Why does MAGA have such a problem with Talarico on TV?
it’s to show how anti-censorship and pro-freedom they are
My guess is they’re scared of him and how much further he could go.
Crowder is a big pussy.
Change my mind.
There isnt a pussy out there that you couldn’t find someone to fuck. Big or small, hairy or waxed, clean or riddled with disease. Someone would fuck it.
Then there’s this guy. No one wants to fuck it.
It’s OK, everything’s fine. An LLM chatbot came up with that name for CNN, so it’s Fair Use.
Wait, Steven Crowder is still alive?
For some reason I thought he died. This is very disappointing news, indeed.
No, Charlie Kirk got shot in the neck and died. Crowder got shot in the butthole, and it blew his balls off on the way out, but he survived.
“Im not the litigious type”
Classic gaslight
Crowder still has a career after his wife beating shenanigans?
Of course. You get a merit badge for wife beating in those circles.
Just padding his resume
tl;dr Crowder is threatening to sue CNN, Jubilee and Talarico for using the phrase “Change My Mind”, which he argues is “our trademarked brand, logo and format”.
I find it hard to believe that he owns or can own that trademark personally.
To quote Starlord “that’s not a unique thing to say”
Seeing how it’s a whole-ass meme format for years now and nobody has been worried about it until now, I doubt that will stand in court.
I better hurry up and trademark the. The. That’s it. Its mine. You know what, im trademarking mine also. Mine is mine now.
change my mind
Sadly, he does seem to have gotten it trademarked. That LLC owns a “Mug Club” which I presume is Crowder’s.
How this was trademarked, I have no idea, but if it’s used satirically (as in thrown back in his face) I don’t see how a lawsuit prevails - generally this is only merited if CNN started using it directly for a personality on their network or a show name, etc.
That’s insane. It’s just a basic concept of debate. An extremely generic phrase. It’s like trademarking “haha”. I suspect it will be tested more thoroughly in court than at the trademark office.
They should push to overturn it.
Magnificent
What a fucking snowflake.
Looked it up. He does indeed have a trademark for “Change my mind”.
No doubt it has already been genericized. The court ruling anything other than that would be surprising. Pretty much anything that becomes hyper memed gets this treatment.
I looked it up as well, already has a Section 8 and 15 declaration and no clear limitation based on the prosecution history. Which is kind of crazy since “change my mind” in a debate context and using trademark terminology is at least suggestive, but much more rightly descriptive (which should not be registrable without pre-establishing secondary meaning).
Even if he has a registration, using it within the debate itself and if the debate was not called “Change My Mind” means there’s no real chance of Crowder winning. He’s just doing #rightwingthings, using lawfare to try to hurt opponents when they can’t win with arguments and moral high ground.
I’m not a lawyer, but that seems pretty unenforceable from my limited experience with trademark law. Common phrases, especially used casually (as in, not in an advertisement/campaign slogan), can’t really be infringed as far as I know.
Now, if he had put it on a billboard or something, that’s a slightly different story.
Prove me wrong, lol
I am a lawyer, but not a trademark lawyer. Just knowledgeable enough to be dangerously wrong, I guess.
But trademark protection must be tied to a product, and don’t provide protection against a word or phrase being used at all.
And so the strength of a trademark description relies on where it lies on the spectrum between totally fanciful words invented specifically for the trademarked use (Xerox, Exxon, Pepsi), arbitrary words that are normal words but have nothing to do with the product (Apple computers, Monster energy drinks), suggestive words that have something to do with the product (Coppertone for suntan lotion, Airbnb for an online service for BnB listings), descriptive words (Quarter Pounder for a burger that is a quarter pound in weight), to fully generic words for products that can’t be limited to one producer/seller (bicycle, automobile, hamburger).
Common terms can be trademarked, but the scope of protection is necessarily much narrower. Apple can enforce its trademark in computers and electronics. Monster Energy Drink can enforce its trademark in beverages.
Crowder’s “Change my mind” trademark seems pretty tough to enforce. It’s at best a descriptive mark, and descriptive marks are hard to enforce unless the mark is so distinctive in commerce (like McDonald’s Quarter Pounder) that a consumer might be confused about who is producing it. I don’t think any regular person on the street will assume that a CNN-produced town hall with James Talarico is sponsored or licensed or produced by Crowder’s team, so there’s no risk of consumer confusion.
But like I said, I’m not a trademark lawyer so I wouldn’t put too much weight in what I say.
In the end I agree, it can’t be enforced, but if it helps:
Trademark protects source indicators, for specific goods and services, so a phrase isn’t simply trademarkable or not on its own, it depends on what it is relating to.
There’s different levels of protectibility as well - but “generic” is a higher bar. If something is just “descriptive” then it’s really just describing the goods or services. Those can’t be trademarked unless there is “secondary meaning” which is established consumer association with using that phrase for a good or service. There’s also “suggestive” marks, which are less direct than descriptive, “arbitrary” marks which are words applied to unlike goods and services, and “fanciful” (edit: correction) marks which are totally made up words. All that goes in order of protectibility.
Basically, Crowder shouldn’t (IMHO) have gotten this mark for debate products/services, because it’s descriptive to what debate is. Somehow he did without the USPTO fighting back. Maybe USPTO was overworked and it slipped by.
Ultimately, though, an infringement would only succeed if another party used it in a way that caused confusion over the source/endorsement. Crowder would have to show people saw them say “change my mind” on CNN and thought Crowder was involved. If it was in the title of the show, a huge slim maybe. But in the full show, in a debate, with someone saying “change my mind,” it’s absurd to think Crowder has a case.
For the last couple of decades, USPTO has been handing out patents and trademarks on anything that pays them. I had a business for years, based on a culinary technique that’s been around for 150 years, and somehow some guy got a patent on it. It would literally be like getting a patent on scrambled eggs, or the club sandwich, it’s ridiculous.
Every now and then, the guy contacts me and demands $80K a month for a license, and I always tell him to go fuck himself. He always threatens to sue, but I already know of one case he’s lost, and I know he’s just bluffing. If he goes to court, he’ll just be spending a bunch of money to lose the case, lose his patent, and pay my legal bills.
That’s wild. That’s like Paris Hilton trademarking “that’s hot”.
I mean, what even the fuck.
So many of our laws need to be overhauled, but our IP laws seem to be almost a joke.
You’re not wrong, but the Trademark Office is not a law office, and probably has a much lower standard than a court of law.
Would be very funny if this actually resulted in him losing the trademark because it’s too generic
Just so you know, I’m not a litigious person
Proceeds to threaten litigation
The podcaster, popular in the MAGAverse, went further as he accused the network and its partners of using his phrase for political purposes.
“Once you rip it off and use it for propaganda, I now have a problem, and I have to come for everything!”
…as opposed to being used for… what exactly? What does Crowder think his little bs “debates” are?
“Why are you making me do this to you?”
What a little bitch.
Very snowflake-like behavior.
He might still be sensitive about the subject since his wife changed her mind and got herself an “ex-” prefix.
