To all the lawyers, CEOs, CFOs, Directors, Managers, and other people in charge at tWitteR you can contact me at 859 S Fern Wichita Ks 67213 with any legal papers due to my improper use of the terms tWitteR, tWeEt, or any another terms you feel you have legal right too. I Consider this notice as a public disclosure of and a proper attempt to notify you of my intent to use the words tWeET and tWitteR as I chose to use them. Therefor I will only consider changing my use if notified with in 10 days of this posting. Wonder if I'll get any response?
Hey, Twitter, Enough Of This Crap About "Here's How You Can Use The Word Tweet"
Twitter has issued new rules about how the rest of us can use the words "Twitter" and "Tweet," MG Siegler of TechCrunch tells us.
And the rules are right out of a handbook on how to take yourself way too seriously.
For example:
- Make sure that if mentioning “Tweet,” you include a direct reference to Twitter (for instance, “Tweet with Twitter”) or display the Twitter marks with the mention of “Tweet.”
And:
Naming your Application or Product, Applying for a Domain
Do: Use Tweet in the name of your application only if it is designed to be used exclusively with the Twitter platform.
Don’t: Use Tweet in the name of your application if used with any other platform.
In other words, if you're TweetDeck, a company that was created shortly after the company called Twitter and helped to make Twitter the powerhouse that it is today, you have to change your name to, say, StatusUpdateDeck, because Twitter's lawyers now say they own the word "Tweet."
Now, Twitter's lawyers will no doubt say that what they're doing here is just laying claim to company property, the same way "Xerox" or "Kleenex" or "Google" might do.
Yes, Twitter's lawyers will say here that they're only trying to control the CAPITALIZED forms of these words, but that's still weenie-like. As MG Siegler notes: "This would seem to be all about Twitter gaining the trademark to the word “tweet”, which they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to do. They also later note, “Please remember to capitalize the T in Twitter and Tweet!” As a commenter notes, it’s funny that they don’t even capitalize it in their own logo!"
Yes, by imposing ever-greater rules on how application providers can interact with the service, and by co-opting some of the most popular third-party applications, Twitter has already screwed over some of the folks who initially supported it and begun its transformation into a "CORPORATION." But those moves were foreshadowed and expected, and they were arguably necessary to the company's long-term financial success.
Trademarking the word "Tweet," meanwhile, has nothing to do with the company's long-term financial success (unless part of the financial model is expected to be suing people for trademark infringement.) It's just annoying.
If you want to trademark the company-name "Twitter," fine. But lay off "Tweet." And stop trying to dictate how people can and can't use words that have been communal property for centuries. It's way too early--and your company is still way too cool--to let lawyers take over.
Read more at www.businessinsider.com
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