Why all the free-stuff Facebook groups you’re part of just changed their name (sfstandard.com)

submitted 6 months ago by ray@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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Not exactly... world news. But it's happening all over the world.

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[-] RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 6 months ago

Actually hilarious to charge $55 a year under the banner of Buy Nothing

[-] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 5 points 6 months ago

Yeah CEOs are frickin' hilarious that way

[-] solrize@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago

What was that brand that tried to pitch itself as a non-brand having no logo, but its stuff had a black smudgy circle as a logo? It wasn't "No Logo" (title of a Naomi Klein book) but I had thought it was related to that. It amused me. Web search isn't finding it right now.

[-] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 4 points 6 months ago

Not what you're thinking of, but adjacent and worthy on its own

[-] solrize@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I still can't find the black smudge logo but this is funny too (it's unironically a product for sale):

[-] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago

I buy unbranded brand jeans, but I don’t think that’s it. I just like high quality selvage denim, lasts way longer than Levi’s or Wrangler and looks nicer too.

[-] paper_moon@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

Back in college when I was more active on Craigslist, they called it freecycle. I always wondered why and where buy-nothing came from, as I was extremely familiar with the term freecycle already.

[-] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 months ago

Freecycle did the same thing a few years ago. Our local freecycle group had to change their name to Giving With Integrity.

[-] paper_moon@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Well thats shitty, i also didn't realize freecycle was an organization or entity that had legal rights to the name, thought it was similar to what I originally thought buy-nothing was, just a term used to easily describe the intention of the group.

[-] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

Wow what an asshole thing to do. They want to make money off their book. Crazy that people need these Facebook groups to get food and resources when SNAP is not available and these two just want to make money.

[-] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 10 points 6 months ago

Free stuff isn't worth the pain of being on Facebook to me.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

But to the people behind the Buy Nothing Project, the umbrella group that sparked it all, Cahill and others are copycats who stole their idea, their trademark, and, ironically, their chance to reel in revenue from the giveaways through the official Buy Nothing app.

Are there no rules for how complex and NOT PART OF THE LANGUAGE trademarks have to be?

I'm going to trademark all 26 letters and become a jillionaire

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 6 months ago

Generally they're by type of good, IIRC. So, a grocery store can still sell eating apples, but not computers or phones called that.

[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Can one trademark a brand and then announce that it is immediately public domain so that no one else can ever trademark it? Someone should trademark No Buy Stuff or some such phrase and do that.

[-] ray@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 months ago

Obviously, I am not a lawyer, but I believe that part of having a trademark is that you have to defend it and show that it's just yours. So I don't think having a trademark and then just saying everyone can use it would really work.