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Most of you have probably heard that whatever organisation holds the rights to NC-17 and other ratings is trying to stop people from using them.
Yes, there are links, but I can't provide them, because I wasn't that interested.
However, a fic just got posted to one of my MLs (the crackhead list, you guessed it) with the rating FMR (fanRatedMature)
Which got me thinking.
I did some intellectual property law, including trademarks. In German law, there are various complicated definitions for a trademark that I won't get into. One of the criteria however is that a word which is used for a whole genre of things cannot be protected as a trademark.
Say, if you invent a new car and call it car, you cannot protect the name "car" as a trademark, thus prevent other people from using it.
German law thinks that the word car needs to be free for use by everyone.
Smart law.
This works the other way around as well. For example "jeep", "Jeep" is a name of a certain car, and it is protected as a trademark. "Jeep" however has become so popular and common that it is now used as a general term for off-road vehicles.
Because of that, it has lost some of its protection. You still cannot write "jeep" on every off-road vehicle you want to sell, but no one can prevent you from writing about off-road vehicles under the term "jeep", even if you are writing about Mitsubishis, or for selling a toy car as a a toy-jeep.
(the same is true for the famous Tempo-Taschentuch. Tempo has become a collective term for all sorts of tissues)
I don't know if anything like this exists in US law, and I don't know enough about the specifics of the whole NC-17 thing to make any judgement if that kind of logic is even applicable.
All I'm saying is that just because someone walks around telling people he has the rights to something, it doesn't necessarily have to be true.
And that common sense is sometimes so much more useful then strictly obeying the "law".
Laws are made by people, and they change with the people.
Yes, there are links, but I can't provide them, because I wasn't that interested.
However, a fic just got posted to one of my MLs (the crackhead list, you guessed it) with the rating FMR (fanRatedMature)
Which got me thinking.
I did some intellectual property law, including trademarks. In German law, there are various complicated definitions for a trademark that I won't get into. One of the criteria however is that a word which is used for a whole genre of things cannot be protected as a trademark.
Say, if you invent a new car and call it car, you cannot protect the name "car" as a trademark, thus prevent other people from using it.
German law thinks that the word car needs to be free for use by everyone.
Smart law.
This works the other way around as well. For example "jeep", "Jeep" is a name of a certain car, and it is protected as a trademark. "Jeep" however has become so popular and common that it is now used as a general term for off-road vehicles.
Because of that, it has lost some of its protection. You still cannot write "jeep" on every off-road vehicle you want to sell, but no one can prevent you from writing about off-road vehicles under the term "jeep", even if you are writing about Mitsubishis, or for selling a toy car as a a toy-jeep.
(the same is true for the famous Tempo-Taschentuch. Tempo has become a collective term for all sorts of tissues)
I don't know if anything like this exists in US law, and I don't know enough about the specifics of the whole NC-17 thing to make any judgement if that kind of logic is even applicable.
All I'm saying is that just because someone walks around telling people he has the rights to something, it doesn't necessarily have to be true.
And that common sense is sometimes so much more useful then strictly obeying the "law".
Laws are made by people, and they change with the people.
