• 7 Posts
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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2024

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  • There are 3 main forms of IP: patents (not relevant here), copyright and trademarks. Without consent of the holder, copyright only runs out on a time basis but what you’re calling IP falls into the “trademark” category, which don’t run out if continuously used by the holder. Some trademarks have become genericized and therefore invalid but this is a concern with product names, not fictional characters. There is no precedent in which fanon became so popular it overruled a trademark, because it can’t be published officially (it is easy to sue a single artist, it’s impossible to stop millions of people from calling any moving stairs “escalators” despite the former OTIS trademark).

    Did you mean fanon “so different a trademark doesn’t apply”? That would be a different character entirely.



  • This is a great time for the engineer to exert leverage.

    "Yes, I can fix it in hours. Here are my demands:

    • $200,000
    • I’ll also push a firmware update to all your devices that allows setting any address for the server and exposes all functionality in a Home Assistant API, and you won’t ever disable this in current or future devices
    • You’ll offer a free locally-connected button/knob device to any customer owning an affected product, or a free service to upgrade the products with on-device controls
    • In any social media posts, press releases, customer communication or interviews regarding today’s outage, you have to say that plumbing that requires a server connection is a bad idea