Before the general context and behavior of big companies was very serious. You know you had your GE, IBM, Ford, I don't know P&G, big serious companies that wear ties and white shirts. And you make a parody of them and becomes kind of obvious. Oh look "Big Brother Inside" logo for Intel. Ok clearly a parody.
However, I feel, there is this movement toward lightheartedness and humor in the new style of PR. Google is the prototypical company here. Bright childish colors. "Oh look the rainbow! Blue, green, red colorful beach balls in every office!". That was their initial image. "We are just big kids playing and building cool stuff". Or say, April 1st comes, and here is Google making fun of their products. Releasing something like "Google Fiber over Toilet Plumbing" (get it, get it, fiber, toilet, ..., make sure to tweet it!). Something like that. So that is all jolly good, except that by using lightheartedness and parody as a standard PR tool, now it is not easily differentiated from other parody out there. Maybe environmentalists make a site about Google's Fiber Toilet Plumbing. Now it is kind of harder to tell the difference.
Anyway, this is too much drivel. Not defending or taking sides, just pointing out what seems like an interesting pattern developing.
Leave it to internet companies to turn a fun day with small hidden easter eggs into a day of cringeworthy bad jokes plastered all over the web.
Ten aprils fools. That's ten days. It took ten days to run a perfectly fun day into a day where a lot of people would rather stay to listen to Rush Limbaugh read the phonebook than go on any website, at any point of the day.
I think it's inherently impossible for an megaentity existing purely for monetary gain to seem lighthearted and human. I wish they'd stop trying.
A parody does not confuse the viewer as to the source of goods and services. In a parody, it is clear that the goods or services, or speech, are from a different source than the original.
If one makes a product as a "parody" and pretends to be the original source, while acting purposely foolishly, I don't think that would be defensible.
For instance, if you are opposed to people eating meat sold by Foster Farms, then making deliberately disgusting meat, and handing it to pedestrians in a city, while making fun of meat, does not constitute parody of Foster Farms. It damages the brand of the original.
A parody would be using Google's names and symbols in some transformative action that is clearly not sourced from Google.
To be clear, I'm pretty sure that Peng! wasn't actually selling drones, insurance or hugs. There are no goods or services. They were not making a product.
So to adjust your example, if a group had a political complaint against Foster Farms and made a website claiming to sell obviously foul products, that would be a rich example of parody. "Damaging the brand" is pretty much the goal in an action like this.
I don't agree. The strength of some parodies or hoaxes is that you use the companies name, this is important to make people think (I believe). Under your definition groups like "The Yes Men" would not be considered parody. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men
I don't want to go into the example you brought up with Foster Farms, you should realize that this comparison is pretty much flawed.
It depends on the type of parody. Your definition seems to stick to literature parody only. If you extend the definition over literature and text, I think it's important to use the same visuals and pretend to be the company or individual ... see also: https://www.adbusters.org/spoofads (they classify for me also as parody and they are spoofs, pretending to be the original source).
A parody is often also called spoof, which in this case fits better I think.
Damn, I just think creating a domain name like: trademark1-partnerstrademark.com such as google-nest.com is trademark infringement and that the eff is wrong. I am sure I'm not alone in this.
The content itself is fine (there's an archive.org link below). It's the domain I suspect they had a problem with.
Is the letter legit? It claims the Google Nest parody went so far as to create fake Google employee profiles on social networking sites, used false Whois info (listing Google as the registrant and contact), and featured a (working) Google "Sign In" button.
The last one is the most concerning (and confirmed by mirror sites, e.g. http://google-nest.codewing.de/ ). That's more like what I'd expect from a phishing site; a parody page should have no need for it.
This brings to mind another silly requirement for parody in the Google ecosystem, requiring "(Parody)" after an account name. Consider the case of Jesus H. Christ on G+: http://goo.gl/6UEsEj.
Parody is a specific legal defense against trademark infringement. The idea that trademark holders are always required to 'defend' their trademark regardless of context is simply false.
Given that the use here is noncommercial (Peng! is not selling a product in Google's area of business), it's almost certainly the case that Google is under no obligation to engage in any legal action. Even commercial parody can be protected, though the criteria are somewhat more complex.
Interestingly, it's easier to legally parody stronger trademarks because of public recognition of the parody - see Louis Vuitton v Haute Diggity Dog for an example. Google certainly qualifies as a strong trademark, although the parody name here isn't as memorable as 'Chewy Vuiton'.
