Protecting your Name

[Mark Suszko]

The name “creative”, especially in LA and NYC is a very common one for production or editing or effects companies to use as part of their business name, because they are in fact a creative service.

The blue cow people will argue that our beloved COW is an acronym in caps for Community Of The World and only a “cow” in abstract. It helps our case that Ron has the face of a cow in his logos, establishing prior art, but the difference is probably enough to stand up in court. A lawyer could be more accurate about it but just from my casual reading of the topic of infringement, they are different enough to skate here.

I say let ’em.

I think the better part of valor here is to politely but firmly insist on some disclaimer language discreetly placed in the web site and maybe on any brochures “Blue Cow Creative is not affiliated with CreativeCOW.net”, and leave it at that. Take the high road. They might change the name themselves if they get enough confusion from clients and have to keep explaining that no, they ain’t us.

Secondly, if this is a small company, odds are this problem will solve itself in a year or three: small companies in our biz form, grow, merge, or die off with mayfly-like life spans.
LA is a town where people steal ideas for a living. They will change just enough of your original idea so a judge will consider it unique and there is little you can do about any of it. Don;t waste lawyer fees on this past the suggested disclaimer in the interests of eliminating any confusion.

And believe it or not, great as this community is, there are plenty of people doing video who still have not heard of it. These mopes may be one of them. Best to go in with a calm face and a smile and assume ignorance first, than to go in guns blazing right off the bat anyway, since this is a legal issue.

[Brendan Coots]

Personally, if I had never read this thread and randomly came across the name “Blue Cow Creative” I would never in a million years have made the connection to Creative Cow. And I certainly wouldn’t have thought “wow, they must have stolen this name!” I really don’t see what the controversy is, but that’s just me.

I also don’t think a lawsuit would result in anything but a LOT of wasted money for both sides. One legal test of infringement is whether a reasonable person would be confused and think the infringing company was the same entity as the plaintiff. Well, I’m reasonable enough and I didn’t see the connection. Besides, one is a media production company and the other is an industry website/magazine – how could any reasonable consumer get confused when they aren’t even in the same business?

[Todd Terry]

[beenyweenies] “Personally, if I had never read this thread and randomly came across the name “Blue Cow Creative” I would never in a million years have made the connection to Creative Cow.”

I would have never made the connection either. It’s pretty innocuous and they are pretty common words.

Duplication of words and terms in the English language is something that happens pretty frequently, there’s not much that can be done about it. My personal example, my name is Todd Terry, and there is also a well-known music producer named Todd Terry. To take one step further, my company is Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc., and one of the music groups that the other Todd has produced in the past happens to be called The Fantastic Plastic Machine. Pure eerie coincidence, but it makes for some interesting Googling and mixed-up emailing.

There’s also a British record label called Fantastic Plastic (we get each other’s email), and there used to be a vintage record store in Seattle called Fantastic Plastic (they actually had the domain http://www.fantasticplastic.com before we bought it off of them about 8 years ago). Through the last few years I’ve also seen a couple of banks and one department store run credit card promotions that they called “Fantastic Plastic.”

I wouldn’t sweat it. On the upside, Blue Cow Creative does have a very beautiful website, and looks like they do good work. If any confusion does happen, I always prefer to be confused with someone good than with some hack. 🙂

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Timothy J. allen]

Zen Koan for the day:

If a creative services business uses the word “creative” in their name, does that mean they aren’t really that creative?

😉

[Mark Nancetor]

I tend to agree with Walter on this one. I work with a company that works with Plastercity Digital, the company changing its name to Blue Cow Creative.

When I first saw the new name and the website redesign, I immediately thought of the confusion between the companies.

The COW has always sold itself on the basis of the COW metaphor and has invested a lot of time and effort into it.

In closing, I would agree with Timothy Allen that a company that calls itself creative usually isn’t. A company that would use creative and cow in their new name, when there is already a well known company by that name, would have to be a copy at best.

Mark Nance

[Bruce Bennett]

I am personally offended by this. I think the name

[David Roth weiss]

[Bruce Bennett] “Why can

[Randall Raymond]

Bruce, Coliefornians can’t smell your dairy-air from there. Michigan is down wind…

[Rennie Klymyk]

This reminds me of a similar controversy we had here in Canada on the Queen Charlotte Islands. It seems some of the local natives opened a coffee shop and called it HaidaBucks. Queen Charlotte Islands has been inhabited by the Haida’s since the beginning of time and since all the partners were Bucks (guys) they derived the name HaidaBucks. They had years previously used the name for a basket ball team. All was well until Star Bucks got wind of it and a big legal battle ensued. It looks like in the mists of a huge public outcrying StarBucks has backed down. Starbucks suffered boycotts and a ton of bad PR while HaidaBucks gained a ton of advertising.

See more

https://www.lanebaldwin.com/hbc/news.htm

[Nick Griffin]

Look guys, I can’t see any reason to disagree with anything Walter said here and, in more detail, in his blog post. The name CreativeCOW has enormous value and having some other entity attempt to clamp onto it is repugnant.

With the noted exception of Todd Terry, which of you would not be ready to fight if someone, even tangentally related, came into your space using a similar name to one you had spent years building?

I also agree with Tim A. If someone has to tell you they’re creative they’re probably not. This is the same reason we all need to steer clear of people who tell you how honest they are. If they are then why do they even bring it up?

My hope is that Ron, Kathlyn and the rest of COW management fight this and that Plastercity Digital be sufficiently embarrassed to pick something else.