Wed

Aug 30
2006

Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly

Web 2.0 Trademark Redux

In conjunction with the announcement of the new Web 2.0 Expo and technical conference, I'm also pleased to report that CMP has agreed to narrow the scope of enforcement of the Web 2.0 trademark registration. It will only seek to protect the Web 2.0 trademark if another other Web 2.0-related event has a name that is confusingly similar to the names of the actual events co-produced by CMP and O'Reilly, such as our events "The Web 2.0 Conference" and "The Web 2.0 Expo."

This is consistent with my original understanding about why the trademark filing was made. I must confess that I've always thought that the point was simply to protect the event names, as evidenced by the fact that we have always put the trademark notice at the end of the conference names on the website that O'Reilly produces, "The Web 2.0 Conference."

For those of you who've been under a rock, and don't know why this is news, see the entries about the flap that erupted when CMP sent a C&D letter to IT@Cork, complaining about their IT@Cork Web 2.0 Conference, not knowing that I'd already given IT@Cork my blessing when they invited me to speak. CMP learned from the flap that the right way to engage those kinds of problems in the internet era is with a friendly email or phone call, rather than a lawyer's letter.

(I've been wanting to make this announcement for a while, but had to wait till the Expo (which was still in the planning and naming stages) had been launched.)


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Comments: 13

  timmy [08.30.06 07:06 AM]

Yea, but you're still a putz for sending out the hounds a couple months back.

  Allan Wallace [08.30.06 03:38 PM]

It is rather ironic that relationship based web 2.0 relied on industrial age bureaucratic strong arm methods.

Changeover to the information age appears to be slower than advertised.

  Tim O'Reilly [08.30.06 06:43 PM]

timmy -- it wasn't me that sent the legal letter, it was CMP. I had given my blessing to IT@Cork for their conference. I've long ago and repeatedly apologized for CMP's heavy-handed tactics, which I learned about at the same time as all the rest of you. And on the other side, I still think IT@Cork should have checked with me about the discrepancy between a direct communication from me approving of their conference and a legal letter from an attorney representing someone else, before claiming that I was behind the C&D letter they received.

Allan - I agree that it is indeed ironic, and a good lesson to all of us (me included). But I will repeat that my own process with regard to any issues with other companies has always been a direct and personal communication as the first step, not a legal letter.

But in any event, it's important to note that CMP has agreed to right the ship. It really wasn't a power grab for them to do the broad trademark. As I've explained previously, they did it early on, before the conference was finally named (and most certainly before the term had caught on so widely -- that didn't happen till over a year later, after the second conference.)

It's true that it takes time for large, bureaucratic organizations to catch up with new approaches -- but it's also significant that they do learn.

  senatorhung [08.30.06 09:50 PM]

thanks for the clarification. i understand the challenges of defending trademarks, and i respect the fact that you've found a way to accomplish that while remaining true to web 2.0 values.

to all the hecklers, the o'reilly response is my conception of how a good corporate citizen strives to fit in with its community. if you want to target anyone, focus on orgs like the RIAA who refuse to acknowledge that their customers have any rights at all.

  Anonymous [08.31.06 05:34 AM]

Way to finger-point and avoid accountability, Tim. It was all CMP's fault. You should go into politics.

  Matt [08.31.06 06:15 AM]

The Web 2.0 Conference is faux-populism. Limited to "maintain an intimate setting and foster discussion?" No. It's limited to keep the riff-raff out so the Friends of Tim can "[e]xperience the luxury and beauty" of the grand hotel.

Technology is great and inventiveness is great, but these guys are just pretending. It's not Web 2.0, it's CountryClub 2.0.

  Tim O'Reilly [08.31.06 11:11 AM]

Anonymous -- you're not entirely off the mark. I don't feel great about pointing the finger at CMP, since at least a couple of people in my organization did know what they were doing. But I will remind you that I'd actually given my personal blessing to the it@cork guys.

And while CMP did send it@cork a C&D letter, it still burns me up that it@cork didn't say "We got a letter from CMP" but "We got a letter from O'Reilly" because they knew that that would get people like you all riled up.

That's why I keep reminding people that it wasn't O'Reilly who sent the letter. The whole flap was amplified by someone using our name for maximum PR effect. If the original it@cork blog had said "CMP sent us a C&D letter", how many people would have cared?

  Tim O'Reilly [08.31.06 11:20 AM]

Matt -- You've clearly never been to an executive conference. They're all "invite only." Try to get an invite to D, or TED. As in other fields, there is positioning involved for all conferences. An executive conference (which is what the original Web 2.0 Conference is designed to be) selects for C-level executives and the people they want to meet. The Web 2.0 Conference is actually much more diverse than other similar conferences, because we reach out to interesting "hackers" as well as just big company executives, VCs, and the like, who are the target market.

