LucasFilm sets lawyers on Jedi nameswipers LucasFilm has filed a $5m trademark suit against "Jedi Mind Inc", claiming that the company has failed to phase out its use of the word 'Jedi'. The lawsuit is actually quite restrained for LucasFilm, a company famously proactive in defence of its brands. Reuters reports that Jedi Mind was sent a cease and desist letter last …
"Jedi" has been in the Collins dictionary for a few years now (and is thus valid in Scrabble), referring IIRC to the people who came up with a pretend religion based on it. That's usually one step on the road to genericness. ("Hoover" and "Kleenex" must be in practically every dictionary today, "Sellotape" and "Tipp-Ex" slightly less so.)
A pretend religion is one that has only just come into existence which has a relatively small following. In time, (tens of years, perhaps hundreds of years) if the following has grown into the millions, hundreds of millions then it will be classified as a 'real' religion.
The principles, the beliefs, the texts which underpin that real religion will be exactly the same as the pretend religion.
Both pretend and real religions will be based on a load of unprovable clap-trap with the 'mature' religion believing it to be superior to all other religions and will have generated a following of sufficient magnitude as to want to start a war in order to dominate, control and suppress followers of other religions.
And so the cycle of life, the universe repeats....
Not sure if it would be a definition but one distinction between a pretend religion and religion might the willingness of followers to die for their faith. I doubt that any of the Jedi religion's followers would die for their beliefs but followers of the major religions have been often been willing to kill or be killed in the name of their religious beliefs and continue to do so today.
...Droid? My guess is that Motorola wanted a great name for "their" phone, and pre-emptively negotiated a license with LucasFilm to keep the other carriers from using it.
Unlike, say AT&T, who, in that TV commercial where they unroll the orange cloth, reproduced the works of a lesser known artist, and then disclaimed any connection.
You have to forgive George for his paranoia in this respect, when he was lesser known and less lawyered up, got royally ripped off. There is a certain amount of whiplash in his present stance.
Here's a beer for Indy and Andy.
What about those folk who claim that it is their religion, as reported by el-reg, will Lucas go after them, will it infringe their religious freedom ? Oh, what fun!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/09/jedi_knights_achieve_official_recognition/
http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/
http://templeofthejediforce.org/
...witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational legal department?
Or something.
I understand the whole copyright thing, but really - Lucasfilm are getting as bad as the ambulance chasers. Although at least the ambulance chasers only make bloody awful TV adverts - Lucas manages to make monstrously huge feature films that are bloody awful. Considering where he started (American Graffiti anyone? Or even just the original Star Wars?) you can't help but be saddened to see how the mighty have fallen.
It's all Binks' fault. Or possibly those damned Ewoks.
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So if anyone is going to make money on users' ability to think clearly then it's going to be George Lucas.
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And here I was thinking he was making money on people's inability to think clearly, vis Epsiodes I II and, to a lesser extent III.
The one with the large hood.
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