IP freely

The OSM braintrust


Pajama Media Are Lying About Chris Lydon

Brendan at Open Source Radio calls bullshit on Pajama Media.

Now they've substantially re-written "About Our Name" and re-posted it.

There are other Open Sources. A gentleman named Christopher Lydon has an excellent web site called Open Source. His URL is www.radioopensource.com, and he graciously agreed to give us opensourcemedia.net.
OSM, About Our Name 2.0

This is just not true. And weird. We didn't graciously agree to give them anything. We've never talked to them. They didn't answer our email.

What a start!

And this is OSM Name explaination

Some OSM readers have expressed consternation over our new company name, so please let us take a moment to explain--in the spirit of full disclosure--the story of its origin. At the outset, we formed a company under the masthead "Pajamas Media," after that now-famous remark about bloggers being "just a bunch of people sitting around in their pajamas." Then, as the idea for the company grew, we cast about for a new name that would reflect our ethos long after the joke grew old. Some of the unsuccessful names rejected along the way were "Alpha Media" and "Jellyfish Media," so don't be so hard on us about "OSM"--it could have been worse.

The goal of our enterprise is to bring gravitas and legitimacy to the blogosphere, to amplify the individual voices that compose it, and bring you the best of blogging as we know it, and to do so, we felt it wise and appropriate to arm ourselves with all of the conventional tools of business--including a trademark. To that end, we have filed an application for a trademark on the name OSM, and our legal corporate name is OSM Media, LLC. We have not trademarked the term "Open Source Media," and agree with those who point out the irony inherent in any attempt to do so. We consider Open Source Media to be a description of what we are and do, not a trade name.

Wow, the people behind OSM are morons, in many ways, but this one is especially stupid.

I mean, this is like me starting a site Memo Talking Points or Kos Daily and not expecting legal trouble.

You can't do that, and considering millions are at stake, they should have checked this. Lydon has every motivation to send them a Cease and Desist. And they have no leg to stand on. But I'm not an IP lawyer. But some of you are.

Please explain why this might be legally problematic.

posted by Steve @ 2:05:00 PM