Stop panicking. Trademark abuse is not unheard of, but if anything we technologists grossly overestimate how often it actually happens because we've seen domain names getting "stolen", for various values of stolen, by claiming trademark ownership over domain names. (And for that matter, much of the "trademark abuse" is really ICANN abuse rather than trademark abuse, it's really ICANN's decision. If they take the domain name because of a bribe or even "just because", you still wouldn't be able to do much.) But it's actually an importan aspect of the law, and even if you're of a mind to throw out patents and copyright entirely, you really need to stop and think some more about throwing out trademarks. What a trademark boils down to is a mark that allows you to identify when you are dealing with an entity. Trademark violation is when you mark yourself in such a way as to cause people to confuse who you are. There's hardly a model of society I can think of from the rabid left to the rabid right and all the things that don't fit on that scale where it's actually desirable to let entities falsely masquerade as other entities. Most of them are actually so deeply built on being able to identify the people you are dealing with that you can't hardly even see it any more, it's just part of the background fabric.
And yes, Lamebook and Facebook are very confusable. Don't ask your tech savvy friends, just take a picture of the two websites, go somewhere that isn't a tech hub, stop ten people on the street, and ask them if these sites look like they are from the same company. You'll get your answer pretty quickly, I think. Companies spin off subbrands all the time.
(And read the link carefully for what it says, not what you think you can twist it into if you read certain words in certain ways. Remember, your arguments don't have to convince me, or convince some pathologically stupid AI, they have to convince a human judge, who has spent the past twenty years listening to people trying to twist and bend the text of the law in their favor.)
Oh come off it. Next you'll be saying that people think "Microsoft sucks" is an official Microsoft site, or that "Chimpy Bushitler" is the official name of the previous US president. It's called parody, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together gets it.
> just take a picture of the two websites
You don't even need that. Would any company call its own product "lame"?
First, a bit of an apology is in order. I had somehow picked up the idea that Lamebook is trying to be a business, not just a blog. (Though selling shirts may turn out to have been a mistake in hindsight, I don't see that as a business.)
That said, even as parody is a defense it's still not a blank check. For instance, see http://www.lfiplaw.com/articles/trademark_parody.htm . And, again, read the whole thing. It's way less clear-cut than you might think; they've got a couple points in their favor and quite a few against.
Stop panicking. Trademark abuse is not unheard of, but if anything we technologists grossly overestimate how often it actually happens because we've seen domain names getting "stolen", for various values of stolen, by claiming trademark ownership over domain names. (And for that matter, much of the "trademark abuse" is really ICANN abuse rather than trademark abuse, it's really ICANN's decision. If they take the domain name because of a bribe or even "just because", you still wouldn't be able to do much.) But it's actually an importan aspect of the law, and even if you're of a mind to throw out patents and copyright entirely, you really need to stop and think some more about throwing out trademarks. What a trademark boils down to is a mark that allows you to identify when you are dealing with an entity. Trademark violation is when you mark yourself in such a way as to cause people to confuse who you are. There's hardly a model of society I can think of from the rabid left to the rabid right and all the things that don't fit on that scale where it's actually desirable to let entities falsely masquerade as other entities. Most of them are actually so deeply built on being able to identify the people you are dealing with that you can't hardly even see it any more, it's just part of the background fabric.
And yes, Lamebook and Facebook are very confusable. Don't ask your tech savvy friends, just take a picture of the two websites, go somewhere that isn't a tech hub, stop ten people on the street, and ask them if these sites look like they are from the same company. You'll get your answer pretty quickly, I think. Companies spin off subbrands all the time.
(And read the link carefully for what it says, not what you think you can twist it into if you read certain words in certain ways. Remember, your arguments don't have to convince me, or convince some pathologically stupid AI, they have to convince a human judge, who has spent the past twenty years listening to people trying to twist and bend the text of the law in their favor.)