Idea: Facebook naughtiness

[Rae]

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or feasible, or just petty, at this point.

In the UK, there's something called the EDL (English Defense League) a far-right street protest movement that is believed to have descended from the footie hooligan firms that the country is sadly, still associated with.

Like many other groups, they have a group on Facebook.

A counter-movement was set up, called the English Disco Lovers (EDL) on Facebook. And their aim is to get more likes/members than the actual EDL, so anyone who searched for the EDL on Facebook, find the the English Disco Lovers association, (a pro-disco, anti-racism group. Unus Mundas, Una Gens, Unus Disco!")

Maaaaybe, we could start a group with the initials N.C.S.O.F.T that campaigns for gamers rights, or..something..so when people look for NC Soft, they find well..us?

[Cinnder]

We can ask Dr. Mephisto for advice!  :)

[dwturducken]

Has anyone thought to look for a company that makes "adult" films that has the initials "N.C."? You know, like, while at work, or something? ;)

[malonkey1]

.........Oh! I get it...NCSoftcore...Heh.

[Atlantea]

.........Oh! I get it...NCSoftcore...Heh.

Oooh... I like and approve of this plan!

[Colette]

Heh heh hehhh...! I've invented a meme and an excuse to research porn sites all at once.

[Ammon]

One problem here is that NCsoft is a registered trademark, while EDL never was.

If you create a name that causes confusion, you are infringing on the rights, and this thread right here proves it was intentional.  Prepare to pay out millions in compensation and legal costs.

[Colette]

They can bill me.

Seriously, Parody Law protects us. Moreover, it ain't libel if it's true. Finally, good luck enforcing copyright and trademark across the Pacific. And any attempt to do so will only generate that much more bad press for NCSoft. I can hear the judge now. "Oh look, someone said something unkind on the Internet? Oh yes, this is worth the court's time."

[Ammon]

They can bill me.

Seriously, "parody law" protects us. Moreover, it ain't libel if it's true. Finally, good luck enforcing copyright and trademark across the Pacific. And any attempt to do so will only generate that much more bad press for NCSoft. I can hear the judge now. "Oh look, someone said something unkind on the Internet? Oh yes, this is worth the court's time."

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

I'm sorry.  I'm sure you mean well and think you are having some lighthearted fun.  However, the entire point of this section of the forum is to actually fight to get the IP from NCsoft and save whatever we can of CoH.

The Trademark is in use in the US and is enforceable there.  It is extremely likely, to the point of near certainty, that some representatives or employees of NCsoft or its PR people are reading these forums, even if they seem to have no idea what to do about it.  Actively using these boards to incite illegal activity will harm our efforts.  A company actually HAS to protect its trademarks etc or it loses them.  You should not take my words here as any kind of legal advice, but you darned straight ought to talk to a legal advisor before posting as you did above.

[Rae]

Oh.  Right.  Law.

I forgot that.  Let's not do this, then  :)

[Victoria Victrix]

If my understanding of the parody and satire exclusion is correct, creating a youtube comedy video about NCSoftcore would be protected, but creating an NCSoftcore website would probably be valid cause for a trademark infringement suit. 

So that said, who's good at standup?

[Colette]

"Wrong, wrong, and wrong."

And you studied law where...? (And presumably not in pursuit of a career in diplomacy?)

"If my understanding of the parody and satire exclusion is correct, creating a youtube comedy video about NCSoftcore would be protected."

Having actually acted in parody Youtube comedy videos, this is consistent with my understanding as well, and thank you. And I'll be happy to act in this one too, Guild or no.

However, Ammon does have a valid point in that we need to know exactly what and what is not allowed, who has jurisdiction, and how far we could bend these laws. If Ammon actually has some legal background, I volunteer him to do the research.

And I'm getting snarky. Bedtime.

[Ammon]

Maaaaybe, we could start a group with the initials N.C.S.O.F.T that campaigns for gamers rights, or..something..so when people look for NC Soft, they find well..us?

Note that the original proposal was to set up a group or organization with a deliberately similar name to hijack their brand.

This is not parody, and wil certainly invite legal problems because if NCsoft don't protect their trademarks, any they have allowed to slide can be cited as evidence by others to completely usurp the trademark.

I'm not a lawyer.  But I have been involved in several cases of this kind of action as part of my PR work.  Often where people have used the law to deal with things it really couldn't.  One case in particular was a well-known financial company in the UK who won two legal cases in the courts over someone who'd set up a [company]complaints.com website to smear them. 

They won the domain and the order that the person doing this could not use their trademarks for such ventures.  However, he was allowed to keep all of the content and complaints he'd scrounged up and done SEO with on a domain that did not include their brand, and he continued to rank highly in Google for "[company] complaints". 

