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Fark Seeks to Trademark NSFW 199

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The term NSFW is about to join the :( emoticon, going from a generic, oft-used internet abbreviation, to one company's exclusive trademark. Fark is seeking a trademark on the use of NSFW to describe naughty online content. Of course, they may face a bit of a battle because more than a few other people are already using the term NSFW to describe their products and services. Not that that's stopped anyone in the past." And, of course, the whole thing could be a big practical joke.
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Fark Seeks to Trademark NSFW

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  • Hello? (Score:5, Funny)

    by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:46AM (#21654659) Homepage Journal
    Guess nobody clicked on the story cause it's marked NSFW! :)
  • by DeeQ ( 1194763 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:47AM (#21654669)

    The term NSFW is about to join the :( emoticon
    NSFW is :)
  • by Bones3D_mac ( 324952 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:48AM (#21654679)
    ... wouldn't Fark want to at least consider seriously doing it before someone else manages it. This could really come back to bite Fark in the ass now that they've opened the pandora's box on the topic by bringing it up.
    • by VirusEqualsVeryYes ( 981719 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:59AM (#21654791)
      As a regular Farker, I think it's safe to assume that there's no malicious intent behind this. Seriously, read the linked blog entry:

      About the NSFW Trademark Application, I can say three things:

      1) Yes, we applied for it.

      2) Can't comment on the prank angle other than "stay tuned."

      3) Muhahaha.
      Does that sound remotely serious to you?

      One of two things will happen. One: the trademark is granted, Drew gets some laughs, lawsuits, and the TM gets taken away. Or two: the trademark is denied from the beginning. Either way, this TM is not going to hold up for obvious reasons already cited in the summary.

      I don't think this is opening up any sort of Pandora's box. With or without this development, trolls will TM random shit regardless. We just have to hope that the system corrects itself -- which, in general, it has.
      • by EMCEngineer ( 1155139 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:15AM (#21654959)
        I think everyone missed the point of this, and Slashdot fell right into it. The more page hits Drew Curtis gets, the more money he makes. So he has now created a stupid practical joke that is guaranteed to get dozens, if not hundreds, of websites to mention fark.com over and over and over.

        Then, he calmly dismisses it as a joke, while raking in profit.

        The stupid thing about this is how a few months ago fark went from being fairly open about NSFW imagery, to banning anyone that links to or posts it. Apparently they can make more money by being family(or workplace) friendly.

        • "The stupid thing about this is how a few months ago fark went from being fairly open about NSFW imagery, to banning anyone that links to or posts it. Apparently they can make more money by being family(or workplace) friendly."

          Time to fork fark!

        • by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <<tukaro> <at> <gmail.com>> on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @12:31PM (#21656953) Homepage Journal

          The stupid thing about this is how a few months ago fark went from being fairly open about NSFW imagery, to banning anyone that links to or posts it. Apparently they can make more money by being family(or workplace) friendly.
          I'm sorry, but: what?

          I've been a member of Fark for quite a few years now (five digit ID, aw yeah), and they have always been against the NSFW postings. You could never post actual NSFW images in the discussion forums, even for discussions of a NSFW link. You could link to stuff, but only if you had large notices that the link was NSFW. If something is questionable, they remove it anyway.

          Even on the TotalFarker side (who are the only ones that can comment on Boobies links now) you can't post anything like that. Images are auto-disabled for "Adult content" links, too.

          Drew has generally tried to keep Fark a place that could be browsed at work, uncaught by language and porn filters. This isn't new. They may have cracked down on porn links recently, but everything else is old hat.
        • by Machtyn ( 759119 )
          Actually, they can make more money by being family/workplace friendly. I had written Drew a few years ago requesting the ability to hide the NSFW stuff (before he categorized it). He mentioned that it was going off the main page (and left to other accessible areas) because certain of the advertisers didn't want to advertise on a page that could have been construed as a porn site. He did not elaborate beyond that. Also, realize, a few years ago means 2003-ish.
          • by Sancho ( 17056 )

            Actually, they can make more money by being family/workplace friendly.
            I doubt that's an absolute. Most porn sites would not make more money if they were family/workplace friendly, for example. If a lot of people went to fark just for the NSFW links, and Drew started eliminating those, he would be eliminating fanbase.
        • by jcnnghm ( 538570 )
          I couldn't agree more, for the $385 it costs to apply for a trademark, he's been front paged on tons of major websites. It's incredibly cheap for the amount of traffic it must be bringing in.
      • Does that sound remotely serious to you?

