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EFF Moves To Nix Trademark On "Gaymer"
netbuzz writes "Spurred by the mark holder's cease and desist letter to Reddit's subreddit r/gaymer, the Electronic Frontier Foundation today officially petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to rescind its grant of a trademark registration on the word "gaymer". 'This registration should never have been granted,' said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. 'Gaymer is a common term that refers to members of this vibrant gaming community, and we are happy to help them fight back and make sure the term goes back to the public domain where it belongs.'"
Both parties lose due to prior claims.
Gaymer's (http://www.gaymers.co.uk/) has been a UK cider producer since 1770 AD.
Have you ever seen what happens in online games/communities with people who are even vaguely suspected of being gay? It's not pretty generally. So gay people tend to congregate in communities in which they can play without having to be careful about what they say and without having to pretend, lest they be offended/insulted/stalked/threatened/spammed or other fun things.
In the UK 'Gaymer' is a company that makes Cider. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaymer_Cider_Company
You're quite right. Trademarks are both geographically restricted and market restricted. If you're in a different market or a different location, the trademark doesn't apply.
And you have to register everywhere that you do business for the trademark to be valid in that region.
If you want to see *really* abusive language and offensive comments concentrated into their purest form, go play an mmoRPG and try *Roleplaying*. Nothing gets the 12 yr old mentality for heaping offensive abuse on other players up more than encountering a roleplayer in a roleplaying game, believe me.
In Dark Age of Camelot we had 3 Roleplaying/PvP servers, with a specific set of rules intended to foster RP behavior. We also had some of the best PvPing in the game going. However, there were regularly people who would create a character on one of these RP servers (there were like 17 other servers they could have chosen instead) *solely* for the purpose of standing in a populated area and heaping abuse on anyone they found. I would say I appealed at least 1 person per play session typically for this sort of behavior. I just don't get it. Its not like I logged into the non-Rp servers to insult them for not choosing to roleplay, that would just be a massive waste of my time if nothing else. I can't imagine being so bored as to have nothing better to do that insult people I will never play with.
Now, I am not gay, but I can easily understand why those who are would group together to form their own community and avoid the abuse they probably get on a regular basis - or at least manage to avoid the typically offensive speech of the gamers around them.
I cannot really imagine wanting to claim a term that would focus that abuse on me though. That seems *to me* to smack of wanting a reason to get outraged and complain about. Still whatever fills your boots I suppose...
However I agree that online gamers are typically highly offensive and ignorant as a baseline behavior. Sure, some rise above that but they are the rarity, the vast, vast majority start at pig-ignorant and dig their way down from there. Admittedly this is mostly true only of RPGs that have a heavy PvP element to them. My wife plays LOTRO and it seems fairly mild, but then PvP there is a minor afterthought really.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
If you want a legitimate answer from someone who's in one of the larger local Gaymer communities here's a couple of reasons:
1- Multiplayer gaming is an endless tirade of gay-this, faggot-that. It's nice to play games and socialise with people who aren't jerks. (Yes yes, harden the fuck up, etc - but it is annoying.)
2- It's an excuse to go hang out at a bar with a group of people with something in common every couple of weeks.
3- While I know it's not applicable to me (LTR), but the group I'm in has at least partly become a dating pool - for gay guys and girls, that's actually sometimes a bit harder than you may be used to.
#!/bin/csh cat $0
That's why Apple Records lost to Apple Computer.
Did they? Apple Computer paid Apple Corp. in 1981 and then again in 1991. And even though Apple Computer won the first trial over iTunes there was a good enough chance they would have lost on appeal that they bought the trademark lock, stock, and barrel from Apple Corp.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
No, no they are not. When I go online and people find out I am male, nothing happens. When women go online, they are harassed constantly by idiots. Constant messages asking for pictures, a/s//l, etc. They can handle just the random hate filled things as well as any of us can...they are not being singled out. But when their sex is revealed, they are.
So to say we are treated just as bad as women...well, that is misogynistic garbage for a bunch of pathetic men who have trouble with women because they are socially awkward.
So grow up. When men start hiding their sex online for fear of being targeted, then maybe you would have a point.
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