• General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Something as short as “Skywalker” can’t be copyrighted. You don’t need permission to use a trademark as long as you don’t harm the brand or confuse the customer. Since trademarks are often family names, there are a number of unrelated companies that operate under the same name but in a different business.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      Sure, but, also, that it’s an existing brand is simply irrelevant to a personal name. You don’t need to establish that it doesn’t damage the brand, it can even directly damage the brand in fact, it still doesn’t matter because people aren’t products.

  • then_three_more@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    He says his son was eventually issued the passport and the family’s vacation is still on.

    Sounds to me like someone so the passport office was just being an idiot and when their supervisor looked into it it was resolved.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Private corporations tying the hands of governments with copyright BS? If I want to name my daughter Khaleesi Skywalker Gandalf Bethooven SpaceJam that’s none of the governments nor some random corporations business. You can’t trademark a fucking name, wtf is this bullshit? You don’t get to decide what my name is, and you definitely don’t get to hamstring official government agencies in their duties because you’re butthurt about my sharing a name with your fictional character. Go fuck yourselves, disney. You slimy litigious fucks, this is why your brand is sinking.

    • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Yeah, Disney is slimy, but for once this isn’t their doing. Some paper pusher overstepped their boundaries, that’s not on Disney.

    • yesman@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This isn’t a rule. Some bureaucrat was mistaken.

      The same thing happened to another girl a couple weeks ago.

        • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          The French do their arguably dumber “you can’t call that thing you made what I call it even though it’s the same recipe, because it wasn’t grown where my ancient relatives made it,” though. Also France’s general xenophobia and owning a bona fide colony way later than the Anglos lol

          • Something Burger 🍔@jlai.lu
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            3 months ago

            You’re talking about AOP (Appelation d’Origine Protégée / Protected Origin Naming). It makes senses because protected names are place names. You can’t call any sparkling wine “champagne”. It has to come from Champagne. However, you can call your raw milk cheese “faisselle” even if it wasn’t made in Rians, as faisselle isn’t a place.

            • MartianSands@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              By that logic, you should object to cheese being labelled as “cheddar” cheese, because that’s a place too and you’ve almost certainly never seen cheese which came from there.

              It’s a stupid rule

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    It is incredibly stupid that the Passport office thinks that this is a copyright issue, but the parents logic is also baffling…

    “We understand that Loki’s middle name is copyrighted, but we have no intention of using it for personal gain."

    So you gave a child a name that they themselves won’t be able to use for “personal gain” when they grow up? Acknowledging the inherent limitations of a name like this just sounds like you willfully set your kid up for failure.

    Sounds to me like a case of parents treating their child like an accessory. You’re not raising a child, you’re raising a future adult. Maybe don’t give them a legal name that is also a corporate brand name?

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      I have a somewhat unusual name, that could me male or female. I really didn’t like it growing up. Now i don’t care anymore, moat people call me a wrong name anyway that sounds similar. But damn, growing up i just wanted a normal ass name.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        growing up i just wanted a normal ass name.

        Now, as an adult, you can name your ass whatever you want!

    • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      Come on, Flying… You knew that the minute you named them Coca-Cola Disney Unilever.

      I mean can you just imagine the teasing we would have heard on the playground with “cola”? Everyone knows colas are the lowest soft drink.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    3 months ago

    He [the father] says his son was eventually issued the passport and the family’s vacation is still on.

    Sounds like that office doesn’t know how their own rules work.

  • x4740N@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    This is stupid

    So if they name a movie character Jane Doe then are they going to stop Jane Doe from getting a passport

    • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It is stupid, yes, but they wouldn’t be able to do that anyway.

      I’m fairly certain that the article is using the wrong term here and the problem is that the name Skywalker is trademarked.

      You wouldn’t be able to trademark the name Jane Doe so you wouldn’t be able to prevent someone from using it.

      • homesnatch@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        A trademark does not prevent a person from using a term in a non-commercial setting, it does prevent other companies from doing so.

        • x4740N@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Is this US law, I’m assuming it is because its typically americans that mention legal stuff without saying what country the legal stuff is from

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      People have been choosing made up names from fiction for hundreds (thousands?) of years and as far I know, no one has died from it yet. Jessica is just a character from a play.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I get the sentiment but “Loki Skywalker” and “Jessica” are far from comparable even if Jessica would have been viewed in the same light 500 years ago.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          3 months ago

          If Luke hadn’t run from responsibility in tertiary canon it’d be fine but honestly it’s just a bad combination in terms of nominative determinism.

    • Kaboom@reddthat.com
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      3 months ago

      Should have named him Luke. It’s a perfectly normal name, it’d fly under the radar. But youd still have named him after him.

  • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Man, that’s a stupid name. Poor kid permanently tied to a pop culture reference. Two, if the Loki is referring to Marvel. Naming a kid is not an opportunity to express yourself. If you want people to know you like star wars, get a tattoo. Or a bumper sticker. And then I’ll judge you. But leave the kid out of it.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    3 months ago
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    https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2024/09/21/seven-year-old-boy-denied-passport-by-uk-home-office-over-star-wars-copyright-infringement-for-skywalker-name/151183

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