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Why would you mention not putting AFOL and LUGNET on the same shirt? What's the
connection? Is there some kind of general rule about mixing non-trademarks with
trademarks?
In lugnet.faq, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> [...] For example John
> Neal and I did "I read Lugnet(tm)" shirts. We checked with Todd first,
> and honored his font choices, to a certain extent. We also did not put
> AFOL and LUGNET on the same shirt.
>
> (goes on to explain that the LUGNET logo can't be used on physical objects)
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Robert Munafo wrote:
>
> Why would you mention not putting AFOL and LUGNET on the same shirt? What's the
> connection?
Because I remembered it... we had a pretty intense discussion about it
at the time, and we respected Todd's wishes. Timeframe was
February-March of this year.
This post, while neither the start or the beginning of the thread, is a
place to start reading.
http://www.lugnet.com/market/buy-sell-trade/?n=1130
> Is there some kind of general rule about mixing non-trademarks with
> trademarks?
The general rule is that you have to get concurrance from all the
trademark holders on what you want to do. I once husbanded the creation
of a shirt with 7 different company logos on it and it was a bit of work
to get full alignment.
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
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NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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In lugnet.faq, "Robert Munafo" <munafo@gcctech.com> writes:
> Why would you mention not putting AFOL and LUGNET on the same shirt? What's the
> connection? Is there some kind of general rule about mixing non-trademarks with
> trademarks?
Probably not worth mentioning. It's a personal thing. I cringe every time
I see term AFOL because it looks like AOL and, as the person who coined it
several years ago pointed out, it looks like "a fool." It also reminds me
of at least two army acronyms. I can't help thinking all of those every
time I see it. It's too bad that ALF (Adult LEGO Fan) conjurs up visions of
the 80's sitcom of the same name.
Another reason was that, although LUGNET currently is most appealing to
adults (and this is by design at this stage in its development), it's really
not an adult-only thing. We don't want people to get the wrong impression
that it's only for adults, because it's really for everyone regardless of
age.
--Todd
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Thanks Todd, I get it now. It's good to hear from you since it's your trademark
we're talking about (-:
I happen to dislike "AFOL" personally because it reminds me of "SMOF", "secret
masters of fandom", (which is a card in the Illuminati trading card game), a
reference to sci-fi fans, and that reminds me of sci-fi conventions.
However, I do want to point out that I have used the acronym just once, in one
of my FAQ answer submissions, this one:
http://www.lugnet.com/faq/?n=557
because the phenomenon I was describing is, as far as I can tell, universal to
adults and fairly rare among children. That is to say, children seem to be a
lot more creative and flexible, and undemanding, regarding the appearance of
their LEGO creations than adults. I think it's because adults are too picky.
- Robert Munafo
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In lugnet.faq, Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> writes:
> Robert Munafo wrote:
> > Why would you mention not putting AFOL and LUGNET on the same shirt? What's the
> > connection?
>
> Because I remembered it... we had a pretty intense discussion about it
> at the time, and we respected Todd's wishes. Timeframe was
> February-March of this year.
Hey, you almost make it sound like there was some kind of heated discussion/
argument/debate or something. I thought it was all very civilized, with
mostly just questions and answers and things. (Were you holding back anger
or frustration?? What causes you to say "intense" (above), or am I reading
into what you wrote too much?)
> This post, while neither the start or the beginning of the thread, is a
> place to start reading.
>
> http://www.lugnet.com/market/buy-sell-trade/?n=1130
I think you used the word "prohibit" in some form there. I think what we
really said was...
"We'd rather not see AFOL or 'Adult Fan of LEGO' associated with LUGNET in
any way. While it is true that LUGNET currently happens to be frequented
primarily by adults, this will not always be the case, and we don't want
to build that association.
"By design, the site currently appeals to adults much more than to
children, and this is a necessary seeding stage, to set the tone and
minimize the overhead of tech-support (kids have no end to questions).
Later, we'll focus more on the younger crowd. 3-5 years down the road,
we'll be looking at very large number of users aged 12 and under. Of
course, kids won't participate much in commerce or newsgroup discussions
or many of the things that adults do, but there are infinite
possibilities later for fun things to do that will appeal to kids of
all ages."
because I don't think we could actually "prohibit" the use of AFOL and
LUGNET on the same shirt, at least not in the context of a declarative
informational sentence such as "I read LUGNET." OTOH, I think we can
prohibit, say, the use of the AFOL directly beneath the LUGNET logo in place
of the name "LUGNET" (not that anyone would ever do that or want to do that,
but that's something I'd really come down hard against).
