Commodifying Decommodification

A guest post from our reader Pantsless Santa. It’s an eye-opener! The desire of these people to laugh at the very principles they created, and told us we had to live by, seems to know no bounds.

image: RK Richardson/Flickr (Creative Commons)

image: RK Richardson/Flickr (Creative Commons)


 

By Pantsless Santa:
This belongs in the totally effin’ hilarious category more than anything else:
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Decommodification LLC is actually trying to register the word “decommodification” as a trademark itself, and they’re doing it in the most hypocritical and illogical way possible.
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Trademark registrations and applications are all public record. If you search for “Decommodification LLC” on the Patent and Trademark Office’s search system, “TESS,” you can see all of the trademarks that that the LLC owns and has applied for.
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There are the usual suspects “Burning Man,” “Decompression,” and “Black Rock City.”
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Flambe Lounge,” which dates back to 2003, is probably some old business idea that never panned out.
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Burning Man Brew” was originally registered by a brewer and later purchased (I suspect) by the LLC, likely because it would have been more expensive to fight over it in court – nothing indicates that the BMOrg intends to get into the speciality beer business.
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Black Rock Gazette” is registered by the BMOrg (Black Rock City LLC). Nothing is currently registered by Larry, Michael, or Marian.
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Finally, the LLC has applied to register “Decommodification.”
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I’ll stop for a minute here to explain a couple of important things about trademarks. Trademarks are very different than copyrights. You can’t simply pick out a word or phrase or logo (a “mark”) and get the rights to it.
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To oversimplify greatly, you can’t register or protect a mark unless it’s associated with a particular good or service (defined broadly), and has actually been used publicly to promote or sell the thing it’s associated with. That last part is called “use in commerce.” People often get tripped up over “use in commerce,” because in normal human language it looks like it means the same thing as “used commercially.” It doesn’t. It’s a legal term of art meaning something like “used to promote or sell any type of good or service for any reason whether or not for profit.” This keeps companies from simply registering all of the words they think that they or their competitors might use and squatting on them. They can only register marks they’re actually using.
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To oversimplify again, you can only protect or register a mark in order to keep people from using your name (or brand or logo) on their products in a way that might fool consumers.
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So, Decommodification LLC applied to register the mark “Decommodification.”
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Thinking back to the above, you might ask yourself: “What the hell good or service could Larry & Co. POSSIBLY plan to use this for?” Well, they put it right in the application: “Commercial administration of the licensing and sublicensing of intellectual property by others.”
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Now, before anybody (*cough*) gets started with grand theories about what the LLC might be planning with this, I want to share my opinion that absolutely nothing sinister or underhanded is going on here. “Commercial” is still being used as a term of art as above, and the rest of the sentence simply describes exactly what the LLC does. In other words, the actual purpose of this trademark application is to prevent somebody else from opening up their own Decommodification LLC or Decommodification Inc. or Decommodification Gmbh that does the same thing as this one.
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This trademark has a very narrow reach. Remember, a trademark must be associated with a particular good or service. This wouldn’t stop any of us from calling our toilet-removal businesses “Pantsless Santa’s De-Commodeification” or whatever. So why bother bringing it up in the first place? Like I said above, it’s effin’ hilarious! To spell it out:
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Larry Harvey & Co. are attempting to define the word “Decommodification” as “Commodifying intellectual property.”
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Decommodification LLC filed their application for “Decommodification” on March 26, 2012. The application is still being processed because the LLC has not, even after multiple extensions, been able to provide evidence that they have actually used the word “Decommodification” in “commerce.”
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Honestly, there is no reason for them to actually register “Decommodification.” Who else in the world would ever create an intellectual property licensing company by that name? The only reason anybody might do that is to poke fun at the BMOrg/Decommodification LLC: and a trademark does not protect you against parody.
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You can check the history and status of the trademark application here: http://tinyurl.com/mojkq47
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Pantsless Santa, Esq.
General Counsel
Portland Cacophony Society
Video

What Happened To This Guy?

This video was uploaded to YouTube in December 2006, but it appears to have been filmed in Sonoma in January 2004 as part of a Katy Byrne community event “Returning Freedom and Power to the People”. It’s interesting to see the change in thinking about Decommodification from a decade ago (when it was a cherished ideal of the community, not even yet one of the 10 Principles) to today (when it’s a private, for-profit company that earns royalties and sues charities).

From katybyrne.com:

Relationship therapist Katy Byrne has produced dozens of television and radio programs dedicated to the art of conversation as a path to individual and world peace. Many guests have felt that Katy’s style of interviewing brings out their most profound and enjoyable conversations

The Tin Principles: An Alternate Viewpoint

I just came across this classic comment from Tron, from February this year. They are commenting on the post “A Few Ground Rules For Talking About the 10 Principles” at burningman.com.


 

1. RADICAL INCLUSION: Anyone can buy a ticket and attend the event. While the stranger may be ‘respected’, that doesn’t mean you’re invited to the private parties or any parties for that matter. If you don’t look right, don’t act right, and don’t know someone who knows someone, bugger off.

2011_08_29_BurningMan_e_59652. GIFTING: Make about 50-100 trinkets to give out to people who don’t harsh your vibe. It’s best to make necklaces because most people don’t have pockets to put your little thing into. The more of these little gifts you have hanging on your body by the end of the week, the cooler you are perceived to be by the newbs (which might get your laid), but everyone else thinks you look like a dork. And handing off illegal drugs as a gift without telling the recipient what’s in your hand can get your new best friend arrested (you too).

3. DECOMMODIFICATION: Only people with a @burningman.com email address are allowed to make money off the wide-eyed wonderment of the citizens, and participate in the many black market exchanges happening on the playa. Yes, Suzy, cash is readily exchanged on the playa, but unless you’ve recently had sex with someone pulling a salary from the Borg, don’t even think about it.

4. RADICAL SELF-RELIANCE: Don’t become a burden on the infrastructure. Take care of your shit. Don’t go around asking people for a ride back to San Francisco on Sunday morning. Stop asking for meat and cheese from strangers. Stop alarming people that you must have been roofied because you can’t remember what happened last night after having 15 drinks and a bottle of wine.

5. RADICAL SELF-EXPRESSION: Do whatever you want, just don’t touch people. Don’t ask people if you can hug them, they only say yes to be polite. If your body looks like a train wreck, clothing is the best option because people are eating.

6. COMMUNAL EFFORT: Build something or help build something and call it, ‘art’. It doesn’t have to be good, it just needs to keep you busy and out of real trouble so no one has to deal with your problems.

7. CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY: If you bring sparkle ponies out there – they’re YOUR problem. If you lead a camp, find out which members have severe personality disorders BEFORE you leave to the playa.

8. LEAVING NO TRACE: Clean up your shit. But don’t concern yourself with the huge carbon footprint the event leaves behind on this once pristine ancient lakebed (the damage has already been done, plus no one cares).

9. PARTICIPATION: This doesn’t mean, ‘don’t spectate’. This means the highest and best activity you can perform on the playa is in service to the infrastructure in the form of volunteerism. The harder you work and the more you sacrifice in service to the business, the more cool-points you will be awarded. These cool-points can be exchanged for tiers of enlightenment. Extra cool-points are handed out if you are injured on the job, but you still will not be paid. And don’t ask.

10. IMMEDIACY: No one knows what this means. If someone cites this principle to you, run away. This is how they get newbs to do the shit work.