A technical conference selects for programmers. Now, it's generally the case that not that many execs and VCs want to come to programming conferences, and when they do, it's generally OK for them to do so. But I'll note that we have a fair number of complaints when too many "suits" come to OSCON or ETech. So there's a reverse snobbery there as well.

As to the people being allowed in to Web 2.0 being "friends of Tim", that just ain't so. I don't review the list of invitees, and I don't know most of them. The filtering is generally by job title.


Part of the positioning of an executive conference is exclusivity -- I'll admit that -- but the exclusivity is part of what we're charging for. Our solution, to do different conferences for different market segments, is a reasonable one. If the Web 2.0 conference had thousands of attendees, the top execs from the really big companies would no longer come mingle. It's hard enough to get them to stay beyond the program as it is. (They do that only for the very top tier exec conferences, like D.)

And quite frankly, if you're a developer or designer, you'll likely get way more value out of the hands-on conference at the expo than you would out of the much more conceptual executive program at the original conference.

And as to "enjoying the luxury and beauty of the hotel," you've got to be kidding. Those of us who go to far too many of these conferences are road warriors who would like nothing better than to enjoy the peace and quiet at home.

  dave cormier [09.03.06 04:27 PM]

In terms of the C&D letter... i think we are all agreed, mistakes are made, confusions do happen. I suppose it would be nice if you too could stop blaming Tom Raftery for his reaction in this - but you can't have everything. I agree that CMP has probably learned that in this kind of issue, 'niceness' is more convenient.


The issue, however, was never really about 'niceness', it was about service-marking an idea. I don't think there are many people out there who think that you shouldn't be able to call your conference what you will and protect that name from others misrepresenting themselves as you...

I have a couple of questions...

1. When you say that CMP have 'agreed to narrow the scope' does this mean that you have a handshake on this, or that the actual legal details around the service mark will be changed. They could, for instance, sell that service mark to people who are not subject to the handshake. Because if they haven't, your agreement will not stop them from litigating against a company that has, for instance, set up a 'web 2.0 training centre' if they so wish. If they don't change it legally, they still own "web 2.0 as it applies to education"


2. Are you still 'disappointed with the blogosphere'? You had a fairly strong reaction to the few wackos that had said stupid things on your website, and grouped many of the rest of us who had serious questions into that group. I understand that you were being attacked quite severely at the time, and tempers were high. Has your faith in web 2.0 returned?


3. My most serious concern with that whole fiasco in late spring was that people with good intentions (and i had no reason to believe that your goodwill in the community has been and is anything but genuine before this issue... and one issue shouldn't tear down a reputation) must necessarily make deals with big 'corporate' companies in order to be VERY successful - What i termed 'o'reillyism'.


When i say 'corporate' I mean companies that follow the mantra 'that's just good business' when they make any decision, thereby alleviating themselves from any social responsibility. This concerns me because web2.0 read/write collaborative stuff is intensely social, and I feel that the meaning of web2.0 has been community created and I am interested if its possible for big money business respect that community. I certainly don't mean that to imply that people shouldn't make money, or even alot of money...


Was I wrong? Have you rectified the bureaucracy so that it now is socially conscious? Is that a goal that you would have?


4. In Tom's defense... why shouldn't he have thought that a message from the media company that works for you was from you. Yes, you guys had talked about it, and you had said you couldn't make it to the conference. But he didn't just say 'o'reilly did it', he posted the letter for anyone to see. Anyone's first C&D is a scary thing.


5. We are spending some serious time this fall discussing service marks, trade marks and patents in educational technology. I'd like to, once again, invite you to appear on the show to discuss your side of these... important issues. (http://edtechtalk.com)

thanks for opening this conversation up again.

  Tim O'Reilly [09.04.06 08:40 AM]

Dave -- as to your questions:

1. So far, we just have a handshake. But given how important our partnership around the conference(s) is to CMP, I can't see them doing anything without our consent that is different from what we've agreed. And we're working on a legal agreement that will give us shared control over the trademark. There are no plans to amend the actual trademark filing, but the lack of enforcement around any uses but the ones I outlined (for our actual conference names) will weaken any broader claims, so that (I'm told) the ultimate effect will be the same.

And in any event, I really don't see this as a long-lived name. Web 2.0 is a great buzzword, but already people are asking me for talks on "Beyond Web 2.0." And as I said in the original posting, there are lots of ways to have conferences on the subject of Web 2.0 without calling them some variation of "The Web 2.0 Conference." If I were setting out to do a competitive conference, I'd sure give it a different name. A conference tied to a specific technology is always shorter-lived than one with a more flexible brand. (That's why we ultimately renamed our P2P conference The Emerging Technology Conference, or ETech, since it gives a much longer-lived platform.)

