Yesterday, EDM Twitter found that Insomniac Events had positioned an utility to trademark PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect).
“This made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”
INSOMNIAC TRADEMARKED PLUR 🤣🤣🤣🤣😭😭
I’m lifeless pic.twitter.com/G6yKhrRhVx— GLASSPΛCK.ΛV (@glasspvck) April 6, 2023
There’s already a change.org petition to make sure PLUR stays “public domain.”
“Due to the widespread use of PLUR, there there should be no legal ownership or trademark associated with it,” the petition reads. “However, some individuals and companies have attempted to claim ownership of the term, which can limit its usage and prevent others from promoting its message.”
A fast refresher on what a trademark is from the United States Patent and Trademark Office: “A trademark can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services.”
It continues, “A common misconception is that having a trademark means you legally own a particular word or phrase and can prevent others from using it. However, you don’t have rights to the word or phrase in general, only to how that word or phrase is used with your specific goods or services.”
In the unique tweet, the phrase PLUR is depicted in a very particular font and magnificence. It is the mix of the phrase, that explicit font, that explicit fashion, for a explicit good or service that is being trademarked, nothing else.
Grant Gilmore, founder and editor-in-chief at EDM Identity, shed some extra mild on the state of affairs as properly, highlighting that PLUR has been trademarked quite a few occasions already and in many various use instances. Insomniac inserting a trademark on a particular use of the phrase in a particular font for a particular objective does not take away the phrase from public area, nor does it imply that Insomniac “owns” the phrase.
For everybody leaping down Insomniac’s throat about trademarking PLUR, a number of corporations have both finished so up to now and/or nonetheless have lively logos, lol. pic.twitter.com/RQ1wsobmzG
— Panda Panda Panda ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (@czarcruise) April 6, 2023
If you want any extra cause to not go after Insomniac for this, Frankie Bones himself, the de facto creator of PLUR, gave Insomniac his blessing. “Pasquale Rotella is the absolute one and only person alive on the planet today who has done more for rave culture [than] anyone else,” he mentioned. “So I gave my blessing.”
Frankie Bones says the PLUR trademark uproar ought to cease, and he is giving them his blessing. pic.twitter.com/oWyLJ1AeJr
— Panda Panda Panda ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (@czarcruise) April 6, 2023
Moral of the story? It’s not the tip of the world, nor the tip of PLUR.
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