        No... it sounds juvenile, puerile, and self-serving. The only thing that would make it worse is if the trademark is actually granted. Really, is this what you have to do to get people to notice you. If he's really hot for attention, walk through town in a purple plaid suit with neon orange tie, but leave the internet community out of it.

        • by gclef ( 96311 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:27AM (#21655119)

          it sounds juvenile, puerile, and self-serving.
          In other words, totally normal for fark.
        • by dissy ( 172727 )

          No... it sounds juvenile, puerile, and self-serving. The only thing that would make it worse is if the trademark is actually granted. Really, is this what you have to do to get people to notice you. If he's really hot for attention, walk through town in a purple plaid suit with neon orange tie, but leave the internet community out of it.

          But if he did that, how would he make money? Right now all this attention is pulling in banner ad impressions and such.
          Unless one could find a company willing to pay you to walk through town in a purple plaid suit with neon orange tie, that would be really stupid for someone to do (Or atleast really pointless), while what he is doing now (making money) sounds really smart.

        • by osgeek ( 239988 )
          Yikes, you're too much fun for fark, that's for sure.

          Don't hurt yourself getting off that high horse.
      • by neoform ( 551705 )
        So it's ok cause Curtis is being juvenile and 'funny'?

        This is patent trolling 100%. Fark didn't invent NSFW and could easily try to extort money if they're granted this trademark.

        I'm not sure why anyone's taking fark's side on this one..
        • because the idea is to show how broken the patent/trademark system is.

          this application is social commentary with the added bonus of increasing fark's page views. /i'm a farker //slashdot needs more slashies ///slashies
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Whammy666 ( 589169 )
        Fark is a pathetic shell of what it used to be. Drew has really screwed up the site as compared to its glory days. I think this is another attempt at attention whoring to get people to come back to his site. It's not going to work. Fuck Drew. He'll get over it.
      • >Drew gets some laughs, lawsuits, and the TM gets taken away

        Abuse of the legal and patent system == hilarious? Are you going to read a 200 page deposition and chuckle all the way through? Yeah I dont think so.

        After Drew's disastrous book about the media being unquestioning idiots while his own site was doing its best to support bush's iraq adverentures/WMD and calling global warming a myth up until very recently, well, we're looking at another failure by this small loud-mouth businessman.

        If this was trul
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
      • by Zordak ( 123132 )

        One of two things will happen. One: the trademark is granted, Drew gets some laughs, lawsuits, and the TM gets taken away. Or two: the trademark is denied from the beginning.

        Or three, there is a distinct possibility that the mark will be perfectly valid, will be granted and will be upheld in court. Or four, something else could happen. Or five, another something else could happen ...

        I know that this has to be said every single time there's a trademark story on Slashdot, but this is not that big a deal.

        • by Sancho ( 17056 )
          Yes, although companies sue other people all the time for using their marks in unrelated businesses. Just because you can, doesn't mean that it's not going to suck having that lawsuit hit you.
    • by wampus ( 1932 )
      I don't know why fark would want NSFW, anyway. Advertisers don't like that crap and we all know it.
    • If we're not careful, bannination.com [bannination.com] will go and trademark hurrr. Pandora's box indeed.
  • we should trademark IANAL... IMHO...
  • NSFW (Score:2, Informative)

    by olm911 ( 889429 )
    Go to Fark and read about it. It is just a joke.
    • Which anyone even remotely familiar with fark knew when they read the headline. I think this poster in the linked fark blog got my sentiments just right: "I can't believe how many people in the blogosphere are falling for it."
  • Trademark WWJD, apparently
  • by oahazmatt ( 868057 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:01AM (#21654807) Journal
    In retaliation, CmdrTaco has filed a trademark for "slashies"