2. I have lots of faith in web 2.0, but my opinion of much of the blogosphere remains dim, as long as people post heated thoughts publicly without asking questions first. But you'll remember that I said my faith was shaken, not gone.

The fact that the thoughtful responses were drowned out by an incredible amount of negativity, threats, and name-calling is sad. It was also shocking how much ignorance was on display -- of the facts of the case, of trademark law, of the existence of trademarks for most popular open source software, of the difference between a C&D letter and a lawsuit, even of the difference between a trademark and a patent! But what was mainly alarming was how few people who understood the complexity of the situation were willing to say anything in the heated atmosphere that had been created. I had productive private conversations with many of the A-List bloggers--and it's telling that those conversations had to be in private. My point is that there is responsible blogging, and there is irresponsible blogging.

I've done a fair share of net activism, but I always try to get my facts straight. I try to talk to people privately, and only go public with a complaint if I've exhausted all other avenues. I still believe that this is how responsible blogging, and responsible journalism, needs to act.

I don't mean to tar the entire blogosphere with this comment. There are of course many thoughtful, responsible bloggers. But there are many people who react first and think later.

3. I agree with you about the corporate "it's just business" avowal of responsibility being a huge problem in the business world. I have always tried to avoid that at O'Reilly (which is why I'm posting here late on a Sunday night of a holiday weekend!) I believe that good business is profoundly socially conscious. Corporatism is ultimately NOT good business. A corporation that betrays its customers, its partners, or its employees will ultimately lose its vitality.

But I disagree with your statement that "the meaning of web 2.0 has been community created." The phenomenon of Web 2.0 was definitely created by a huge technology community, but the term was created by O'Reilly and CMP, and its meaning was almost entirely created by yours truly, although many others have built on my ideas since I first articulated them. Go back and study the history of the term, look for the first occurrences, and how it is interpreted, and you'll see it all going back to the way we framed it in the conference, and in my paper "What is Web 2.0?"

(And I'll make the obligatory reminder: no one, not even CMP, sought to trademark the idea of web 2.0, just its use as a name for conferences and other related events.)

Back to your question about people with good intentions needing to compromise their ideals... There are many times when situations are more complex than they appear to outsiders, but ultimately, a company or a person with principle has to figure out where to draw the line. Sometimes there are disagreements about matters of principle, and it's important not to mistake being on opposite sides of an issue for compromise.

4. Yes, I still do think that Tom's response to the C&D letter was inappropriate, for the reason I gave in response to question 2 above. Because he had exchanged prior email with me, he knew how to reach me. He had every opportunity to ask "what gives?", but instead of reaching out privately, he went public with a posting that was designed for maximum blogosphere shock value, by describing a letter that he received from CMP as coming from O'Reilly, even though the letter was very clear who owned the trademark and who was sending the letter. Go back and read his post. He does show the letter, but he never mentions CMP once. The letter is "CMP, CMP, CMP," but Tom's post is "O'Reilly, O'Reilly, O'Reilly."

And CMP doesn't "work for me." They are an independent company (much larger than O'Reilly, in fact).

The fact that things went downhill so fast, with so many incredibly negative comments, was a predictable result of how Tom framed the issue.

5. I'd be happy to appear on your show, if we can schedule it. Send me an email, and I'll try to get it on my calendar. I agree that issues of patents, trademark, and the scope of copyright are incredibly important. The goal of all of these systems is the promotion of innovation, but they are often misused to prevent it instead.

And thanks for responding so thoughtfully.

  Jim Garrettson [09.04.06 04:00 PM]

I received one of the original Cease & Desist letters back in May not long after we announced our 1-day web event here outside of Washington, DC scheduled for Sept. 20th. To put it nicely, I'll say I wasn't happy when I got the letter, but, I can attest that CMP worked with us to resolve the issue. I have to stick up for Tim a bit -- he was proactive about talking with us personally and even considered participating in our event (schedule conflict). We've since renamed ours "The New New Internet" and kept the focus on Web 2.0's impact on business.

Although I'm not a fan of the approach taken by the CMP attorneys, we're happy that this issue was resolved such that those of us on the east coast will be able to enjoy some great discussion on the topic. A few west coasters are even making the trip to speak (Michael Arrington, Jason Goldberg, etc.) and we're expecting a great turnout.

  Dan [11.20.07 06:42 AM]

As part of my MBA studies i explored the web 2.0 phenomenon, and i would be happy to share my findings with you, so please don't hesitate to wtite or ask questions.

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