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Sony Attempts To Trademark "Let's Play"

Posted by timothy on from the such-a-strange-world dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Why is it that kids these days spend days upon days watching people play video games on Youtube and Twitch when they could spend those days playing games themselves? While we may never find out why, Let's Plays are an established part of today's gaming ecosystem, and the publishers want their piece of the pie. Nintendo lost love by forcefully taking the proceeds from ad revenue on Youtube for its videos, but Sony... never settling for second-best... has recently filed to trademark the phrase. I don't know what's more surprising: Sony's audacity to grab a phrase with recorded usage as far back as 2007... or that EA didn't think of it first.

8 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Not going to work... by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 3, Informative

    While I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure that "Let's play" by itself is pretty much impossible to trademark due to the basic rules of getting a trademark (as put by Wikipedia), though they might be able to claim it in the form of a particular logo incorporating the words...which wouldn't let them go after Let's Plays but might let them start sponsoring/branding their own Let's Play group.

    1. Re:Not going to work... by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Let's Play is a generic term

      So is "Just do it", "I'm loving it" and "Enjoy".
      What was your point again?

    2. Re:Not going to work... by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Before Windows, was window a common term in software?

      Yeah, actually, it was.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Everything must be owned! by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everything must be owned, including common words and phrases. Otherwise someone might be making money off of it and it wouldn't be us!!

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:Everything must be owned! by Blue+Stone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's called "enclosure". It's the desire by individuals and companies to take common culture and own it exclusively, renting it back to us.

      --
      Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
  3. Can't Play by zenlessyank · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is really no different than pro/college football/basketball etc. Lots of peeps can't play for one reason or another so they watch someone else play who is good. It has been this way for thousands of years. Only real difference is that you can sit at home instead of walking down to the Coliseum.

  4. Something Awful should file an objection to it by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Informative

    The term actually came from Something Awful forums and the "Lets play" threads where they'd take turns playing a game and posting the results. Dwarf fortress "succession" games would be the cannonical example here.

    Sony has had no role in this, and they are trademarking something they have no right to.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  5. They were more than likely denied weeks ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Non-binding action" was sent back in December, which is generally USPTO for fuck off.