    / sorry
    // had to do it
  • by CygnusTX ( 1174717 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:17AM (#21654985)
    First off, the original post is wrong. The guy is not trying to trademark NSFW to describe naughty online content. The application is for the provision of entertainment services. To complain about this application is very much like complaining about someone trying to trademark the word "Apple" for computers and electronics. Oh my, but who would do that? If the application is registered, it would not take NSFW out of the public domain of posts and the like. It will just prevent the COMMERCIAL use of NSFW for the provision of entertainment services. So, if one of you wanted to use NSFW to sell, say, a cologne, you still could. And you could prevent others from doing so by registering the trademark.
    • by jthill ( 303417 )
      "Apple" isn't a descriptive acronym.
    • by makomk ( 752139 )
      IANAL, but (a) I'm pretty sure trademarks don't just affect commercial use, and (b) take a look at nsfw.com - it seems to fit directly into the categories that Fark is applying for a trademark in, and it's not the only site. Basically, Fark has absolutely no right to apply for this trademark.
    • This is probably just a gag. Stop being so serious. Fark's been trying to name stadiums and other landmarks "UFIA" for ages. (You can Google what UFIA stands for.)
  • by ebcdic ( 39948 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:17AM (#21654991)
    ... are the new press releases. How easily you are all trolled.
  • by 0xdeadbeef ( 28836 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:20AM (#21655021) Homepage Journal
    Sure, and it was all fun and games until "The Daily WTF" [worsethanfailure.com] was forced to rename by the World Trade Federation.
    • That kind of reminds me iof the big World Wrestling Federation vs World Wildlife Fund case over the "WWF" moniker. (Which I personally thought was ridiculous considering just about anyone at the time would have associated the term with wrestling before animal conservation.)

      Eventually, the World Wrestling Federation changed their to name to World Wrestling Entertainment using the current "WWE" moniker, but included the tagline "Get the F out!" for several months following the ruling.
      • (Which I personally thought was ridiculous considering just about anyone at the time would have associated the term with wrestling before animal conservation.)

        American I take it? I always associated it with the World Wildlife Fund as the World Wrestling Federation was just some crap the cable networks would broadcast in the middle of the night because they could get it for cheap...

        /Mikael

      • by Hatta ( 162192 )
        Which I personally thought was ridiculous considering just about anyone at the time would have associated the term with wrestling before animal conservation.

        Only if you're into wrestling. The rest of the civilized world doesn't pay any attention to it. The WWF has always been the World Wildlife Foundation to me.
        • Hmm... yeah, I suppose the vegan/hippie/peta crowd probably wouldn't enjoy watching people beating on each other, even if it is all staged.

          Maybe we need to start going back to the days of feeding christians to the lions to get a worthwhile audience...
      • I seem to remember that the World Wrestling Federation were the ones who were trying to trademark WWF, and the World Wildlife Fund was resisting it. They switched to WWE because no one else was using that one.

        Kind of like why Intel switched to Pentium instead of using 586.
  • Drew will license it for beer. No worries.
  • by HeliosTrick ( 825325 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:25AM (#21655091) Homepage
    A friend told me that NSFW stood for "Now Show Friends and Workmates"... I'm now unemployed :(
  • I think this may be the finest job of trolling I've ever seen, as illustrated by the length and quality of this thread. Sometimes I just wake up filled with gratitude that I live in such exciting times. /obligatory //tribute ///slashies
  • They couldn't get the trademark for something they didn't invent. NSFW is a 4chan thing. Mootles would undoubtedly have evidence of significant prior art somewhere in his sperm-soaked basement apartment of his parents' tiny shack.

  • I never knew what NSFW was abbreviation for.
  • If you thought RTBL editing was bad, at least your posts show [wikipedia.org] up [google.com].

    But it'd be quite nice to see that happen here for some of the obscured redirects.
  • Quick! I need to prepare my trademark application for the phrase, "In Soviet Russia,..." [trademark owns YOU]! Although this guy [wikipedia.org] probably already did that back in the 80s,... oh well -- maybe they'll still let it slip by, with all the dupes around here already,... ;-)
  • Motherfarkers....
  • I'm really surprised that someone hasn't tried to start a registry of pet names, and extort money from pet owners wanting to give those names to their pets. Animal names represent valuable Intellectual Property, don'tcha know. That cat you've got, Enrico Agache Something Amelia Earhart*, I hear you've been calling him Chico for short? That'll be ..... what ..... £100 a year to name a cat Chico. Or you can go to court to argue it out ..... but it's cheaper to pay up right now .....

    * Only Chico
  • A lot of folks fled fark because of the crazy moderation disasters, shadowban's, and sometimes real consequences. I have talked to folks that have no idea why they were banned. They only found out after someone said their posts weren't showing. I have even talked to one individual that claims some of the moderators at fark have gone so far as to try and mark him as a pedophile stalker.

    Since all these people are nice, well spoken, and seemingly intelligent, it's hard to ignore. More and more stories accum
  • by PPH ( 736903 )
    Not Suitable For Wanking?

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