> not quite sure why my comment is getting downvoted.
Kneejerk responses.
You're entirely right that Google at least has to legally take some action, as otherwise others can point at the precedent when doing actual attacks on Google trademarks.
[+] [-] rdtsc|11 years ago|reply
Before the general context and behavior of big companies was very serious. You know you had your GE, IBM, Ford, I don't know P&G, big serious companies that wear ties and white shirts. And you make a parody of them and becomes kind of obvious. Oh look "Big Brother Inside" logo for Intel. Ok clearly a parody.
However, I feel, there is this movement toward lightheartedness and humor in the new style of PR. Google is the prototypical company here. Bright childish colors. "Oh look the rainbow! Blue, green, red colorful beach balls in every office!". That was their initial image. "We are just big kids playing and building cool stuff". Or say, April 1st comes, and here is Google making fun of their products. Releasing something like "Google Fiber over Toilet Plumbing" (get it, get it, fiber, toilet, ..., make sure to tweet it!). Something like that. So that is all jolly good, except that by using lightheartedness and parody as a standard PR tool, now it is not easily differentiated from other parody out there. Maybe environmentalists make a site about Google's Fiber Toilet Plumbing. Now it is kind of harder to tell the difference.
Anyway, this is too much drivel. Not defending or taking sides, just pointing out what seems like an interesting pattern developing.
[+] [-] scrollaway|11 years ago|reply
Ten aprils fools. That's ten days. It took ten days to run a perfectly fun day into a day where a lot of people would rather stay to listen to Rush Limbaugh read the phonebook than go on any website, at any point of the day.
I think it's inherently impossible for an megaentity existing purely for monetary gain to seem lighthearted and human. I wish they'd stop trying.
[+] [-] TheMagicHorsey|11 years ago|reply
If one makes a product as a "parody" and pretends to be the original source, while acting purposely foolishly, I don't think that would be defensible.
For instance, if you are opposed to people eating meat sold by Foster Farms, then making deliberately disgusting meat, and handing it to pedestrians in a city, while making fun of meat, does not constitute parody of Foster Farms. It damages the brand of the original.
A parody would be using Google's names and symbols in some transformative action that is clearly not sourced from Google.
[+] [-] couchand|11 years ago|reply
So to adjust your example, if a group had a political complaint against Foster Farms and made a website claiming to sell obviously foul products, that would be a rich example of parody. "Damaging the brand" is pretty much the goal in an action like this.
[+] [-] kgarten|11 years ago|reply
I don't want to go into the example you brought up with Foster Farms, you should realize that this comparison is pretty much flawed.
[+] [-] kgarten|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] readme|11 years ago|reply
The content itself is fine (there's an archive.org link below). It's the domain I suspect they had a problem with.
[+] [-] yohui|11 years ago|reply
Is the letter legit? It claims the Google Nest parody went so far as to create fake Google employee profiles on social networking sites, used false Whois info (listing Google as the registrant and contact), and featured a (working) Google "Sign In" button.
The last one is the most concerning (and confirmed by mirror sites, e.g. http://google-nest.codewing.de/ ). That's more like what I'd expect from a phishing site; a parody page should have no need for it.
[+] [-] dartonw|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asadlionpk|11 years ago|reply
Pretty interesting and funny.
[+] [-] Sir_Cmpwn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josephschmoe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldcode|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] couchand|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hatelibs|11 years ago|reply
Also don't trademarks get forfeited if you don't enforce them? there are at least 2 of them being misused in this instance.
Edit: not quite sure why my comment is getting downvoted.
[+] [-] yew|11 years ago|reply
Given that the use here is noncommercial (Peng! is not selling a product in Google's area of business), it's almost certainly the case that Google is under no obligation to engage in any legal action. Even commercial parody can be protected, though the criteria are somewhat more complex.
Interestingly, it's easier to legally parody stronger trademarks because of public recognition of the parody - see Louis Vuitton v Haute Diggity Dog for an example. Google certainly qualifies as a strong trademark, although the parody name here isn't as memorable as 'Chewy Vuiton'.
[+] [-] om2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mithaldu|11 years ago|reply
Kneejerk responses.
You're entirely right that Google at least has to legally take some action, as otherwise others can point at the precedent when doing actual attacks on Google trademarks.