Slashdot Mirror
IMAX Tries To Censor Ars Technica Over SteamVR Comparison
Cutting_Crew writes: An article published last week at Ars Technica looked at the SteamVR virtual reality headset created by Valve. Contained in the article is a quote from game designer Alex Schwartz, who said in reference to the device, "The jump between a regular game and playing a room scale VR experience is X times 100. It’s like saying, 'I have an IMAX theater in my house.' It’s so much better that we can get away with a cumbersome setup." Now, for that single quoted reference, IMAX has sent a trademark complaint to Ars and demanded that they take the story down. "The company said our story required a retraction because it included a brief reference to IMAX—included without IMAX's permission. 'Any unauthorized use of our trademark is expressly forbidden.'"
If you look at the letter from IMAX (PDF), you'll see they think the reference to IMAX is "misleading to readers." They further request that "all future articles regarding this "room-scale" virtual reality system make no reference to our registered trademark." Apparently, IMAX has never heard of the Streisand Effect. Update: 06/19 19:26 GMT by S : IMAX has apologized.
If you look at the letter from IMAX (PDF), you'll see they think the reference to IMAX is "misleading to readers." They further request that "all future articles regarding this "room-scale" virtual reality system make no reference to our registered trademark." Apparently, IMAX has never heard of the Streisand Effect. Update: 06/19 19:26 GMT by S : IMAX has apologized.
They should've known better, really.
Trademarked names' owners protect them tooth and nail, otherwise they lose the name.
This is entirely different from the clusterfuck that is patents / copyright laws.
They have to police the trademark to keep it from becoming a generic and they don't want IMAX to become synonymous with giant-ass screen. Just google what happened to Xerox, keep some kleenexes handy.
Apparently the submitter has never heard of the Streisand Effect. either. The Streisand Effect. is where one does not want publicity, but their efforts to suppress it increase the publicity. IMAX is not trying to hide from any publicity, they just don't want their name used in conjunction with some else's product. And preventing confusion about products is the whole point of trademarks.
Considering how many people could care less about going to an IMAX movie, perhaps it is intentional. Of course, I still do not care...
Usually the kind of people who get paid by how tight they can clench their buttcheeks.
"I object to our brand being used to describe ultra-high quality."
Now if the VALVE said that, they would have a case, as it would be appropriation--they would need to work a deal to get an endorsement, but to censor an article for making the comparison (especially when used in such a positive light), is just plain stupid, whether or not they have a case.
Slahdot Censored by IMAX!
Whoops! Will Slashdot have to take that down, like some Scientology thing?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
disclaimer:im not your lawyer.
for those outside the states copyright here is taken incredibly seriously as im sure we're all well aware. If your name becomes a commonplace descriptor it can lose its trademark status entirely. for example, if everyone started saying " I need to pepsi jim about the proposal" or "I cant pepsi this document outside the firewall" then pepsi would lose that trademark. Better examples are in the case of Kleenex and velcro, who sat around until their trademarks became ubiquitous references to a process or commonplace task. IMAX is working to prevent their technology from being relegated to a vague descriptor of large size and high quality.
Good people go to bed earlier.
IMAX apparently doesn't understand trademark or copyright at all.
Simply mentioning IMAX in an article isn't "use of trademark".
Had Ars set up a company selling things tagged with IMAX logos, THAT is use of trademark.
Fucking idiots.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It doesn't matter if the usage is good or bad. If IMAX doesn't defend the trademark it gets diluted and becomes more difficult to defend in court.
Most people I talk to don't even know what an IMAX theater is, I think IMAX would welcome any added publicity they could get especially one that is apparently so glowing.
"The jump between a regular game and playing a room scale VR experience is X times 100. It’s like saying, 'I have a LARGE FUCKING TRADEMARKED SCREEN theater in my house.'
Edited. Done!
Life is not for the lazy.
Next auto magazines will have to stop saying, "...it drives as good as.... $OTHER_CAR..." and you can extrapolate to all the other goods in the world.
Now will they dare to ask slashdot to take down my comments?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That's weird I always assumed IMAX was just a generic term for theatre with a big ass screen?
Let me put this another way... ask anyone what do you call a movie theatre with a big ass multi-story curved screen? ... and before they answer say ...but you can't use the word "IMAX".
In various contexts people talk about IMAX cameras and film formats even NASA folks talking about the imax camera for curiosity ... I seriously always assumed it was just a generic specification.
Who knows that IMAX is a brand? Perhaps they have already suffered severe dilution and currently deserve no trademark/brand projection of any kind.
Apparently, they've never heard of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution either.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
People actually read Ars? It went down the tubes even harder than Slashdot. And Slashdot is circling the drain now thanks to Dice!
Dude, we are suing you for the iMax. You can't change a single letter from the name of our product, iMac, and call it your own!
And don't you know that we *own* the letter 'i'?
... saying "our new car is as fast as a BMW" could be restrained due to the unauthorized use of the BMW trademark. I believe this would fall into the category of "fair use" (if it was copyright, I believe there's a similar doctrine for reasonable use of a Trademarked term)
I assume IMAX (the company which I expect I CAN comment on) is worried about the possibility of pervasive VR taking some seats away from theater attendance.
