To prove their point, included in the filing is an email from a person who spent $500 on top-tier tickets to a Demon Hunter concert in Albany, thinking they were purchasing admission to a KPop Demon Hunters event for their children, aged five and six.
I kind of get it. It’s not like the movie has nothing to do with music.
Awful lot of simping for big daddy Netflix in this thread. I’m disappointed in you, lemmy users.
Calling these turds out for being dumbasses doesn’t mean we’re defending Netflix. Netflix sucks. These guys suck. What is happening to these guys is hardly the result of Netflix’s actions.
What I DO see a lot of on Lemmy is a lot of immature black-and-white thinking where the bad actions of one entity are used to assume that the opposite side are the good guys. Calling out bad behavior does not absolve the bad behavior of their opponents.
They actually have a decent case here.
They’ve been a band with a trademarked name for 25 years. Netflix used that same name as part if the movie title. The band can show measurable harm to their trademarked brand, by citing Google search results for Demon Hunter.
I can’t imagine Netflix would change the name of the movie, but paying the band for the damage to their trademark, and compensation for having to rebrand and trademark a new band name is a reasonable cost of success for Netflix.
In short, it isn’t very Oniony
They’ve been a band with a trademarked name for 25 years.
They trademarked “Demon Hunters” in 2022…
Their case is shit, its frankly a miracle they were even able to trademark “Demon Hunters” because it’s so generic. I see this going nowhere.
They got the trademark as soon as they started marketing their band. They may not have registered the trademark until 2022. Things like trademarks and copyright are implicit to the creator. Registering them just makes it easier for others to find your work and deter infringement and makes filing some paperwork, namely lawsuits, much easier.
Demon hunters is not generic. It doesn’t work the way you think. I hold a few trademarks.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I hunt demons.”
“So, you’re a demon hunter?”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous. Demon Hunter is trademarked by a band no one has ever heard of. We call ourselves ‘Demon Stalkers’ to avoid an infringement lawsuit.”
The thing they have to fight though is that when you register for a trademark, it doesnt apply to every sector. Apple cannot for example and sue farm conglomerates for using the word apple on their actual apples. They do not hold the trademark in terms of produce.
For example, Nintendo lost a trademark to a supermarket in I think costa rica named “Super Mario” (it was a supermarket owned by a guy named mario), because Nintendo did not own the trademark rights to supermarkets(however they held one for food products branded it, so the same supermarket could not name their home branded products super mario)
Its a matter if the band holds the trademark for movies, as the band in the show itself is not called Demon Hunters (its Hunter/x)
It’s hilarious that you use Apple as an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
I think they are or did also sue Apple Theaters even tho Apple Theaters was operating long before Apple TV.
It’s like the Buc-ees gas station suing an underwear company because they had a squirrel logo (Buc—ees logo is a beaver).
The movie title is referring to a fictional band, so even if you google “demon hunters band” you’re almost certainly going to get K-Pop Demon Hunters nowadays. I wouldn’t even know how to search for them and reliably get them to show up.
…well except this news story has gone viral so now they DO show up on top. The internet is weird man.
By using the old ways of search fu.
“Demon Hunter Christian Rock -pop -k-pop -k-pop”
What search engine do you use that respects that type of search now? I’ve found that for years now Google just ignores the -pop or sometimes just ignores the “-“ and adds the thing I’m trying to avoid directly to the search query.
What search engine do you use that respects that type of search now?
kagi.
search engine SEOs are a separate issue than trademarks though. there isn’t any law that im aware of that requires search engines to be neutral on how searches are organized (or even if something shows at all). If Demon Hunter wants to fight against not being able to be found, theyd essentially for example, be fighting against every corporate who uses DMCA powers to force google to remove some links from being indexed.
It’s about being able to easily demonstrate harm to their brand by making it difficult to find them with a normal search.
I wonder if using just Mario for the food would be fine.
Go to Super Mario’s and then get Mario’s lasagna!
First names literally cannot be trademakred for living beings, but they can for commerce purposes so long as said commerced entity doesn’t also attempt to sue Mario for also using his born name on a non-trademarked product.
