NY Times: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Brands“:
“Consumer brand companies have long wished they could find a way to eavesdrop (legally) on customer conversations. Marketers can easily read Internet blogs, chat rooms and social networking sites, but what people say over coffee or across their cubicle remains largely unknown.”
Pottery Barn And Knock-Offs
Marektwatch: “Williams-Sonoma chairman says Pottery Barn unlike Pier 1” (discussion of Wall Street analysts’ reaction to claim that copycats are hurting Pottery Barn sales.
Mobblog: The Piracy Paradox – Innovation in Fashion
They sell jeans for $1300? The University of Chicago hosts a virtual seminar on “The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design.”
Trademark Rights On The Moon
KFC has unveiled a new logo. It has constructed an extra large version in the Area 51 desert in Nevada. It is claimed that this is visible from space. I read once that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made feature visible from space. Well, now there’s two. If mere appearance of
“Why News Corp Won’t Sue Google”
Bambi Francisco (Marketwatch): “Why News Corp Won’t sue Google” (discussion of how integrated media companies such as News Corp, find themselves in conflict as both copyright owners and, as in the case of News Corp which owns MySpace, copyright ‘fair users.’
One Bank, One Card, Two Demand Letters
NY Times article on the demand letter
A website named StereoGum hosted this video and attorneys for Universal sent a demand letter and posted a courtesy copy in the comments thread as well as a copy of Universal’s letter to Bank of America (See the November 13 comments here for the text of the letter
Popularity-Distortion Field
Digg.com is a news-site that uses ‘social bookmarking.’ Readers submit third-party stories and the most popular stories are displayed on the home page. According to this article, one of the most popular posts last week was a laudatory story about a company named InventionLand, an inventor-submission firm (every patent lawyer in the audience just
Wii And You
A collection of puns motivated by Nintendo’s release of the WII platform, via Kottke.
Err On A G String
Procol Harum was named after the band’s manager’s cat and is almost the Latin for ‘beyond these things’ (the correct Latin would be Procul Harum). OK, now that we got that out of the way, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” was released in 1967. Now they are fighting over it. Today’s episode of SoundCheck
Other People’s Mail: YouTube Sends TechCrunch C&D
TechCrunch: “Huh? YouTube Sends TechCrunch a Cease and Desist.”