IMAX published an apology and admitted they overreacted. IMHO this is exactly the right thing to have done.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
It looks like IMAX has issued and "IMAX sized" apology to ARS for this issue.
I'm guessing that IMAX owners/shareholders WANT the Streisand Effect... consider:
No such thing as bad publicity? Bring customer awareness/chatter of IMAX to many news sites and media... ...
profit from increased overall traffic & users?
IMAX doesn't know trademark law. But for the dumb-asses out there...FTA:
"First of all, this isn't a story about IMAX, and it contains just one (nice!) reference to IMAX. The statement wasn't Ars' speech at all, but one that an Ars writer chose out of many possible interview quotes. But that's all a bit of an aside, because the important point is that despite Ruby's fantastical interpretation of what a trademark means, we're actually allowed to say whatever we want about IMAX. I can say IMAX screens look like SteamVR, or that they look like my 47" Vizio TV, or that they remind me of purple bunnies. We can review IMAX directly, we can compare it to other products, we can love it, we can hate it—all without IMAX's permission."
Ars Technica could have misspelled it "iMAX" and pissed off both IMAX and Apple.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
As this post includes an unauthorized reference to IMAX, needs to be removed immediately I guess.
Not shocked Slashdot is only posting the story now and not even mentioning the retraction. This is the same group of people that sat on the Sourceforge story as long as they could.
IMAX IMAX IMAX FUCK IMAX
VR cannot come sooner... If I can replace massive screens and projectors with a single headmounted screen, I'm fine with that.
Hello, Mr. Head of IMAX Legal Affairs? Legal counsel for Conde Nast, here. Doin' great, thanks for asking! Well, one of our smaller subsidiaries, Ars Technica, you heard of them? Yeah, well they got a little nasty-gram from one of your assistants regarding use of a trademark. Used the term "IMAX" in an article for referring to a wide-screen projection system, as a comparison. No, favorable comparison! Yeah. Uh-huh. Well, to be blunt, this is wasting everyone's time. I mean, these writer-geeks are going ape-shit over here. My guys were put on alert, all the brass over here had to get involved, the journalists want to go into a feeding frenzy, and I had to answer my phone during lunch and it's Friday! Was this just a case of one over-zealous legal going overboard? Hey, it happens to everybody. Thanks, no need to fire 'em, but a reprimand, at least, 'cause nobody wants to see this again. I think if your office can get some kind of a retraction out by the end of the day, I can keep my people from going bananas and put this all behind us before it winds up on the evening news. Great, that's great. I knew I could count on you. Hey, let's do golf soon, and I mean it this time. Great. I'll have my people call your people.
they only apologized because they attacked someone with a platform and it went sour. if this was ANYONE who couldn't fight back they'd continue acting like bloodlusting vultures.
ever since i got a HD projector, i havent gone to movies or IMAX. i host parties at my place for friends. now ill officially boycott IMAX and i encourage everyone else to pick up a projector and do the same
I just took an enormous IMAX and had to use the plunger to get it to go down. My house still smells of IMAX, so I opened the window.
And my 13" Sony black & white TV from 1970 is like an IMAX that rests on my belly when I'm watching Wheel of Fortune. Except I have to hold the antenna or I get fuzz.
Just like I have fuzz on my IMAX.
You are welcome on my lawn.
/ end joke
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If I ran Ars, I would have responded with a promise that IMAX would never be mentioned in any form on Ars or any of its affiliates ever again.
IMAX sucks. The few theaters you find in science museums, the original IMAX screens, are pretty cool, but the vast majority of tiny screen theaters being marketed as IMAX and up-charged accordingly are lies! My I's have seen more, that is not their MAX!
The trademark lawyers are practically robots, and in some cases literally so. They probably grep'd IMAX and fired off a C&D without looking at it, as happens millions of times a day. They generally back down if you point out that your usage was fair and that the mark ownership was acknowledged, because they spam these things like no tomorrow to protect the mark (you can thank judicial precedent for this) and they're mostly a waste of everyone's time.
I read the exchange on Ars, and I'm not convinced IMAX has properly understood their egregious error. Their apology said, "... in this situation we acted too quickly without truly understanding the reference to our brand. ... we will try to be better at taking compliments ...". That reads to me like they still think the take-down request would have been appropriate if the reference was uncomplimentary. But, as Ars pointed in their open response to the request, it would still have been an inappropriate action in that case for many reasons; and so the IMAX lawyer was (and is?) demonstrating unforgivable ignorance or disregard of the relevant laws.
As it seems IMAX came to their senses and apologized for that ridiculous demand :) Here is the link: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Sure they have.
Remember folks. It's not about who's right or wrong. It's "what can we get away with, without causing something to blow up in our faces".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Peter Bright, alias "GOITER-LAD" subjecting us to his hideous visage, all quasimodo like as it really is! Ask DrPizza/Peter Bright why he always takes photos with his hand over that bloated deformed chin if nobody believes that so they can verify it themselves with his photos online.