Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: SalvatosThe CYOA company is probably just angry because unlike Kleenex and others, a lot of people don’t even realize that it’s a brand and not a generic term, so they don’t get as much promotional value from other companies keeping the term alive.

The fact that people don't even realize it refers to your brand is probably the best possible argument for something not being a trademark.

Quoting: CFWhitmanI wanted to point out that trademark law is probably the most supportable form of so-called "intellectual property." Trademark law is a consumer protection law. The purpose of trademark is to prevent dishonesty in the marketplace. Trademark is a way of making sure that you are dealing with the company that you think you are. Without it, anyone could pretend to be representing a company that they have nothing to do with. With trademark you know that the mayonnaise that you bought is Hellman's or Cain's, the car you bought is a Toyota or a Chevrolet, etc. Without it you can't be sure of any of these things.

Does this mean that trademark is never abused? Of course not. I pointed out things that I thought were abuses in a previous post. That doesn't mean that trademark is a bad thing overall.

The best argument against this trademark is that protection for it wasn't pursued diligently enough in the years between when the books were popular and just recently. The phrase may seem generic now, but it was quite original back when the books were first introduced.

Except it fails spectacularly at any of this. It is never a case of consumers suing, it is the company. It works to stop what should be legitimate uses of descriptive phrases, fair use of character names, and the use of symbols and terms that are useful to the public. It is like a soft copyright more than anything.

And it doesn't even get close to preventing consumer confusion. That one would take much more burdensome regulation on what forms of marketing, brands, slogans and packaging are acceptable. If you want people to know what they are buying, having several brands with the same owner is a no-go. Full disclosure of production chains and affiliations should be strictly required. Changes to products and packaging should be even more heavily regulated.

Trademark does not fail spectacularly. It mostly succeeds (though not completely; consumers can be a bit gullible).

Of course consumers don't sue over trademark. They don't have standing to do so. The fact that trademark protects the company with the trademark from being legally impersonated doesn't mean consumers are not protected from being fooled as well. Most of the good that trademark does is accomplished without lawsuits because people already know they would be the target of a lawsuit if they violated it.

It is not trademark's purpose to inform people that two different brands are owned by the same company. You would need another regulation for that. Also, it is possible for two different brands to actually have substantial differences while still being owned by the same company.

The fact that trademark is sometimes overextended and abused does not make it ineffective for legitimate purposes.

The idea that the phrase "Choose Your Own Adventure" now seems too generic to be a trademark is an allowed defense for a trademark lawsuit if the defendant can show enough use of the phrase for some period of time that was not stopped by the plaintiff or use of the phrase by someone other than the plaintiff within the scope of the trademark suit that predated the registration of the trademark. Of course not every case goes as it should. If you want the law to be perfect and perfectly applied, then you'll have to look elsewhere than laws created and/or applied by imperfect people.

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I wanted to point out that trademark law is probably the most supportable form of so-called "intellectual property." Trademark law is a consumer protection law. The purpose of trademark is to prevent dishonesty in the marketplace. Trademark is a way of making sure that you are dealing with the company that you think you are. Without it, anyone could pretend to be representing a company that they have nothing to do with. With trademark you know that the mayonnaise that you bought is Hellman's or Cain's, the car you bought is a Toyota or a Chevrolet, etc. Without it you can't be sure of any of these things.

Does this mean that trademark is never abused? Of course not. I pointed out things that I thought were abuses in a previous post. That doesn't mean that trademark is a bad thing overall.

The best argument against this trademark is that protection for it wasn't pursued diligently enough in the years between when the books were popular and just recently. The phrase may seem generic now, but it was quite original back when the books were first introduced.

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Quoting: hagabaka

Quoting: CFWhitmanTo be honest, this sounds like a fairly legitimate claim to me. The "Choose Your Own Adventure" series of books was pretty popular in the eighties, and everyone knew that the phrase referred to a very specific series of books. That phrase did not exist in English before those books came out. Some competitors released similar material, but they had to use a different name.

The thing is, the ability to trademark some words isn't related to whether you "invented" or popularized those words. Otherwise Apple couldn't be a trademark. So I don't think this adds to the legitimacy of the claim.