I dont understand what you mean by the so long as part?
A notable high-profile legal defeat over first name usage involves reality star Kylie Jenner losing a trademark opposition against international pop singer Kylie Minogue.
Basically, the name Kylie is perceived by the public as a first name, NOT a brand and therefore is unenforceable in a court of law. They can continue with the trademark all they want, but their limited to only suing other companies, not humans using the name.
ah, gotcha. Thanks!
You are right, but this isn’t a video game versus a grocery store chain comparison here. It’s a real life band vs a movie of a fictional band. The question of trademark infringement is not necessarily even about direct competition or intentional use. It is about whether a reasonable consumer of their product might confuse the two names/logos.
Were the movie just about some typical warriors fighting demons and otherwise just sharing a similar name, I doubt that they would have much of a case due to lack of overlap. But as the film is about a band (even if the band itself has a different name), and the actual soundtrack for this fictional band is immensely popular and carries the film name, and they’re selling live shows with the artists who created the actual music under the same name. I think they could make a really good case about consumer confusion.
Edit: They even demonstrate actual consumer confusion that has already occurred in their court filing.
To prove their point, included in the filing is an email from a person who spent $500 on top-tier tickets to a Demon Hunter concert in Albany, thinking they were purchasing admission to a KPop Demon Hunters event for their children, aged five and six.
Yes they have proof delivered straight to them that consumers are confused. I think they have a case.
lol they have no case at all.
I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a compelling point.
You should really become a litigator.
Yes and no. While they have the older brand, the term “Demon Hunter” could easily discounted as a generic and therefore not worthy of protection.
Microsoft skirted this issue with Windows (which is officially “Microsoft Windows”), and they can easily prove that their brand is associated with their product. But a third class niche band? I would not bet on it.
I don’t see how you could be right on this. It’s not generic and the band has used that mark for decades even if it was unregistered. If you use a brand for commerce that’s your proof you hold that mark. They had it for 25 years. Imo Netflix did cause them harm. I bet they do have a case here.
It was probably not registered because it is generic.
You keep saying it’s generic, but you clearly don’t understand the term as used with trade marks. Generic means it describes a product. So “Step up” couldn’t be used for a stair company as competitors couldn’t then describe “adding a step up to your front door”, or whatever, without risking infringement.
Genericisation then is when a trade mark becomes used descriptively - dumpster, is a classic example, another is jeep.
“Demon Hunters” would be generic if the business operation was hunting supernatural beasts and a judge determined that to be a real occupation … a singer/songwriter who called themselves “Solo Artist” would be generic.
There’s acquired distinctiveness too, which is why “pianoman” could be a trade mark (I’m not sure if it is, probably still not distinctive enough).
I’m concerned that children may have been exposed to Christian “metal”. That is a traumatic experience that can ruin your enjoyment of metal, rock, and live concerts in general.
Demon hunter actually had some bangers back when I was in highschool
How does that work, though? It must be weird banging your head into a Bible.
This seems like a stretch. The MOVIE had a similar name to the BAND. Remember in 2013 when a movie came out literally called “Rush”? Geddy Lee didn’t take Ron Howard to court. Trademarks do not transcend all trades/media. Nintendo has a line of Demon Hunter games. D&D has a class Demon Hunter.
Using search results as the basis is borderline nonsense. Apply that logic to say, a disaster. “Ever since the town of Metallica exploded our search results are down, so we’re taking them to court!” Nonsense. How about science? “Since it was announced comet KMFDM, a name derived using some standard naming convention, was announced to be slamming into earth next year, our search results are way down!”. TRADEmark, not OWNTHEWORDSmark.
The KPop band is called HUNTR/X. If they had been called Demon Hunters then yeah, probably a case.
Nintendo has a line of Demon Hunter games. D&D has a class Demon Hunter.
Fwiw, games and video games fall into difference Nice classes (commercial areas of application of trade marks). Without those things being international household names in and of themselves then it’s not relevant; unless you were saying that Nintendo or a D&D company had registered the trade marks for music already.
