Jerry on Mastodon

I never use the application names in any of my servers because I'm always worried about future trademark enforcement.

The Mastodon organization guidelines at https://joinmastodon.org/trademark say:

Do not use or register, in whole or in part, the Mastodon marks as part of your own or any other trademark, service mark, domain name, company name, trade name, product name, or service name.

When I search the database here for instances known to this server that contain "mastodon" in their domain names, I see over 1,800 server names. And it's unknown if they would consider "mstdn" to be a violation as well.

I wonder how far they will push this enforcement. A Mastodon server cannot change its domain name.

#MastoDev #MastoAdmin #Mastodon #TrunkAndTidbits

Trademark Policy of Mastodon

May 19 at 5:55pmWeb
Show threadShanie MyrsTearMay 19

@Jerry Rules are meant to be broken, after all. I have no doubt as long as a server with "mastodon" in the name isn't actually aiming for malice, Mastodon as a company won't bother flexing their lawyers. It would be a disaster both socially and legally.

If they disagree, I would love to see them come after one of those 1800 servers.

Show threadJerry on MastodonMay 19

@shanie It's all controlled by the lawyers. They will decide what is necessary so Mastodon can continue owning their trademarked names. Companies must, by law, show they protect these assets vigorously.

"Aspirin" was deemed not vigorously protected enough in the U.S. Bayer lost the right to this trademarked name, for example. It's called genericide; the name becomes generic.

Other examples: Escalator, Thermos, Trampoline, and Videotape.

I imagine that mastodon.world will get licensed, but many others will not if they are not considered well-run and well moderated by Mastodon gGmbH standards.