There are several factors involved, but originality is a big one. If another company had already sold a line of computers they referred to as "Apple" computers, then Apple couldn't have trademarked their name.* As I explained before, the more original the trademark is, the wider a scope it can cover. The less original it is, the narrower the scope it must be limited to, and it always must be original to its scope. So yes, originality is a factor in trademark cases.

*Apple actually did have a lawsuit on its hands when they created the Apple Music service, because Apple Records existed before Apple Computers.

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To be honest, this sounds like a fairly legitimate claim to me. The "Choose Your Own Adventure" series of books was pretty popular in the eighties, and everyone knew that the phrase referred to a very specific series of books. That phrase did not exist in English before those books came out. Some competitors released similar material, but they had to use a different name.

With trademark claims like this one, the more specific the wording of the trademark is, the less specific its application has to be. It follows that the less specific the wording is, the more specific the application has to be. So a one generic word trademark, like "Apple" (not very specific), is only trademarkable in a very specific context. On the other hand a specifically worded clause such as "Choose Your Own Adventure" can have a wider latitude of application. If the company is still around trying to use the trademark, then they must try to enforce it.

On the other hand, Monster Cable has been trying to trademark the word "monster" in almost any context for several years now. Part of their effort seems to be nuisance lawsuits aimed at large companies that they offer convenient settlements for, which are less trouble than going to court. Their lawsuits are a real trademark travesty, and you wouldn't expect them to hold up for a minute if one of the companies sued (who aren't selling cables) actually took the trouble to take them to court rather than going for the expediency of the settlement.

However, the Life Is Good company has managed to trademark the phrase "Life is good" at least for use on t-shirts and coffee cups, even though the phrase seems to have been fairly common in English and been too generic to trademark before they started using it. That trademark seems ridiculous to me, but it has stood up. Compared to that trademark, "Choose Your Own Adventure" would seem to be obviously legitimate.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: CFWhitmanIn case anyone reading this cares and doesn't know, you can play Beneath a Steel Sky for free on ScummVM for Linux since it was an old DOS game, and the company that owns it has released it for free for use on the ScummVM platform.

Yeah and it is even a standalone game in the ubuntu repos so you can play it if you do not have ScummVM. (I adore ScummVM). I recall seeing a friend of mine playing it on a 486 back in the times. Still a playable game. ^_^

If you install the package on Ubuntu, in order to run it ScummVM will be installed as well. There are also Drascula, Flight of the Amazon Queen, and Lure of the Temptress available for ScummVM through the Ubuntu repositories. There are more free games available through the ScummVM Web site.

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In case anyone reading this cares and doesn't know, you can play Beneath a Steel Sky for free on ScummVM for Linux since it was an old DOS game, and the company that owns it has released it for free for use on the ScummVM platform.

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Quoting: sub

Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: sub

Quoting: kaiman

Quoting: subNot sure about the legal situation in the US but here (Germany) I'm pretty sure,
that would be a contract that can't be single-sided cancelled in that way.

Not sure about the content of Valve's terms and conditions, but I would assume they say something like "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order". At least I've seen verbiage to that point in plenty of German online stores. In which case you're not only out of luck, but also out of any possible recourse.

That said, I'm always baffled when companies don't manage to keep tabs on their inventory and either sell more than they have in stock, or keep selling stuff they've actually ran out of. Had that happen to me a couple of times, with shops both small and large. But life goes on ...

First off, life goes on, indeed. :)

Yet, terms and conditions have to be legal and conform to where you sell.
Thinking a big company like Valve is OFC always in good shape with their terms would be naive.
I want to see those terms "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order".
I know terms like "the produce stays property of company xyz until delivered",
but that's a totally different thing.

The problem I see is that this case is legally covered by distortion of competition (not intentionally in the case for sure, but still - technically).
Make a very good offer - as it was in this case - attract customers and many of them will additionally buy other products. Then revert only that offer. WIN $$$.
I guess the simplified picture makes the problem clear and why EU considers this, among others, "unfair contract terms".
It was exactly like this in my case.
I bought a game with the SC and they just refunded the SC.
Not the whole purchase.

In the United States this tactic is known as "Bait and switch," and is illegal, but can be difficult to prove at times.

I don't think Valve is using this as a tactic here, but, yeah, it belongs to the same legal subject.