Finally, after 2 law cases and around £100k of legal costs, they called me in to deal with the real issue, of it turning up in search, which was as simple as getting them do put their own complaints proceedures online (so they had some stuff of their own to rank for the search) and point out that apart from the CEO of the company, and whoever the disgruntled complainer was, all the data indicated that noone had ever genuinely searched for "[company] complaints".

I've studied a fair amount of law regarding trademarks, brands, and copyright, plus picked up a fair smattering of other corporate law issues, employment law, etc.

Now, a parody video for youtube is quite a different thing to creating an organization or group.  That is indeed fair game, but it was not the opening post suggestion, and indeed the word 'parody' did not appear, or any mention of video/media rather than a named group, until after I'd posted to state the legal issues, and the fact that we would definitely lose in court and be ordered to hand over the group, pay costs, and possibly pay damages if any were claimed and agreed.

I'd support the idea of a parody video, but how will we get it to hijack them on Facebook?  We could certainly parody their main games and media on youtube, of course.  Is that enough?

[Segev]

How many people search Facebook specifically for things like NCSoft, vs. how many people use Google and other search engines to search for "NCSoft" and find the Facebook page is one of the results?

The latter, if we could do some legitimate viral video spreading, would have the youtube parody show up in such searches.

I could be mistaken but I think and "NCSoft Parody Video Fans" Facebook page/group/whatever would be legitimate, unless it's not legal to even use trademarks in their correct context in any name that the owner doesn't like. (Could Capcom go after the "I Hate Metroid: Other M" hatesite if somebody made it? Not saying such a site even deserves to exist, just asking a legal question based on the first thing I could think of that would be unquestionably referring to a trademarked item but not directly related to NCSoft et al.)

[Ammon]

(Could Capcom go after the "I Hate Metroid: Other M" hatesite if somebody made it? Not saying such a site even deserves to exist, just asking a legal question based on the first thing I could think of that would be unquestionably referring to a trademarked item but not directly related to NCSoft et al.)

That's an interesting one.  Legally, one could argue that it is expressing personal opinion, but in practice it can be a lot more tricky.  On the one hand, AOLsucks.com has been around forever, but on the other, my friend had to give up his ILoveJackDaniels.com site when JD wanted it...  There's only one certain winner in these cases usually - the lawyers of both sides, who get paid regardless.

[Segev]

Dirty tactics thought here: If the C&D letter came, could an article be written about how NCSoft shuts down dissent and abuses parody film-making and otherwise paint them to take advantage of the common misaprehension of what "it's a free country"/"freedom of speech" means?

I don't think they can do a THING about article titles that mention the NAME of the Facebook page they C&D'd, and if we can get those virally referenced across other Facebook pages it would have good search results and might even crop up on searches for NCSoft's page on Facebook anyway.

[Olantern]

Ammon and VV are correct.  Notice how the hatesite is actually intended to confuse third parties as to who owns what, while the stand-up routine isn't.

There actually has been some litigation in the U.S. to get this sort of thing shut down.  The best-known is a guy who was forced to take down a website called (I think) peta.com, which was intended to suggest People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals but in his case stood for People Eating Tasty Animals.  The more-famous PETA successfully got the guy's website shut down, essentially (if I recall correctly) relying on the argument that he committed various rights of publicity torts against PETA, as well as creating a likelihood of confusion with their trademark.

And while this isn't my area of specialty, yes, I am an attorney.  Thus, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that the foregoing is not intended as legal advice.  If you need legal advice, consult an attorney with experience in the relevant practice area.

As a friend, I will offer one suggestion: Don't do illegal stuff.

[Colette]

"Yes, I am an attorney."

And now we're cookin'! Thanks, Olantern. One thing we definitely want to do is ensure our protest remains within both the letter and spirit of applicable laws, especially as NCSoft has obeyed the letter but bent the heck out of the spirit. Please, as our friend, do run a cursory eye over the Calls to Action to ensure we remain "blueside."

Putting "Nature Mastery" up for sale three days before the shutdown announcement is what really ticked me off at this company. Not to mention the "Play Free Forever!" ads. That's fraud as far as I'm concerned.

[P51mus]

Any redside actions would have to be unaffiliated with titan network.

There's a decent chance some redside actions will happen sometime, but they won't come from us.

[Olantern]

"Yes, I am an attorney."

And now we're cookin'! Thanks, Olantern. One thing we definitely want to do is ensure our protest remains within both the letter and spirit of applicable laws, especially as NCSoft has obeyed the letter but bent the heck out of the spirit. Please, as our friend, do run a cursory eye over the Calls to Action to ensure we remain "blueside."

Putting "Nature Mastery" up for sale three days before the shutdown announcement is what really ticked me off at this company. Not to mention the "Play Free Forever!" ads. That's fraud as far as I'm concerned.

I recommend taking a look at the "Legal Considerations and Challenges" thread, where I comment extensively on fraud, among other things.  I haven't had cause (or time) to update the thread recently, but there haven't been any major law-related issues in the past week and a half.  When the next one hits, I'll add that, too.