Re: Winter is coming.
"Spring is in the air" anyone got that phrase, should I worry.
What if the kid never watched the telly prog?
HBO slaps takedown demand on 13-year-old girl's painting because it used 'Winter is coming'
It turns out King Joffrey isn't the biggest scumbag at HBO after all. A father says lawyers at the cable TV network demanded his 13-year-old daughter's artwork be taken off the internet after she drew a lovely picture titled "winter is coming" and posted the image to arts'n'craft website RedBubble. "My daughter, who happens …
-
-
Friday 9th December 2016 10:46 GMT Ian Michael Gumby
@ m0rt Re: Winter is coming.
"Winter is coming.
Come and get me you twats."
You do realize that its not just uttering the phrase that gets you in trouble.
Its using that phrase "Winter is Coming" as a title to the artwork that got her picture taken down.
So go outside (especially if you live in the Mid West of the US) and snap a photo and title it "Winter is coming" and then post it online. Then see what happens.
-
-
Friday 9th December 2016 13:23 GMT Wensleydale Cheese
Spartacus is Definitely On Topic today
"I'm Spartacus! (providing Roman slave rebellions aren't effing copyrighted now)."
-
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 21:45 GMT Dwarf
Common sense required
How on earth can common expressions be "owned" by a company.
Winter is coming - its a standard expression used across the world and has been for a very long time. Perhaps I should get a film made where I use the word "Hello" a lot, then go and screw the world for trying to be make contact with other individuals.
So, lets try something :
Winter is coming
Christmas is coming
The new year is coming
Brexit is coming
See, all common expressions, none can be protected if we have freedom of speech.
Time for a reboot on the DMCA. What a bunch of complete idiots.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Friday 9th December 2016 00:22 GMT Mark 85
Re: Common sense required
I would add to your post.. what the fuckity-fuck are they thinking and what the fuckity-fuck was the Trademark Office thinking when they approved this? Prior art? There is if everyday conversation is considered. What's next..."this is the winter of our discontent".??????
-
Friday 9th December 2016 13:56 GMT kmac499
Re: Common sense required
I'm reliably informed that in an earlier work of dramatic historical dynastic fiction there was the line.
''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,''
Which for the sake of HBO legal dept (twinned with Sirius Cybernetic Corp marketng dept) comes from Henry VI, Part II,
-
-
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 22:30 GMT veti
Trademark. Not copyright. Nike is the name of an ancient Greek goddess, but try marketing some kind of sports equipment named after her and see how far you get.
Trademarks are limited in scope - that is, they only cover the situation when the phrase is used to market or sell certain things (and those "things" have to be explicitly listed, by category, in the trademark application or notification). So you might get away with marketing avocados, or ball bearings, using 'Nike'. But not shoes or bags.
In this case, it looks like the publishers have dibs on clothing bearing the phrase, and the website allows you to print it on T-shirts. Hence, infringement.
Not mentioned in the story is whether the website would, in fact, allow you to print this image on a T-shirt. If it would, then much as I hate to admit it, the sharks were right. If not, then I'd say the family should have a good case.
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 22:46 GMT Terry 6
veti No. It's a statement of fact. Winter is coming. And If she or you or I or anyone wants to wear that on a shirt, so be it. It's a common expression - well used ever since humankind was first able to follow the seasons. If she ( or anyone) were to use the typeface, image or characters from the poxy series, that's fair game and they can expect to be approached by lawyers. But the saying/writing/printing of "Winter is coming" belongs to all of us.
-
Friday 9th December 2016 00:22 GMT james 68
common use and prior art.
There are dozens of poems titled "Winter is coming" and the phrase has been used in many novels, tv series and movies, all created many many years before Game of thrones was shat out, and all of which make money.
HBO can fuck right off. Any court challenge where the judge hasn't been bought off would kick HBO in the balls.
-
-
Saturday 10th December 2016 12:38 GMT Ken Hagan
"In this case, it looks like the publishers have dibs on clothing bearing the phrase, and the website allows you to print it on T-shirts. Hence, infringement."
Perhaps the girl should use Google Translate to create a non-English version of the text and upload that instead. I hear that translating random phrases into Arabic is a popular meme right now.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 22:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Arseholes
Surely not Ser George R. R. Martin as well?
Still, I see your point. We are mostly a sad lot of angry assholes who fucked themselves and can't figure out how to do otherwise.
In the grand scheme of things, HBO and those two dufuses who claim responsibility for the atrocity that is the GoT TV show are indeed ignorant assholes who should be burnt at the stake. The books are a kagillion times more entertaining than any of the TV series. AFAIC the HBO show can fuck off to north of the wall. The books are not impressed by the TV show. Not at all. Even with Leslie Rose. Holy crap, she's nice. Everything else must GO!
-
Friday 9th December 2016 00:21 GMT John H Woods
Re: Arseholes
"The books are not impressed by the TV show" --- AC
That's ridiculous, Ser. The books are wonderful, but this has got to be almost the best adaptation that was actually feasible. Each TV season is about 1000 pages of text boiled down to less than 10 hours of screen time. Given the circumstances it's about as faithful as it could possibly be.
