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Get Overly Aggressive With Your Trademark... And Watch Your Reputation Fall
from the can't-be-good-for-business dept
We wrote recently about how an author and her lawyer appeared to be quite overaggressive in trying to enforce the trademark on the title of a book she had written. As someone pointed out in the comments on that post, as the story has grown more popular, many people are coming out of the woodwork to express their displeasure with the book in the Amazon reviews. So, once again, it's a case where being overly aggressive on trademark is doing significant harm to business prospects.
Imagine, instead, if Susan Jeffers, rather than having her lawyer send a letter demanding credit, had simply emailed the author of the original blog post and said "Hey, this is a great blog post, and I've written this book you might be interested in, which even uses that same phrase you mentioned, 'feel the fear and do it anyway.' I'm sure you'd like the book, so let me send you a copy. Thanks!" Think what might have happened? The blogger would likely have been interested, seeing as the topic of the book is similar to what he writes about, and he might even write a review or mention her book positively in future blog posts. But, instead, she jumped to the legal route, and is now suffering the consequences.
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Reader Comments (rss)
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going the lawyer route
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Hmm
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A dash of irony
Robert Riddle - "A bland and overly generic book, just a repeat of ideas I've heard many times. Looks like the author just took a bunch of ideas that have been around forever and decided to write them down as if they were her own."
And Frettful "J" - "[...] Oh by the way, I'm pending a copyright for this comment. This will be a registered trademark, and so if you wish to use this phrase for any purpose whatsoever, you are required to contact me."
Oh crap... I better email Frettful "J"...
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And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
Sure, there's a correlation, but when most of those reviews are stupid one-liners, there's no way I'd take those as "reviews".
Just bullshit.
The entire point of a review is to convey the opinion of the material at hand.
Anyone who takes these one-liners as a "review" is a complete moron.
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Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
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Actually, Jeffers' reputation isn't in that much trouble.
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Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
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Re: Hmm
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Re: Re: Hmm
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Re: Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
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Re: Actually, Jeffers' reputation isn't in that much trouble.
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Re:
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Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
>the real question?
These Lawyers are professional moron's in a hurry to build up billable hours.
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One line reviews
I love watching overzealous copyright holders shoot themselves in the foot. Or, more accurately, they get shot in the foot by their own lawyers.
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Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
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Re: And this is why I stay the hell away from reviews.
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bad review SPAMing
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Feel the review
YMMV
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Who knows, the bad publicity might have sold more books.
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I seem to remember...
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Re: bad review SPAMing
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Re: I seem to remember...
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You'll need to be an idiot
Reviews like this
check it out, this book was so trite and useless that I actually recieved more help from a homeless man that I had given a nickle to. He was more helpful than this book and when I tried to offer it to him, he balked and spat at my feet as if I had insulted by my precieved gesture of kindness. Nonetheless I fell disheartened from this exchange and felt the need to tell the savy consumers of Amazon that this book will only be useful if you enjoy reading regurgitated common ideas. [...]
Are so obviously made up, and no one will believe them, but some people may find this book useful. You're only hurting them if you steer them away with lies
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