RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

Ok, my take on this whole thing.

IT@Cork (Tom raftery, Donagh Kiernan et al) have a conference comning up “IT@Cork Web 2.0 Half Day Conference” and they have received C&D letters from CMP, a partner of O’Reilly who are trying to service mark the term Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is supposed to be about two-way communication, talking in the open and discussing things, instead of slapping C&D letters on people, and getting all corporate-like.

Sara Winge, O’ Reilly VP of Corporate Communications states:

Just as O’Reilly couldn’t decide to launch a LinuxWorld conference, other event producers can’t use “Web 2.0 Conference,” the name of our event. In this case, the problem is that it@cork’s conference title includes our service mark “Web 2.0,” which the law says we must take “reasonable steps” to protect.

No, no, no, no. Are you naieve to think people will believe that?

IF you tried to service mark/trade mark Web 2.0 Conference, as your site title is, *then* you might have a leg to stand on.

But what you are doing is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You cannot service mark it. A) its against the whole moral of the fricking thing, and B) Your conference is called Web 2.0 Conference, not Web 2.0, and C) its a generic. It should not be done.

Can I trademark the word sausage (presuming its not trademarked already!), if I create a company called RunningWithBulls sausages? Possibly, but the sausage industry is not trying to promote communications, and openess.

She continues:

We’ve sent a followup letter to Donagh Kiernan, agreeing that IT@Cork can use the Web 2.0 name this year.

Well, Sarah thats horribly nice of you.

Actually just looking at the name of IT@Cork’s conference, the name is *fully* “IT@Cork Web 2.0 Half Day Conference”, so *technically* its not the same.

What if they said “IT@Cork Web 2.0 is shite Half Day Conference” would that also infringe on a *not even yet processed service mark* application.

I am not sure who started this. IMO, I don’t think that Tim O’ Reilly would do this, on purpose, or sorta knowingly. He was invited to it, but couldn’t go, for whatever reason. Thats fine. Therefore he knew that it was being called IT@Cork Web 2.0 Half Day Conference.

I would think this was all started by this CMP “media company” trying to keep their ball in their back yard.

Looking through some of the comments on Ms. Whinge’s post, the response from the industry/community is pretty harsh for O’ Reilly Press.

“Now this is how you go about rubbing people up the wrong way.”

I am also under the impression that you may have some difficulty with registering “Web 2.0″ as a trademark. Maybe not in the states, but in other countries - you’ll probably have a hard time enforcing anything over the use of “Web 2.0″.

There’s a notable difference between a mark such as ‘Web 2.0 World’ and ‘Web 2.0 ‘ where can be any generic term, e.g. conference, workshop, etc. It’s highly questionable whether you should have been granted that mark in the first place, and whether you have defended it sufficiently during the time it was pending.

In any case, O’Reilly has given itself a shiner of a black eye, and will continue to be beaten by most web commentators, despite the years and care that have gone into Tim’s reputation as a champion of enlightened business practice. These commentators will likely advocate a boycott of your upcoming conference.

I and a very few other bloggers had jumped to the conclusion that this must be CMP’s blunder; surely Tim O’Reilly was too savvy to make such a mistake. You have proven us fools, and that we will not forget.

I think the problem is two-fold:

1. Trying to service mark “Web 2.0″ for conference use isn’t really in the spirit of Web 2.0 at all.

2. Sending a cease and desist letter before asking nicely, even if you were justified, is certainly one way to earn the contempt of the blogosphere. People don’t take well to heavy handed corporations throwing their legal team on a not-for-profit.

I think Scott is dead-on in his example of LinuxWorld vs. Web 2.0 World.

Attempting to service mark a generic name is simply evil. It’s no better than cybersquatting.

And don’t act like your doing THEM a favor by *letting* them use the term Web 2.0.

It doesn’t make a lot of horse-sense to define Web 2.0 in terms of shared resources, open-source and collective development, yet take the same term and monopolize the usage.

I also wonder if Web 2.0 has not, by its very nature, already gone the way of kleenex, xerox or walmartsucks.com. Why not just walk away? Or better yet, skirt the issue and donate it to the public domain.

I think it would be really smart for Tim O’ Reilly, NOT any communications staffer to release a *personal* view.

Otherwise, from the general feeling of the comments here, and in the last post, O’ Reilly Press may loose some customers.

Web 2.0 is (almost dead). Long live Web n.n.

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