If you read the article, it’s NOT about the movie at all.
It’s about the fact that Netflix and AEG are running live concerts under the event name “Kpop Demon Hunters”. NOT the band HUNTR/X.
And the actual band Demon Hunter has evidence that people bought tickets to their show thinking it was the Netflix live show, then requested refunds because of the confusion
So… yeah they do have a case. The live shows are running under the name Demon Hunters, directly confusing people with the actual band Demon Hunter. Especially parents that aren’t really familiar with either, but just want to buy tickets for their kids. Which they say they have direct evidence of people buying tickets then requesting refunds because they were confused about the name.
Won’t someone please think of the white, Christian men?
Basing your laws on the sex and colour of skin of the people you apply them too … I think there are names for that.
Honestly, no one was searching for this trash band before. I guarantee that this has at the least given them more exposure. This lawsuit is entirely performative (it’s needed to maintain trademark).
I have no love for netflix or it’s terrible movie, but if it hurts some shitty christian band I have a real hard time being upset.
The thing is a trademark can’t trademark something “generic”.
Like you can’t trademark “chocolate dreams” ans a name for a band… and the go after some one that uses the phrase “chocolate dreams” for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
Generic is not what you think. You’re trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. I’m sorry you’re just wrong about this.
First off there’s a reason I put it in quotes.
And second, that wasn’t what I was arguing. Nice straw man.
Third, you can’t trademark something after people who have similar names just because they have similar names.
Demon hunter is a metal band.
It’s very unlikely that they lost business because someone wandered into an anime called “Kpop Demon Hunter”… and even if they did, it wasn’t named to trade on the metal band’s name.
Not only do you not know what makes a potential trade mark generic, but you don’t know what a straw man is either …
You’re sort of right about the names, but know of standing in this case has the given name “Demon Hunter”, it’s a band name.
Trade mark is a registered IP right, it doesn’t matter if you intended to infringe it, you can’t trade using someone else’s registered name (in the same field of commerce, and same geographic area).
Not only do you not know what makes a potential trade mark generic, but you don’t know what a straw man is either …
It’s interesting.
from wikipedia a straw man fallacy is :
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man”.
My statement:
The thing is a trademark can’t trademark something “generic”.
Like you can’t trademark “chocolate dreams” ans a name for a band… and the go after some one that uses the phrase “chocolate dreams” for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
to which they replied:
Generic is not what you think. You’re trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. I’m sorry you’re just wrong about this.
Which absolutely is not what I was trying to say. So yes. They misrepresented my argument. Are you trying to say they didn’t attack it?
Further… My response to them, which you replied to with out apparently reading.
First off there’s a reason I put it in quotes.
and that reason was because I knew pedantic idiots like you would conflate the word “generic” with with the legal term “generic trademark.” The argument that I’m making is that “demon hunter” is common enough that it’s not particularly specific; and that further, no one is likely to be confused between the two.
And the USPTO agreed- more or less- when they gave netflix a trademark for “KPop Demon Hunter”- because checking for potential conflicts is part of the process.
by ‘generic’ I meant that you can’t trademark something thats generic- Like I can’t open a shop at the State Fair and trademark “turkey legs” because I’m selling shoes that look like turkey feet and then go after the people selling roasted turkey legs.
Does that make sense? they probably would reject that trademark, actually. Or require it be more specific.
Their first mistake was forming a Christian metal band. This stupid lawsuit pales in comparison to that.
Turn the other cheek you Hippocrate fuck faces.
I don’t think Hippocrates is the man to invoke here, unless they’re doing faith healing then of course ‘do no harm’ comes into play
They cant, for they have no cheeks to turn.
Poser metal band 1, the Lord 0.They’re pretty legit.
They’re generic dad rock with a bible theme. It’s just Staind that goes to church.
I regret a lot of my musical choices from that stage of my life but Demon Hunter is not one of them.
Five Iron Frenzy is another good one.
Can’t you see, you’re not making Christianity better, you’re just making metal worse.