-
Friday 9th December 2016 12:16 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Re: Arseholes
Each TV season is about 1000 pages of text boiled down to less than 10 hours of screen time. Given the circumstances it's about as faithful as it could possibly be.
That was actually the biggest problem I had with the TV show. I loved the books, but watching the first few episodes I was constantly thinking either "I remember what happens next" or "Oh, they left out xxx". I gave up after episode 2, despite the excellent Peter Dinklage.
Returning to topic, I can see snow on the mountains. Looks like Winter is coming, HBO.
-
Friday 9th December 2016 12:22 GMT Teiwaz
Re: Arseholes
The TV adaption was well done (stayed mostly faithful to the books, good casting, wardrobe, locations not all CG), but they can't beat the books.
Odd really, all my life I've been waiting for a good adaption of fantasy books, when a few come along I'm no longer that excited after a bit, because I realise you can't beat the the novel format after all.
I think the two Dune takes did it. David Lynchs film version was kind of good (the fan version fixed a lot of issues) and the Sci Fi channel version had it's good points (except characterisations for some, turning Paul into a whinger at the start, and totally lobotomising Gurney Halleck).
-
Saturday 10th December 2016 12:53 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: Arseholes
"I realise you can't beat the the novel format after all."
I think the real truth is that you can't beat the *original* format. Each format has strengths and weaknesses and a competent author will play to the former, making it very hard to produce an equally good "translation" into a different format.
As a result, producers who buy the rights to a book might be better advised to buy the rights to the characters (or universe) depicted therein and then commission someone to write a different story. (This needn't be the original author and unless that author has some experience in the other medium perhaps it shouldn't be.)
I think I read somewhere that JKR made a lot of friends when she first met the producers of the first film and suggested that quite a few things would have to change to make the books filmable. Cue huge sighs of relief from the screenwriting team.
-
-
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 22:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
I thought existing phrases and words could not be copyrighted or trademarked. Hence the advertising industry's penchant for homonym spellings like "beanz".
Garry Kasparov published a book last year with the title "Winter is Coming"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Coming-Vladimir-Enemies-Stopped/dp/1782397868
Church of Void had a song released in 2012
https://churchofvoid.bandcamp.com/album/winter-is-coming
It reminds me of the take-downs of internet domains containing "Java". Leading to the situation of the lawyers demanding compliance by "the country formerly known as Java".
-
Friday 9th December 2016 00:06 GMT Maty
Wouldn't 'homophone spellings be a better usage here? 'Homophones' - apart from gay chat lines, obviously - are words with the same sound (homo = same, phonos = sound) but different spellings. For example 'moat' and 'mote'; or indeed 'beanz' and 'beans'.
Homonyms are words with the same spelling but different meanings, such as the Poles who are from Poland and the poles that hold up phone wires.
I'm aware that there's a certain overlap between the two words, that's why my suggestion is 'better usage' rather than 'correct usage'.
-
Friday 9th December 2016 01:50 GMT mstreet
that's why my suggestion is 'better usage' rather than 'correct usage'.
If you are saying what I think you are, then I disagree strongly. See George Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language', if you want some ideas on the dangers of watering down language for the whims of the few.
Changing the meaning of words to suit the idea you are trying to get across, rather than using the right word in the first place, is what politicians and advertisers have been doing for decades. And how much credence can you put on anything either of those two groups use?
-
Friday 9th December 2016 07:35 GMT Trilkhai
mstreet, chances are that GP used that sentence in order to avoid having the correction cause offense. I often find myself being similarly conciliatory by throwing in "chances are" (like above), "my guess is," "I could be wrong" and similar phrases.
Anyway, it seems to me that most of the damage to our language is now caused by adults not having studied grammar beyond a glance in school as kids, not reading remotely enough to integrate/reinforce the lessons, and the dulling effect of modern everyday life producing an attitude of “if they can figure out generally what I meant, that's good enough.” (In other words, roughly the scenario Orwell outlined in 1984.)
-
-
-
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 22:08 GMT Andy 73
I've had a call
I was woken up at 3am by a call that turned out to be an American lawyer who was concerned that I had used one of their product names in the name of a tool I had written for their product (it made sense at the time). It had not actually occurred to them that I might not live in the US (despite ringing an international dialling code), nor that they could have simply asked instead of going in with full legal threats. It's the latter that brings a chill to the feelings towards heavy handed companies.. almost like winter is coming.
-
-
Friday 9th December 2016 11:18 GMT Jonathan Richards 1
Re: I've had a call
> my speedo pair
Aaahh, when read your first para, I thought "speedo pair" was a euphemism along the lines of "the dog's proverbials", and then I read the last four words, and cognitive dissonance + extreme sympathy resulted!
For readers unfamiliar with rhyming slang, Tea Leaf === Thief
-
-
-
Thursday 8th December 2016 22:12 GMT Brian Miller
If you have enough money and lawyers...
Honestly, this has become so ridiculous. The phrase, "winter is coming," has been around since the concepts of both "winter" and time were formed. And the USPTO allows it to be trademarked.
Yeah, we need reform, but it isn't going to happen any time soon.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
