BurnBC, the non-profit collective of (some) Canadian Burners who is being sued by BMOrg for $40,000 for daring to have a legally registered trademark in their own country that they’ve been using for 20 years, has asked for our help. They’re trying to raise the modest sum of $2500 to cover the costs of appearing in court to defend themselves against a $30-million a year behemoth which spends more than $100,000 every month on lawyering.
If you want to help spread culture around the world, a donation to BMOrg will lead to more lawsuits, and a donation to BurnBC will help them have their day in Court. Let’s let the law decide, instead of one party with more resources being able to bully a weaker one. According to BMOrg, this is all in the name of charity and making the world a better place – but there are very few non-profits that go around suing other non-profits. It’s kind of against the point of the whole thing – unless the point of the whole thing is a tax-free way for 6 people to earn royalties off the efforts of Burners, rather than the stated aims about Principles, values, and cultural expansion.
Please help their Gofundme if you can, they’re not asking us for much so even a small donation helps.
For some of the history of the case, including how Burning Man’s US trademark was in widespread public use for many years before corporations took it over in this country, see:
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What’s not clear in any of this smoke cloud is… what *exactly* is it that you are doing that they want you to change, and/or what are they asking you to do differently… like as in what are the options?
If anyone wanted to promote an event and call it “Burning Man”, that would make it kind of meaningless as to what it is clear to mean now. There are a million cola’s out there, but only one Coca Cola, one Pepsi. It seems its a clarity thing. There are lots of burning events in the world and through the ages… can our words/names not be used to differentiate them? Wicker Man, Zozobra, Napalming Canada…
I hear that you want to be recognized for your contributions to this culture and find their complaint to stymie your freedom by “signing your life away”, but I really don’t believe that is the reason for their action.
What’s the truth here? Do you want to use the name for its notoriety to boost your ticket sales? If you can do that, then wouldn’t other producers of events like to be able to do that too?
From what’s been presented here, it seems that you would like anyone to be able to call their event “Burning Man”, is that correct? Is that not what donating money to your gofundme campaign is in de facto supporting?
A strange, but serious, query, whom owns the trademark ‘Burning Man’ in the U.S? I am certain it is solely a glitch, but this is confusing to me.
I was verifying an update of the Great BMOrg Cash Out post, $35 Million to $47 Million, and I clicked upon the trademarks owned by Decommodification LLC, and the trademarked name ‘Burning Man’ did not appear, whereas I am of the belief it had appeared previously. The Black Rock City LLC lists the trademark ‘Burning Man’ as dead/abandoned, meaning of they no longer own it. Is it solely a glitch, or did Decommodification LLC sell the trademark ‘Burning Man’, or what might have occurred?
I searched the trademarks within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The uspto states the ‘Burning Man’ trademark is live and it is owned by Decommodification LLC. Decommodification LLC was required to renew the trademark 20140925, in the prior week.
By appearances, it is solely a glitch of some manner. I will send the updated cash out post in a short time.
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The fact that nobody seems to want to talk about here is that the borg was granted a default judgement. That means that when the bc dudes were sued, they just ignored it and didn’t respond. If anyone has ever dealt with the law, even just a parking ticket, they should know that not responding won’t make it go away. It likely would have gone a lot better for them if they actually showed up in court instead of trying to extort the case away with their email leak threat.
Were they properly served?
>extort the case away with their email leak threat.
Burners aren’t known for their intelligence. They like to hug it out and go BO in the face of a threat. What they should have done is leaked the emails without making any kind of threat. Burners are pussies.
the reason we don’t talk about that fact is we don’t know it. Got a link, or some other reference?
From this site, http://burners.me/2014/09/18/burnileaks-bullying-the-burners/
The case is being heard by the court now. BMOrg have not been granted a default judgement, but that is what they are suing for. Decommodification LLC has filed this motion and BurnBC responded to the motion and are defending themselves against it.
Also, the threat of leaking BMOrg’s internal correspondence – which is presumably pretty incriminating, otherwise why make the threat – is not coming from the Defendant. It was made by another Canadian Burner who sympathizes with the community’s use of the public domain term, rather than Decommodification’s Commodification plans.
Canadians wear patches with red leaves on their backpacks all over the world in order to avoid being killed by terrorists who would othewise mistake them for USA Americans.
I say, let them die!
I have heard details from both sides and will reserve my judgement for when I get more facts. However I was wondering if you could reword your blog entry in regards to “BurnBC, the non-profit collective of Canadian Burners”. BC is one group of Canadian Burners and we have non profit groups to represent those of us in other provinces. I know it seems like nit picking but proper communication is key in all these matters and I know as an Albertan Burner I would appreciate clarity on the matter. Thank you kindly
I have changed it to (some) Canadian Burners