Paul Abate, the OED editor, says verbs no know owner. Surely he doesn't mean that any trademark is fair game, as long as you attach "-ing" to the end. In that case, what's to stop a "Whopper up at Wendy's" ad campaign? And when the ads go negative? "Last night, my roommate drank so much he Big Mac'ed all over the sidewalk."
But, you say, Mr. McFedries was simply documenting the word's use by others, such as the "West Wing." That may get him off the hook, but it still leaves trademarks wide open: An advertiser can buy product placements, so why couldn't it buy a verbing?
I worked on a similar project a few years back: the diary of a revolutionary-war era Maine midwife. No one thought to call it a blog, but that's basically what it is--along with some teaching tools (this was NEH-funded). It's called dohistory.org. A lot of her diary focuses pickling vegetables and birthin' babies, but there's some real drama too; she testified in a gang rape trial, and her husband went to jail (on unrelated tax charges).
Seems to me they wouldn't, in the example you give. More likely, the feds would use encryption laws the same way they used tax laws against Al Capone. While investigating him for other crimes, they discovered scads of unreported income. They couldn't prove it was ill-gotten, but they could at least nail him for tax evasion.
Substitute hard encryption for unreported income, and you've got a decent analogy.
Ah, you say. But what about random audits? We put up with them from the IRS; wouldn't that complacent 78% accept something similar to enforce encryption laws?
That's a danger, but randomly scanning communications falls a lot closer to random searches, which are unconstitutional, as are random (domestic) wiretaps. Does that mean law enforcement agencies won't try it? Probably not. But it does mean, just as you say, that they'll have a tough time explaining themselves to a judge.
IIRC, VCRs, like PVRs, do all their decision making ("was this a commerical?") after the recording is complete, then go back and mark the beginnings and ends of commercial breaks, not actually edit them out. If commercial skip is enabled on playback, then the VCR automatically fast-forwards through the marked commercial breaks.
So the advantage is still with the PVRs, but only because they skip commercials seamlessly while the VCR still must fastforward--not because of superior decision-making.
Here is a release from ADLE describing their commercial skipping technology, called "commercial advance." They claim to have licensed it to most of the major VCR makers, with the notable exception of Sony. From the release:
During recording, the television broadcast is monitored for certain video and audio events -- such as black frames and low sound energy -- which occur at the beginning and end of each commercial. The locations of these events, according to the VCR's tape counter, are temporarily stored in memory for processing at the completion of recording. Events are analyzed in relation to each other using a proprietary software algorithm to identify which ones mark the actual beginning and end points of each commercial break.
I am not William Safire, but here's the earliest use of the phrase I could find on LEXIS:
Quotation of the Day
The New York Times
January 11, 1989
"Bank board deals which privatize profit, while socializing risk, amount to nothing less than a societal decision to allow those with potentially large tax liabilities - that is, the rich - to get richer."
- Representative Jim Leach, Republican of Iowa.
"E-Ink Corp. of Cambridge laid off 37 workers last week after shifting the emphasis of its operations from large signs to handheld electronic devices."
"E-Ink sent about three-quarters of the 50 workers who worked on its original product out the door as it moves into the next phase of its development, according to a company spokesman"
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Paul Abate, the OED editor, says verbs no know owner. Surely he doesn't mean that any trademark is fair game, as long as you attach "-ing" to the end. In that case, what's to stop a "Whopper up at Wendy's" ad campaign? And when the ads go negative? "Last night, my roommate drank so much he Big Mac'ed all over the sidewalk."
But, you say, Mr. McFedries was simply documenting the word's use by others, such as the "West Wing." That may get him off the hook, but it still leaves trademarks wide open: An advertiser can buy product placements, so why couldn't it buy a verbing?
I worked on a similar project a few years back: the diary of a revolutionary-war era Maine midwife. No one thought to call it a blog, but that's basically what it is--along with some teaching tools (this was NEH-funded). It's called dohistory.org. A lot of her diary focuses pickling vegetables and birthin' babies, but there's some real drama too; she testified in a gang rape trial, and her husband went to jail (on unrelated tax charges).
Seems to me they wouldn't, in the example you give. More likely, the feds would use encryption laws the same way they used tax laws against Al Capone. While investigating him for other crimes, they discovered scads of unreported income. They couldn't prove it was ill-gotten, but they could at least nail him for tax evasion.
Substitute hard encryption for unreported income, and you've got a decent analogy.
Ah, you say. But what about random audits? We put up with them from the IRS; wouldn't that complacent 78% accept something similar to enforce encryption laws?
That's a danger, but randomly scanning communications falls a lot closer to random searches, which are unconstitutional, as are random (domestic) wiretaps. Does that mean law enforcement agencies won't try it? Probably not. But it does mean, just as you say, that they'll have a tough time explaining themselves to a judge.
So the advantage is still with the PVRs, but only because they skip commercials seamlessly while the VCR still must fastforward--not because of superior decision-making.
I am not William Safire, but here's the earliest use of the phrase I could find on LEXIS: Quotation of the Day The New York Times January 11, 1989 "Bank board deals which privatize profit, while socializing risk, amount to nothing less than a societal decision to allow those with potentially large tax liabilities - that is, the rich - to get richer." - Representative Jim Leach, Republican of Iowa.
...until you've read this article from boston.com:
"E-Ink Corp. of Cambridge laid off 37 workers last week after shifting the emphasis of its operations from large signs to handheld electronic devices."
"E-Ink sent about three-quarters of the 50 workers who worked on its original product out the door as it moves into the next phase of its development, according to a company spokesman"