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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.'"
What's so different about a gaymer compared to a gamer? Why the need to segregate gamers based on their personal sexuality? Do they prefer certain genres? Or just demand gay sex in the games they play?
- From a confused gamer
And you, sir are a bigot.
In the UK 'Gaymer' is a company that makes Cider. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaymer_Cider_Company
How do you call gamers that love cheese? There must be a word for that.
The French.
It'd be nice if the trolls on /. showed a little more intelligence than this, this is just lazy.
No, by protecting the rights of gaymers online. Reddit is just the test case.
Defending against corporate attempts to poach a name already in use via fraudulent trademark filings is not a good use of their funds?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Even ignoring the cesspool that is the twelve year olds of FPS games, no, we're not used to it.
MMOs are a prime example. Spend five minutes in one, and you'll see rampant homophobia, bigotry and sexism - ranging from the sadly accepted as tame (EVE Online, usually when one of the aforementioned twelve year olds is relieved of their poorly fitted ship) to making you wonder if you've logged into a fucking Klan meeting (Hi, raiding guilds of EverQuest 2, WoW, et cetera).
Gamers, like most psuedo-anonymous people on the Internets, are largely shitheads; shitheads who will never shut up about buttsex, women making sandwiches, or traps.
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
And you, sir are a bigot.
Or a homogot.
Ezekiel 23:20
I played Lord of the Rings Online the most and was a casual raid leader (meaning I organized and ran raids for casual players where often the loot would go to someone who had a birthday or fought well or been really unlucky rather then loot tables, I also didn't care about levels or experience). They were somewhat popular and I was asked to lead other groups... and then found out that in the NON-PUG groups, getting people to talk was a LOT easier. In the PUG raids everyone had sound on but for some reason few had a microphone. Suddenly in the closed raids, most had. And high voices.
Turns out I had been gaming with a lot of women. And I mean a LOT. Some were raids were majority female but when I asked them to join a pug something became clear... they were willing to play BUT could I not reveal they were female.
I have had several discussions online and in the real world were I was told about the kind of abuse female players receive. And this is NOT the rage kind when someone just says "bitch" or the sexual innuendo. Women talk like that too. It were attacks that yes as the AC says, you would expect in Klan meeting. One type of attack is that women have no right to play the game... I mean seriously. WTF?
AND it is not just trolling, there are a lot of REAL misogynists online. They can't vent their putrid bile in real life because they would get beaten up but online they let go.
So... the women hide online and only reveal their gender if they feel safe. AND THAT IS NOT OKAY! If you think it is, then I hate your fucking guts and hope you die before spreading your diseased genes. Because THIS attitude is what fuels extremists by tolerating them. It is basically nothing else then "if you don't want to be raped, don't reveal your gender". It is YOUR kind that created the burkha.
People should be free to be who they are. Yes, there can be gentle ribbing like Q.I. makes fun of homosexuals and hetero's alike BUT that is NOT what gay and female gamers are talking about. Gay and female gamers don't want special regonizition, they simply want to be able to be who they are without getting attacked simply for speaking with a high voice.
And only a closet bigot would start an argument over whether they got the right to be who they are.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Was the brand free?" It must be lovely seeing the world as a set of exploitable resources through your corporate colored glasses. Who cares if a word was in common use before this guys trademarked it and now he's suing the community he lifted it from? It's value as a "brand" is more important than anything else!
Except the law doesn't work the way you think it does. You cannot trademark a commonly used term and turn it against its common use. So I can trademark "Apple" as a music or computer company, but I can't trademark it as a brand of apples and sue people for calling their fruit apples.