


And taking pictures of people at a public event isn't being an asshole. It is just capturing the event. I guess anyone who has ever covered an event is an asshole because they filmed / photographed in a public space?

Cosplaying in a public space IS consent to take a picture because simply being in public space is consent. Now could you also be an asshole / creep about it? Sure. However, it certainly doesn't automatically make someone an asshole. This also doesn't cover certain types of pictures like up-skirts which does make them a creep and in a lot of places is also not legal.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Joe Carpenter



Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 10:54 pm Reply with quote
It's simply good manners to ask someone before you take their photograph.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8461
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:00 am Reply with quote
Joe Carpenter wrote:
It's simply good manners to ask someone before you take their photograph.


Well, it certainly gets you a better picture.

Generally, I disagree with people who complain about having their pictures taken at public events (though you can argue that a con you have to pay for isn't as public), but I don't want to make a big thing of it. You're not going to endear yourself to the cosplayers or get a good picture out of them if they don't want their picture taken. So there's no reason to make a fuss. Plenty of people will ALLOW you to take pictures of them if you just ask. It can be difficult for the more socially awkward to ask for a photo, but it gets the best results.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website AIM Address My Anime My Manga
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group