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Canadian Mint Claims Rights To Words "One Cent"
knorthern knight writes "A weird intersection of copyright/trademark with politics is playing out in Canada. Short background: various Canadian cities and municipalities have launched a publicity/lobbying campaign seeking a fixed take from the GST (Goods and Services Tax, a national Canadian sales tax similar to European VAT). The amount sought is 1 cent for each dollar of the purchase price. This is summarized by the slogan 'One Cent of the GST NOW.' According to a press release, the Royal Canadian Mint (the federal agency that prints Canadian paper currency and stamps Canadian coins) has demanded from the City of Toronto $47,680 in royalties for use of the phrase 'one cent', and the image of the Canadian penny. $10,000 covers the use of the words 'one cent' in the campaign website address (www.onecentnow.ca) and email address (onecentnow@toronto.ca). An additional $10,000 is demanded for the use of these words in the campaign phone number (416-ONE-CENT). The remaining $27,680 covers the use of the image of the Canadian penny in printed materials such as pins and posters." Here's a National Post article on the brouhaha.
Oh shit...
Is that one cent, or point zero one of a cent?
At the bottom of the
There are some days I have to double check myself and make sure I'm not reading the Onion by mistake. Those days seem to be becoming larger in number.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
Loonies!
..only in America.
... change the tax to 'two cents', and forward all complaints to the 'Royal Canadian Mint'
.... Toronto should pay. .... In cash. .... In pennies.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
This is the mint, they deal with TONS of cents EACH AND EVERY DAY, you think 4.768.000 coins is going to scare them? They got machines for that. Oh and processing fees.
If you have any kind of a decent bank, they just take your old jar of coins, empty it in a machine and a little later they got a nice total and the money sorted. if your bank charges you for this, you know you got a bad bank. Granted, it is getting harder to find a good bank, in my youth banks went out of their way to advertise bank accounts to small kids, allowing them to save coins and then deposit them in a savings account. Their way of getting future business I guess. Today if you show up with a ton of cash to put into their accounts so they can make amazing profits on it, they charge you a deposit fee. Ah progress.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
> I thought the Romans had the cent long before Canada.
ummmm, no. They had the denarius. That's why British LSd money referred to their _penny_ as 1d -- d for denarius.
And a _penny_ was not the same thing as a _cent_. There were 240 "old" pence in the pound.
Those of us on {Dollars|Euros|Pesos|Rands|etc.}, and Cent(avo)s are using new fangled decimal money that came much later on.
Maybe the US Mint should insist they get paid instead...
Oh, and the Royal Canadian Mint isn't a "Federal Agency". It's a Crown Corporation (status similar to the US Post Office).
- "You have mail" AOL
- "Hall of Fame" National Baseball Hall of Fame
- "Entrepreneur" Entreprenour Media
- "Windows" Microsoft (ruled generic 1993)
- "Memory game" Ravensburger (a website I maintain was involved in that once)
Tradmarking common vocabulary is as questionable as patenting common tasks. The problem is that it is often cheaper to pay off than go through a legal fight. And that encourages the litigators. The good thing is that such battles usually are PR desasters for the companies involved.Take that you smug little bastards! You sit up there all pointing and laughing at how insane the IP system has gotten in the US... HAH! Welcome to the new world, not so smug now eh? One Cent...holy crap... And its not even some profit mongering megacorp up there, its your freakin federal agency suing the city. On top of that the irony involved in the fact that the whole thing is about trying to get 'one cent' out of the tax, and the government response is to charge them for asking for it! Aaaahahahahahaa. Now maybe you won't be so damned smug when stupid shit happens here down south of you.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
The US certainly has a huge number of problems, but it still amazes me that not one thread can go by here without someone karma whoring by inserting a veiled or not so veiled reference that says 'It must be the United State's fault'.
The US Mint has never done anything at all similar. Private companies have, but those are not a Government entity. Let's keep on topic and focus on Canada for once, ok?
Nope. The Royal Canadian Mint stamps coins only. The Bank of Canada is responsible for paper money, the actual printing of which is performed by Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited and BA International Inc (formerly British American Banknote).
I am embarrassed to be Canadian. Clearly this is the first of many stupid things to happen. Next Up: Canadian Election. Do I vote for tweedle Dee or tweedle Dumb.
Windows on a mac is Windows under Supervision. - Frank Soltis(Chief Scientist/Designer of AS400)
No, but (odd bit of trivia), they did have the census, which measured someone's total wealth, and eventually morphed into Zins in German, their word for (bank) interest.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Fun fact of the day:
A Roman Centurion who commanded a normal full-strength centuria generally had about 80 soldiers, not 100 as the name would suggest. The missing 20 men were non-combat servants or people with special skills.