I thought stuff like “Explain Like I’m Five” and “AMA” was proprietary to the community, or at least the Reddit community, not Reddit as a company.
I checked and I found at least those subreddit forum names were registered as trademarks.
- TODAY I LEARNED (TIL)
- SHOWERTHOUGHTS
- EXPLAIN LIKE I’M FIVE
- NOSLEEP
- AM I THE ASSHOLE?
- IAMA
- RPAN (actual subreddit name is R/PAN but they messed up the word mark for the registration I think.)
- ASK REDDIT (makes sense since this includes Reddit’s name.)
- NATURE IS FUCKING LIT (I thought you couldn’t register word marks with swearing but I guess I’m wrong. Must be only for offensive terms then…)
- ASK ME ANYTHING (yes somehow this “generic term” is a trademark now…")
- AMA
- ELI5
Also they have some trademark registration applications for WALLSTREETBETS that have not been finalized yet.
AM I THE ASSHOLE?
Yes.
“You made this?”
“I made this.”
Imagine the balls it takes to take user-created forum names and register them as trademarks.
…Isn’t… “Explain Like I’m Five” an Office reference first?
Unexpected !dundermifflin@lemm.ee
IANAL can anyone ELI5 do they have to try and defend these trademarks? And how would that look like, going after Lemmy communities for using TIL, etc?
my understanding (I’m just a tax guy, my brother’s the IP guy) is they have to defend the trademark or they lose it to genericism and saran wrap [edit fuck it’s cellophane]. I could be wrong though.
Wouldn’t these terms being commonly used there and other places like quora, X/twitter, lemmy, etc show that they are already common terms that aren’t viable as brand identifiers of Reddit itself? Which is what trademarks are for. To reduce brand confusion and ensure people can identify a product, good and/or service and know it’s from a source they associate it with.
E.g. Coca Cola is a good example of what you think of when you see the red can, the swirl, and the font with the lettering.
You see it and you know what you’re getting quality wise, etc.
yeah, it’s why they shouldn’t have been granted as trademarks, but what do I know I’m not an IP guy.
Want a hoot? Go search for coke: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results It’s pretty fun.
Most aren’t for soda, since you aren’t going to confuse slag with a drink.
Could simply be a case of protecting their largest assets incase someone big really did try to replace reddit.
IANAL
IANAL is a registered trademark of Reddit and Advance Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Wasn’t ELI5 a line from the Office?
Yup. That episode aired December 2008. r/explainlikeim5 was created in 2012. Can’t tell when r/eli5 was created, as it’s now private.
Eli5 went private?!
If you needed any further proof that stock prices are mostly bullshit, check out the graph for RDDT.
It’s interesting and depressing to me that reddit as a corporate entity is the antithesis of what 90% of active redditors would claim themselves to be. Yet they stay there and participate anyway.
Kind of a metaphor for modern politics if you think about it. Not until people are getting drafted to fight for oil or fresh water will younger people give a shit and change a thing. “My vote doesn’t matter.” Vs. every single conservative person in their country showing up to vote as if their ill-gotten gains depend on it.
Wow, reddit is actually up 23 percent year to date. Boy, if I needed any more evidence we were in an economic bubble than that…
Where does one mail a cease and desist for a non-centralized network?
I assume you’d go to the owner of the instance that hosts that particular community.
Torrents and Federated sites: they can’t give us all a speeding ticket if we’re all speeding
Time to switch to Explain Me Like I’m Six then
Explain like im still a redditor
- RPAN (actual subreddit name is R/PAN but they messed up the word mark for the registration I think.)
They didn’t mess up, it was called RPAN from the start. And that’s something Reddit launched, so it makes sense they’d trademark it.
Nosleep is fucking podcast they can’t own that name can they? Nor Shower thoughts and damn sure TIL.
I don’t even think most of these would hold up in court unless they add “r/” in front of them. Reddit reserves the non-exclusive right to use user content however they want, and I don’t think this includes making user-submitted phrases their trademarks. I haven’t read the ToS though so another clause might reserve this right too. There might be a claim to words like “subreddit”, “r/” and “RPAN” and derivatives because they are based off the “Reddit” trademark.
I’m sure the fine upstanding folks working so earnestly as corporate lawyers will think of something. :D
One more reason I’m done with Reddit.
Apparently there was a trademark problem with WALLSTREETBETS at one point. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/reddit-sued-wallstreetbets-trademark-settlement-1235327626
I think they’d have a hard time defending some but not all of those. I’m sure many of the Redditors heavily involved in those subs, including the mods, have no idea, though!
Sounds like a lawsuit that should definitely happen!