waider | cue evil empire music

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stupidity

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Tim O'Reilly posts something about Web 2.0 just as some attack lawyers are C&D'ing a half-day free conference for the use of the term "Web 2.0". Predictably, a bunch of people jump on the comments page to tell us all how they're never buying another O'Reilly book, burning the ones they have, etc. The C&D is deplorable, but I think blaming Tim for it personally is a bit much, and I'm curious to see if he does comment, and what becomes of the C&D. There are interesting points such as the fact that the claimed service mark is still in the application stage, the application's jurisdiction (apparently) does not apply, the instigators are CMP rather than O'Reilly, etc. but it all boils down to the usual legal knee-jerking in the face of what I'd consider reasonable use.

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I'm ambivalent about the Web 2.0 trademarking. Without some useful background information I can't presume ORA isn't doing it to pre-empt privatization of the term, a'la Torvald's trademarking of Linux (which is unwarrantedly hopeful but not even necessarily improbable). On the other hand, given as ORA already runs a conference, knowingly calling your own conference 'Web 2.0' is a bit like selling your own Coca Cola and claiming it's OK because the Atlanta company happens to not have a vending machine on your patch of sidewalk.

Apropos Tim's post, I had an amusing round yesterday with a staffer who wanted me to insert a disclaimer that the addresses users enter into $Form are not stored or reused for any purpose. I had to point out that users have to log into the site with same addresses before they could reach $Form, and their email addresses are already reused for various vaguely opt-in marketing purposes, so that's not exactly honest. Not to mention the fact that we have to have some means to track abusers. The req.disc has gone back to committee.

What I have learned form the shitstorm so far:

ORA/CMP (claim to have) coined the term 'Web 2.0', and they filed for a service mark for "'live events and conferences" bearing the brand back in 2003.
Noone seems to have been aware of the filing, and it looks as though ORA/CMP didn't go out of their way to highlight the application; rather they went out of their way to push 'Web 2.0' as a generic term for whatever it is that Web 2.0 actually means.
The C&D was sent without contacting the guys running the free conference, which ORA are now acknowledging was a mistake, albeit one made with their full knowledge
The usual howling pack of ignorant clods are posting to any and all ORA blogs about how ORA sucks, how Tim personally has killed Web 2.0, how ORA's PR person is incompetent, how Tim should cancel his Memorial Day weekend vacation in order to handle this, etc. etc. etc. It's a train wreck.
Slashdot has apparently picked it up; I refuse to even look.
Boing Boing has picked it up, and it's actually far more readable than Cory's usual copyright-bashing nonsense; from this I surmise that in order to make Cory readable, you only let him write about things where he's in a potential conflict-of-(personal)-interest situation.
I personally couldn't care less who owns what related to Web 2.0 as it's the stupidest name for anything since Microsoft Bob. I'm curious enough to keep an eye on ORA to see what Sir Timothy has to say when he comes back from his Memorial Day weekend and discovers he's wading knee-deep in nerdshit.

The generic thing is the biggest issue to me; I don't think it makes sense to try to introduce a term, not trademarked, for a movement, and then expect to be able to cause conferences about that movement to not use that term. It may be legal, but it's both dumb and, I think, unethetical.

So put me in the not-at-all ambivalent column.