Doomed to Repeat History

Remember Faleena Hopkins and #Cockygate?

You'd think other writers would have learned from that fiasco, but no, long-time author Christine Feehan tried to pull #Darkgate. She's since withdrawn her attempts to trademark that single word.

Seriously, people! If Ohio State University with all their money and lawyers can't trademark "the", what makes you think you can trademark a single fucking word to represent your series?

(For context if you don't watch football, folks from OSU like to refer to their alma mater as "THE Ohio State University.")

Nor can you trademark just a person's name in the U.S. That's why J.K. Rowling's series is now "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter."

Christine blamed her attorney. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Speaking as an ex-attorney, if someone in the legal profession tries to talk you into trademarking a single world or a name, that person is looking dig their mitts deep into your bank account. Always, ALWAYS! get a second opinion. Tradmarks are expensive without the attorney fees.

So, rule of thumb is don't get a trademark unless you really need it. And question your attorney! If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.


**Note: I know I can't trademark "Bloodlines," "Justice," or "888-555-HERO." I need longer, more unique series' names. That doesn't mean that my friends and readers won't call you out if you steal my ideas.

Cheaters Never Prosper

I've been avoiding the subject of a bunch of authors slammed by the Amazon ban hammer over the last year. Why? Because I wanted to see how things shake out.

Maybe it's because I used to be an attorney, but I never take anyone at their word anymore. All the parties in a lawsuit are after something. Something they don't necessarily want the judge, jury, mediator, or arbitrator to know. And no one is totally innocent.

But a few recent cases actually made me take Amazon's side.

Their TOS is pretty fucking clear. (Except for where the line between erotica and pornography is. These days, most of us who write in the erotica genre have a clue where the mines are in the field and know better than to cross them.) But here's the thing, Amazon ain't REQUIRED to carry anybody's shit.

Including mine. Which is why I've tried to keep my nose clean since the 2013 Pornocalypse.

But like Faleena Hopkins and others before them, there's a few bad actors who are trying to proclaim their innocence and accuse Amazon of picking on them. Some of their reasoning is rather disingenuous.

Michael Scott Earle lost his arbitration case against Amazon last week. His attorneys' press release on the matter was, at best, laughable. What the press release left out was that MSE tried to sneak his books back on Amazon through another publishing company prior to the arbitration.

Furthermore, MSE went all-Faleena in trying to trademark single words or common terms within pop culture. "Dragon Slayer" was denied by the USPTO. However, "Tamer" managed to get through. There's currently a lawsuit to overturn that approval backed by the Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Author's Guild.

Then there's Alexa Riley, or actually the two young ladies who use the pseudonym of AR. Back in July, a lot of people were surprised that Amazon would *gasp* ban a top-selling romance author!

However, Amazon did not ban all of AR's books. They only banned AR's self-published books, not the ones published by Harlequin.

The ladies haven't admitted to anything, though there's a lot of speculation and suspicion in the writer communities including accusations of book stuffing, i.e. including multiple stories in a file without labeling it as a bundle or anthology. I do know that they used words in erotica titles that were banned back in 2013, such as "virgin".

Whatever pissed off the Powers That Be at Amazon was exacerbated  when the ladies also tried an end-runaround of the ban by signing a distribution deal with Entangled Publishing. The AR books Entangled put up on Amazon near the end of August disappeared from the retailer within hours.

I'm going to stick with the same thoughts I had when the subjects come up, as they invariable do, on writer-related social media. Would you go into a casino and disobey their rules?

Seriously, what happens if you count cards in blackjack, exchange the dice on craps, or swap out the ball at the roulette table? If you're lucky, you only get banned from the establishment.

Well, it's Amazon's house and Amazon's rules. They can ban anyone they want for just about any reason they want. Just be happy the company isn't run by the Mob.

Is #Cockygate Over?

1914 hardcover edition

Yesterday, the internet (or at least the writer circles I frequent) was abuzz with the news that Faleena Hopkins had settled with Jennifer Watson and Tara Crescent over the ill-advised trademarking of the word "cocky".

According to an article last night on the Inquisitr website, part of the settlement includes Hopkins' withdrawal of her trademark. However, the trademark is still listed on the USTPO website as of this writing. Given the speed of the federal government, it may be days or weeks before we know for sure that #cockygate has ended.

Or has it?

1997 mass market paperback edition

Recently, author Michael Scott Earle not only filed for a trademark on the common fantasy term "dragon slayer", but he also filed a trademark for a certain styling of a cover where the title and series name are at the top, the author name is at the bottom, and a human is holding a weapon. This style of cover has been in use for over a century. Boing Boing has a couple of articles about the matter, but my browser wants to hang up every time I try to access them.

An even more interesting question is whether defending the trademark applications are worth it to Earle. Earlier this summer, his books disappeared from Amazon, lock-stock-and-barrel, during the recent purge of authors who allegedly broke the Amazon TOS by using black-hat and gray-hat marketing tricks.

[Edit to add: Earle has apparently abandoned the attempt to trademark the cover style in question.

However, if you want to file a protest on his application to trademark the term "dragon slayer" (which you should do if you ever want to write books about dragon slayers in the future), here's some tips on writing a letter of protest to the US Patent and Trademark Office.]