Anyway, inasmuch as you respect (which I appreciate) the wishes that AFOL
not being put on the same shirt, I think it sends the wrong message to
people when the wish ("we'd rather not") is rewritten as a strict
prohibition ("Based on Todd's answers prohibiting AFOL and LUGNET on the
same shirt..."). It's a perception thing...d'ya know what I mean? It's
fuzzy. There was also another paragraph about cards...
"I don't see a problem with AFOL or 'Adult Fan of LEGO' appearing on the
same card as 'I read LUGNET' so long as there is lots of other stuff on
the card. In other words, so long as someone doesn't read the card and
think that LUGNET is for adults, then I don't see a problem with it."
So in the case of the shirts, it's not really "You can't do it, period" but
rather "Please don't; it would bum me out majorly, and here's why so that it
doesn't sound like a crazy irrational dictum..." Zat sound more rational?
--Todd
p.s. While (AFAIK) it's anyone's right to put "AFOL" on anything they want,
it should be noted that if they spelled it out in full, i.e. "Adult Fan of
LEGO®" that they might be run into trouble with TLG for using their mark
without permission, especially if they were selling the items. I am not a
lawyer, so this is just something for people to keep in mind. Anyone who
wants to put "LEGO" on a t-shirt probably needs to contact TLG attorneys for
permission.
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Todd Lehman wrote:
>
> In lugnet.faq, Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> writes:
>
> > Robert Munafo wrote:
> > > Why would you mention not putting AFOL and LUGNET on the same shirt? What's the
> > > connection?
> >
> > Because I remembered it... we had a pretty intense discussion about it
> > at the time, and we respected Todd's wishes. Timeframe was
> > February-March of this year.
>
> Hey, you almost make it sound like there was some kind of heated discussion/
> argument/debate or something. I thought it was all very civilized, with
> mostly just questions and answers and things. (Were you holding back anger
> or frustration?? What causes you to say "intense" (above), or am I reading
> into what you wrote too much?)
prolly. I said intense because it was nuanced, not because there were
hard feelings. I DID get a little frustrated at myself because every
time I thought I had the nuances grokked and I restated what I thought I
understood, I didn't quite have it yet, and we were under severe time
pressure to get the shirts finalized and produced, and sometimes I had
to prod you to get another go-round (you were terribly busy dealing with
non L stuff like helping Suzanne's family get through a rocky patch)...
<snip>
> because I don't think we could actually "prohibit" the use of AFOL and
> LUGNET on the same shirt, at least not in the context of a declarative
> informational sentence such as "I read LUGNET." OTOH, I think we can
> prohibit, say, the use of the AFOL directly beneath the LUGNET logo in place
> of the name "LUGNET" (not that anyone would ever do that or want to do that,
> but that's something I'd really come down hard against).
>
> Anyway, inasmuch as you respect (which I appreciate) the wishes that AFOL
> not being put on the same shirt, I think it sends the wrong message to
> people when the wish ("we'd rather not") is rewritten as a strict
> prohibition ("Based on Todd's answers prohibiting AFOL and LUGNET on the
> same shirt..."). It's a perception thing...d'ya know what I mean? It's
> fuzzy. There was also another paragraph about cards...
Yes, you're right. Like I said, it's nuanced. Prohibit is too strong of
a word, prefer is better, I suppose.
> p.s. While (AFAIK) it's anyone's right to put "AFOL" on anything they want,
> it should be noted that if they spelled it out in full, i.e. "Adult Fan of
> LEGO®" that they might be run into trouble with TLG for using their mark
> without permission, especially if they were selling the items. I am not a
> lawyer, so this is just something for people to keep in mind. Anyone who
> wants to put "LEGO" on a t-shirt probably needs to contact TLG attorneys for
> permission.
Thought about that. Decided NOT to ask TLG permission to create a T
shirt that said "My dad has more LEGO(R) than your dad" despite that.
Call it internal inconsistency, but I'm more concerned about YOUR trade
dress and trademarks than theirs.
Reason being that it was a declarative statement, it didn't use TLG
trade dress, and it did acknowledge that LEGO is a registered trademark.
Perhaps you might want to take a crack at rewriting the whole FAQ the
way you want it to read and then we won't have to go around and around
trying to get it right. Might be faster.
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
lugnet.
NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> Perhaps you might want to take a crack at rewriting the whole FAQ the
> way you want it to read and then we won't have to go around and around
> trying to get it right. Might be faster.
Er, ah... I mean THIS QUESTION, which deals with Todd's property
rights... NOT the ENTIRE FAQ, although that's the way it read to me when
I re-read it...
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
lugnet.
NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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