Re: Faq maintainers and commericialism

Steven Alexander (stevena@teleport.com)
Sun, 4 Apr 1999 03:30:13 -0700

Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
Next message: Warren Young: "Re: Faq maintainers and commericialism"
Previous message: Yves Bellefeuille: "Re: Faq maintainers and commericialism"

Here's what I do, both because I'm not much into commerce and
as a result of special sensitivity as to intellectual property
rights in the subject matter, the Scrabble crossword game (or
is that the crossword game Scrabble? it actually makes quite a
difference[1]).

Although, having maintained this FAQ for 6 years on Usenet and 4 on
the Web, I believe I've been a very important factor in the growth
of competitive Scrabble[2], the manufacturer/copyright/trademark
holder thinks it's all their doing; that entity also is notable for
heavy- handed enforcement of its expansive view of its right to
control all mention of its trademark in books and accessories.
Thus, given that it's not clear whether they'd have the right to
keep my FAQ from being called "The Scrabble FAQ," I have no desire
to run the higher risks run by people who infringe others'
trademarks or copyrights *commercially*.

I respect the trademark technically, but not attitudinally,
saying

Scrabble is a registered trademark of
Hasbro Inc./Milton Bradley, and Mattel/JW Spear & Sons plc,
even though that's not the way people actually use it.

so I try to cover myself or at least limit my exposure with these
two disclaimers.

As appendix to the main FAQ:
FAQ policy

In an effort to keep the FAQ actually and apparently credible, I don't
accept anything of value (other than newsletters) from people who sell
things reviewed, except where necessary for me to understand the
product. In those cases, a hampered version should suffice.

In the index page:
Linking with the Scrabble FAQ

The FAQ links only to pages having substantial information about
Scrabble. This excludes commercial exchanges, pointers to awards
bestowed and other irrelevancies.

I'm interested in what other maintainers do whose FAQ is on
a subject that's primarily intellectual property, who have
no relationship with the owner that establishes their right
to use the trademark, etc.

Steven Alexander
stevena@teleport.com
<http://www.teleport.com/~stevena/scrabble/faq.html>

[1] The trademark owner needs the term "Scrabble" to be an
adjective, describing anything they provide which they
decide to slap the term on. The world, though, thinks
of Scrabble as the thing, so uses it as a noun.

[2] The biennial North American Championships had been stable at
just over 300 players for years, but rose to over 400 in
1996 and over 500 in 1998.

Next message: Warren Young: "Re: Faq maintainers and commericialism"
Previous message: Yves Bellefeuille: "Re: Faq maintainers and commericialism"

[ Usenet Hypertext FAQ Archive | Search Mail Archive | Authors | Usenet ]
[ 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 ]