{"id":577,"date":"2012-05-04T21:59:48","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T21:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/index.php\/2012\/05\/04\/lpcandd\/"},"modified":"2012-05-04T21:59:48","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T21:59:48","slug":"lpcandd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/lpcandd\/","title":{"rendered":"Flame ON!"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:  At 7:07 PM Eastern, the Fighting Gravity troupe posted the following on thier Facebook Page:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Fighting Gravity<\/a> <\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span> <\/p>\n

To Leah Peterson and her fans: Disregard the cease and desist letter that was issued by our lawyers. Although imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, some people have taken that too far and we have had to deal with it. By no means is Leah Peterson one of those people, our lawyers were just doing their jobs and trying to protect our name and trademark. We wish the best for Leah and hope her book becomes a great success!”<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n

Tipping my hat to the folks over at FG for doing the right thing and overruling thier lawyers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Look.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know here in the United States we are a very litigious society these days. Back when I was a kid, if I slipped and fell in front of the neighbor\u2019s house, my dad would pick me up and say \u201cWatch where you\u2019re going!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, people sue for stupid crap all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI put hot coffee between my legs while driving and burned my nether region!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe stood me up for the prom!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ThreeIdiots\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Pictured: Attorneys<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where am I going with this? Recently, my dear friend Leah Petersen<\/a> received a \u201cCease and Desist\u201d order from lawyers representing a modern performance art troupe called \u201cFighting Gravity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes. Fighting Gravity<\/i> is the title of Leah\u2019s first book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently, the legal whiz-kids representing the dance group feel that a small press published Science Fiction novel about a brilliant young physicist and the Emperor whom he loves infringes on their trademark.<\/span><\/p>\n

The interesting thing of course is that there have been past books (and a rock group from the 90\u2019s) with the same title. Since they pre-date the dance troupe, I wonder who is suing who in the background? And by the way, Leah\u2019s book title was announced in 2009, which also pre-dates the Dance Troupe– who\u2019s own website states their copyrite is 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"FG-cover-latest-663x1024\"Now, I\u2019m no attorney\u2026so I\u2019m not an expert or anything, but I would think that logically, a \u2018book\u2019 and an \u2018entertainment service\u2019 would be different classes entirely (BTW, They are. Entertainment is service class 41 and Printed Matter is 16. But that\u2019s beside the point).<\/span><\/p>\n

In my very humble opinion, this is a bullying tactic by attorneys of a group that were made famous<\/i> in part due to the internet. This situation has already begun to go viral as Cory Doctorow has already posted about it on BoingBoing<\/a> and is an article over at The Passive Voice<\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Methinks they are about to find out that the Internet is a double-edged sword.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peace<\/span><\/p>\n

Pick up FIGHTING GRAVITY (The “book” not the “dance company”) at AMAZON<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:  At 7:07 PM Eastern, the Fighting Gravity troupe posted the following on thier Facebook Page: “Fighting Gravity To Leah Peterson and her fans: Disregard the cease and desist letter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c40-myblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}