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KPop Demon Hunters was a resounding success for Netflix, coming out of nowhere to become the platform’s most-watched movie of all time and spawning several of last year’s biggest pop hits. It was less of a success for Demon Hunter, the Christian metal band that presumably has been getting mogged in the search bar ever…
Honestly, no one was searching for this trash band before. I guarantee that this has at the least given them more exposure. This lawsuit is entirely performative (it’s needed to maintain trademark).
I have no love for netflix or it’s terrible movie, but if it hurts some shitty christian band I have a real hard time being upset.
The thing is a trademark can’t trademark something “generic”.
Like you can’t trademark “chocolate dreams” ans a name for a band… and the go after some one that uses the phrase “chocolate dreams” for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
Did you read the article? They are now doing a live tour of KPop Demon Hunter" and they have at least one example of there being confusion in the market. AEG and Netflix could have promoted the tour as HUNTR/X: KPop Demon Hunters or something to avoid this. I suspect there will be a settlement as just because there was no confusion when it was just a movie doesn’t mean they can go into live concerts with the same name.
But no, they still haven’t shown trademark infringement. You’re really going to tell me that the metal band lost measurable business because some idiot on the internment couldn’t tell the difference between a kpop musical on Netflix and their metal band.
all because they were either to cheap to pay for SEO or so crappy that paying for SEO still doesn’t matter. (Bet: the settlement includes SEO.)
Sorry. No. That’s not trademark infringement. It’d be like McDonald’s Plumbing suing McDonald’s burgers.
Guess what- these things happen, and they’d have to show that that the decision was intentional and malicious, when the people making the decision probably didn’t even know the metal band existed. That’s not going to happen.
Again, please read the article. The more apt comparison would be if McDonald’s Plumbing started selling and marketing burgers. This is a pretty straightforward case and will likely be settled for a sum that can be found in Netflix’s/AEG’s couch cushions. Also, “maliciousness” is not a factor in determining trademark infringement.
The differences in other branding are sufficient that no one looking at the webpages or whatever they clicked on would be confused. There’s not a likely chance that someone is going to confuse Demon Hunter the Metal Band with KPop Demon Hunter the Anime. And even if they did click the wrong link there’s no real harm. All it really means is that whoever took the wrong link hop needs to work on their google-foo.
I mean. really. look at the difference in branding:
Vs:
The concept of “Demon Hunter” as a thing is something that’s common enough that it’s going to bump into other brands. It’s not like they went after the 2005 movie “Demon Hunter”
and while things may have fallen through the cracks, but when you apply for a trademark the USPTO searches their database to verify that there’s nothing already trademarked that you might be infringing on. given that netflix has a trademark, that search happened in some form and they decided it was acceptable.
And second, that wasn’t what I was arguing. Nice straw man.
Third, you can’t trademark something after people who have similar names just because they have similar names.
Demon hunter is a metal band.
It’s very unlikely that they lost business because someone wandered into an anime called “Kpop Demon Hunter”… and even if they did, it wasn’t named to trade on the metal band’s name.
Honestly, no one was searching for this trash band before. I guarantee that this has at the least given them more exposure. This lawsuit is entirely performative (it’s needed to maintain trademark).
I have no love for netflix or it’s terrible movie, but if it hurts some shitty christian band I have a real hard time being upset.
The thing is a trademark can’t trademark something “generic”.
Like you can’t trademark “chocolate dreams” ans a name for a band… and the go after some one that uses the phrase “chocolate dreams” for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
Did you read the article? They are now doing a live tour of KPop Demon Hunter" and they have at least one example of there being confusion in the market. AEG and Netflix could have promoted the tour as HUNTR/X: KPop Demon Hunters or something to avoid this. I suspect there will be a settlement as just because there was no confusion when it was just a movie doesn’t mean they can go into live concerts with the same name.
No. I didn’t because I have better things to do.
But no, they still haven’t shown trademark infringement. You’re really going to tell me that the metal band lost measurable business because some idiot on the internment couldn’t tell the difference between a kpop musical on Netflix and their metal band.
all because they were either to cheap to pay for SEO or so crappy that paying for SEO still doesn’t matter. (Bet: the settlement includes SEO.)
Sorry. No. That’s not trademark infringement. It’d be like McDonald’s Plumbing suing McDonald’s burgers.
Guess what- these things happen, and they’d have to show that that the decision was intentional and malicious, when the people making the decision probably didn’t even know the metal band existed. That’s not going to happen.
Again, please read the article. The more apt comparison would be if McDonald’s Plumbing started selling and marketing burgers. This is a pretty straightforward case and will likely be settled for a sum that can be found in Netflix’s/AEG’s couch cushions. Also, “maliciousness” is not a factor in determining trademark infringement.
No it wouldn’t.
Again. Please try and understand what I’m saying.
The differences in other branding are sufficient that no one looking at the webpages or whatever they clicked on would be confused. There’s not a likely chance that someone is going to confuse Demon Hunter the Metal Band with KPop Demon Hunter the Anime. And even if they did click the wrong link there’s no real harm. All it really means is that whoever took the wrong link hop needs to work on their google-foo.
I mean. really. look at the difference in branding:
Vs:
The concept of “Demon Hunter” as a thing is something that’s common enough that it’s going to bump into other brands. It’s not like they went after the 2005 movie “Demon Hunter”
and while things may have fallen through the cracks, but when you apply for a trademark the USPTO searches their database to verify that there’s nothing already trademarked that you might be infringing on. given that netflix has a trademark, that search happened in some form and they decided it was acceptable.
Generic is not what you think. You’re trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. I’m sorry you’re just wrong about this.
First off there’s a reason I put it in quotes.
And second, that wasn’t what I was arguing. Nice straw man.
Third, you can’t trademark something after people who have similar names just because they have similar names.
Demon hunter is a metal band.
It’s very unlikely that they lost business because someone wandered into an anime called “Kpop Demon Hunter”… and even if they did, it wasn’t named to trade on the metal band’s name.