Thing is, it's just 13 EUR.
So not really worth going court.

Yet, it makes me angry that big companies often get away with that.
Like in this case.

In the US (although this may vary from state to state if it is covered by state consumer laws; I'm not certain if it falls under state or federal consumer protection laws) to sue a company for a variation of the bait and switch tactic, you basically have to prove intent. In other words you have to prove that they planned it all along. Considering that I don't think Valve even did this on purpose, that would be hard to do in this case.

The easiest way to prove a bait and switch scheme is to show that a company almost invariably sold the same type of merchandise at a higher price. For example, if Steam sold two controller models, advertised the one, and then asked if you would like to buy the other at a higher price when they didn't have the first one in stock.

I've talked to someone who worked for a company that did this before the consumer protection laws were passed (something like forty or fifty years ago). The company would have an item advertised, and they were so blatant about this tactic that they would not stock any of the item advertised at their stores at all. There would only be one floor model at each store. If a salesman actually honored the ad and sold the floor model, he would get in very big trouble at the company. Some salesmen, however, were very honest and would tell people about the tactic and why they couldn't sell the floor model, which is probably part of what led to the adoption of the laws against this.

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Quoting: sub

Quoting: kaiman

Quoting: subNot sure about the legal situation in the US but here (Germany) I'm pretty sure,
that would be a contract that can't be single-sided cancelled in that way.

Not sure about the content of Valve's terms and conditions, but I would assume they say something like "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order". At least I've seen verbiage to that point in plenty of German online stores. In which case you're not only out of luck, but also out of any possible recourse.

That said, I'm always baffled when companies don't manage to keep tabs on their inventory and either sell more than they have in stock, or keep selling stuff they've actually ran out of. Had that happen to me a couple of times, with shops both small and large. But life goes on ...

First off, life goes on, indeed. :)

Yet, terms and conditions have to be legal and conform to where you sell.
Thinking a big company like Valve is OFC always in good shape with their terms would be naive.
I want to see those terms "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order".
I know terms like "the produce stays property of company xyz until delivered",
but that's a totally different thing.

The problem I see is that this case is legally covered by distortion of competition (not intentionally in the case for sure, but still - technically).
Make a very good offer - as it was in this case - attract customers and many of them will additionally buy other products. Then revert only that offer. WIN $$$.
I guess the simplified picture makes the problem clear and why EU considers this, among others, "unfair contract terms".
It was exactly like this in my case.
I bought a game with the SC and they just refunded the SC.
Not the whole purchase.

In the United States this tactic is known as "Bait and switch," and is illegal, but can be difficult to prove at times.

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I just got a shipping notification for a Steam Controller today. Weird.

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Quoting: Sojiro84I bought the Steam Controller again a few months ago with Sekiro to give it another try. The first one went to the trash after I was unable to play a game with it.

Unfortunately, after trying and giving it a honest try, I still just cant play with the Steam Controller. I lack feedback with the touch thingy and therefore shooters and third person games are impossible to play.

Maybe if I tried for days on end for 3 months I might get used to it, but that is way too much time to learn a new controller.

So I went back the the XONE controller in the end. Don't fix what ain't broken IMHO.

I know a common issue people have with the Steam Controller is not taking proper advantage of the accelerometer. People try to use the touchpads to take the place of mouse control in situations where the accelerometer works better. Of course it doesn't seem to be for everyone, and it takes some getting used to.

I once had a Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike controller, and other people tried it and thought I was crazy to use it. I played through Half-Life in its entirety with that controller, though. I actually quite liked it. The digital thumb stick (which I used for movement, like WASD keys with a mouse/keyboard set up) broke on it, and I repaired it. I continued to use it until the microswitches for the buttons started to go bad. Of course there was no replacement available. I think controllers with an accelerometer to take the place of mouse aiming, like the Steam controller, are probably the closest thing to a replacement for it now.

Edit: I wanted to add that I haven't really used a Steam Controller because I haven't taken the time to set it up and get used to it. I've now used a mouse and keyboard so much that I don't have the same degree of desire to have a controller to control first person shooters that I had back in 1999. I still plan on trying it though because there are certain advantages to playing by feel with a controller over a keyboard (i.e., you're less likely to hit the wrong button when under pressure with a controller).

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