Who owns what?
There are many reasons this MacNN story amuses me – the least of which is that it’s a victory (of sorts) for Apple.
Robert F. Young, a founder of Linux distributor Red Hat and now owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats Canadian football team, has offered Apple a quick way out of its lawsuit over the use of the Tiger moniker, according to The Globe and Mail. Apple was sued by retailer Tiger Direct over the use of the Tiger moniker for the latest version of its Mac OS X operating system. “Young has offered to license the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ historical use of the word Tiger to Apple free of charge. The Hamilton Tigers Football Club, established in 1869, continued to be known as the Tigers (with its colors of yellow and black) until 1950, when the Tigers merged with the Hamilton Wildcats to become the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. ‘136 years ago we were called The Tigers,’ Mr. Young said. ‘If anyone owns the exclusive rights to the word ‘tiger’ with that much history and tradition, it’s gotta be us.’”
Like I said, the fact that it could help out Apple is the least of my reasons for digging this particular news item. I think I like this story the most because it features one of the founders of Red Hat doing what those open source people do best – confounding the modern understanding of “intellectual property.”
Tiger Direct’s lawsuit over the use of the word “Tiger” fits the letter of the law. After all, Tiger Direct is an electronics retailer, and Apple deals in that market. But the chances of people confusing a Mac OS that is codenamed “Tiger” with something involving Tiger Direct are slim to none.
Enter Robert F. Young, prepared to license the word that he holds a trademark on in a completely different industry based on his claim to having owned the word the longest.
All of which is propped up in precedent by the multitude of cases filed by cable manufacturer Monster who has made habit in the past few years of filing lawsuits against any business that uses the word “monster” in its name – from dry cleaners to cable repairmen to monster.com. Not to mention the infamous attempt by Marvel and DC to claim joint ownership of the term “superhero.”
Who am I siding with? I’m siding with the guy who wants to create chaos. In this case, Robert F. Young. I confess, I am a professional artist. As a professional artist it is in my best interest to uphold copyright and trademark so that I may one day profit from them. But I don’t think that it’s outside the pale for me to feel that the current copyright and trademark law is needlessly convoluted and senselessly prohibitive. And confusing cases like this help to drive the point home.
Veddy interesting.