The other day I posted about a couple who had created a day to celebrate on August 18 – Bad Poetry Day. They claim, that because they own the “branding” of this day that if anyone wants to use it, they have to notify them or pay them.
I find it very frustrating when companies decide to brand or copyright words and phrases for profit. It seems as though they are depriving us of a language birthright. We should be able to use all the words available to us in our Mother Tongue(s).
For example I knew of the Komen Foundation’s branding of “For The Cure” in relation to any charity wishing to raise money for Cancer. Well now you can’t use this phrase, because the Komans own it. You cannot legally have an event that is named “Quilt for the Cure” for example or the Komen lawyers will bully up on you and make you stop. Read about the problems “Mush for the Cure” had in this article from the Huffingtonpost.
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| Don’t stir the Yogurt 🙂 |
The Komens are linked with the brand, Yoplait – hence the title of the post.
There are other more well known examples such as using the term “Super Bowl” to promote any parties that you or your locals may be hosting on that revered day – bottom line is, you can’t use the term. There is also a lot of branding of genes isolated from our DNA that are used for medical research – or not – unless you are willing to pay huge sums to the original companies which isolated the genes. Here is a very interesting, but lengthy post on 5 items that you won’t believe are legally branded.
I can certainly understand copyrighting a trademark, that you have and want to protect or a corporate slogan. However, “We make the best widgets” should not mean that no one else can use the phrase “We make the best..” Someone else should be able to own “We make the best Kazoos,” for example.
The picture – store brand yogurt – the best I could do in the word and yogurt wars.
Have a great day. (I hope no one owns that!!)