SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_j0j05oa wrote on December 17, 2022 at 12:19 AM

Reply to comment by newspeer in 15 Years of almost daily use and still going strong , I present to you the Toyota of Backpacks by TheRealHowardPotts

>this was over a decade ago

Apparently a decade was not enough time for them to admit they were at fault. They did however find the time to attack multiple parties. Never successfully sued anyone that I know of. Just used the advantage of their deeper pockets to threaten smaller businesses and hoped that it works.

WhiteWingedDove- t1_j0j0u3g wrote on December 17, 2022 at 12:24 AM

It's really not a big deal. I don't even believe in copyright laws at all, but if a company trying to stop others from using a logo is the worst you can find, that's really weak tea bro.

Can't you dig deeper and find they used slave labor or busted a unionization drive or something?

SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_j0j6hpd wrote on December 17, 2022 at 1:10 AM

I agree that it's not a major wrongdoing. But it demonstrates that they were and remain assholes.

Actually what they faced strongest public backlash for, was the fact that, IIUC, they outright went and filed suit against a bunch of mom-and-pop businesses. No cease and desist notices, directly sued individual craftsmen. "We're a megacorporation and have a large legal team on retainer, so it doesn't cost us anything to sue you" What kind of sociopath does that? I mean, it was a corporation's action, but an actual living person made those decisions...

WhiteWingedDove- t1_j0jci5n wrote on December 17, 2022 at 2:00 AM

Yeah I mean it's par for the course for businesses. I don't think a single moral business establishment has ever existed, and if it did, it was quickly run out of business by another that was willing to be more cut throat.

SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_j0o2ph5 wrote on December 18, 2022 at 3:20 AM

>I don't think a single moral business establishment has ever existed, and if it did, it was quickly run out of business by another that was willing to be more cut throat.

I believe that to be correct, but the conclusion you're drawing from it, to be incorrect. There's also a human factor on the corporate side. In many cases, someone says "Let's call those damn fools and explain to them that they can't just imitate registered trademarks and there are laws against that.' Even in a naturally inhumane corporation, there are still a lot of humane employees, simply because the corporation wants good team players.

The human factor would not be present in the big decisions where the bottom line is at stake. But small daily interactions are a different matter.

WhiteWingedDove- t1_j0o55or wrote on December 18, 2022 at 3:41 AM

Maybe there is something to what you're saying from a psychological standpoint but microeconomics teaches us that firms are in business to make a profit and that is the overriding principle that guides every decision from the smallest, seemingly insignificant decision to major ones. In reality, every decision is a decision where the "bottom line is at stake."

So, ultimately, according the microecon, the decision was made to pursue copyright claims against mom and pops because the firm thought it would boost profits. Probably because they thought they could get some kind of monetary settlement, or more likely (in my opinion), because they thought any press it would bring would be good for sales.

And that thought doesn't necessarily have to be true for us to say the profit motive is behind it. Tons of business decisions are made because stakeholders *thought* they would boost profits, but actually ended up losing money.

SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_j0pj260 wrote on December 18, 2022 at 1:30 PM

That would be an attempt of using the map to reason against the realities of the terrain.

I'm not an economist, but here's my attempt at describing it in my own words: Microeconomics has an extremely simplified model, which works reasonably well for the purposes it is designed for: Individuals' market behavior, parameterized by few key quantities of the market environment. The dynamics of the collective market environment (simplified to a few key quantities), as a result of individuals' market behavior. But that's all. It says nothing about e.g. whether, when times are good, the owner of a small private business will size bonuses based on the bare minimum which maximizes expected future return, or be generous for emotional reasons.

> In reality, every decision is a decision where the "bottom line is at stake."

That goes directly against my personal experience of businesses' (of various sizes) day-to-day operations. Also, microeconomics assumes "rational actors", not omniscient or internally efficient. It doesn't model the internal dynamics of a business, just its behavior on its external "market" interface, based on available information. E.g, in the same circumstances, on the inside some try to formalize a perfect methodology and avoid disruptions. Others try to build agility and foster disruptive patterns. That aspect of a business is outside the scope of microeconomics.

newspeer t1_j0j0h0j wrote on December 17, 2022 at 12:22 AM

So, they gave them a choice between loosing a lot of money in court and not loosing a lot of money?

SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_j0j4wr0 wrote on December 17, 2022 at 12:57 AM

My point is, I'm disputing the "protect what (...) rightfully own" part in your previous statement. We don't know that their property extends as far as their claims did.

Those aren't empty words. Do look up my other comment here (with the two links), and compare their logo against Bearwear's logo. AFAICT, they're trying to prevent the use of stylized images of any mammalian footprint.