Author has trademarked common word; threatening other authors over its use

I doubt you'll see substantial changes to trademark law at the moment. Congress doesn't appear to have much interest in it.

The idea of protecting readers is nonsense. Trademarks do serve a consumer protection role, in part, but that's not really significant when it comes to this scenario, because the name of the author is right on the book. If her series were big enough to have multiple authors writing it, then it's a better argument.

 

I’ve got zero sympathy for her.

I mean, I feel like I should, because she obviously has problems. But she deliberately tried to victimize and take advantage of other authors.

Yep. Zero sympathy.

The best thing she could do now is drop it completely, apologize, change her name, and try to move on and be a better person. There’s no recovering from this.

 

I love her math fail. "6 photos for 45.99 on shutterstock, that's 10$ a piece."
Yeah, lady it makes me sad that you have been successful with your derpy
Cock boy series, and it also kinda hurts.

 

What makes it worse is when you realize she's been publishing rough drafts as finished work. She pumps them out 1 a month. You can't write anything of quality in a single month.

And as I mentioned before, and you've even followed it took me 4 months to write most of my draft, and I still have another month before I'm finished approximately. And that's just the rough draft, then there's the revision, the beta read, and then the next revision.

Her books has to be generic

 

Also one more thing, as someone who is listening to this like a podcast and not seeing her facial expressions, I can hear the mental illness.

Edit: LMFAO, oh I forgot about that, apparently she has a movie in the works as well. LOL

 

Wow, I wish I had my first draft done in 4 months.
Been almost a year and some months, and only most
of the way there.

I would never publish anything of novel length in a month,
let alone be done with something of that scale that quickly.

 

Yeah even I'm surprised it took only four months, well technically 5 months when I'm actually finished. I gave myself a year to write the rough, so it feels nice to be ahead of schedule! But there's still a lot of work to do!

 

I have been watching bits and pieces, and listening as well.
It boggles me with her inability to focus on anything for more
than a few minutes. Maddening I tells ya, maddening.

 

Just wait for someone to review her book, then watch the video of it. I think there may already be one I'll check it out after work!

 

I think this comment on the video sums the whole thing up neatly.

I'm popping some popcorn to eat while I watch this psycho former author rant about how WE are bullying her. She started it. What did you THINK was going to happen Faleena darling? All you have to do is apologize, stop trying to make money off so-called trademark infringement violations (which is ridiculous considering it's a common English word and others used it LONG before you did), and say you were wrong for sending those poorly-worded C&D emails to your "fellow" authors. Then, and only then could you maybe, possibly reinvent yourself. But probably not. I'd say your days in the book industry are long over. Your only hope now is to write under a pen name. Even then, I'm not so sure...

 

Michael Moorcock apparently wrote a lot of his early novels in a few days. They're relatively short--60-65K words or so, but they're not generic. It's also unclear what kind of drugs he was on.

 

Did start to listen to the video but gave up. It all sounds a little like the guy who ranted at a poster for rating his novel on Amazon as a 1 star (if I remember rightly) and then gave it an honest, but hard, review. He basically imploded; there was a thread devoted to his novel, which was bad.
I get why she wants to protect her investment but, like a lot of people, seems to be getting some really bad advice, or surrounding herself with people who only tell her yes.
And writing a novel in a month I suppose is possible, if you are full time and are a fast writer, but surely you would let it stand for a few months at least before even editing?

 

There is much cringing to be had.

 

Could be my next read. Come on, where is it? I must have it!

 

you, and I, and countless other authors know this, but she doesn't ...

 

I

I just can't understand how the TM people actually let this go through in the first place ...??

 

IF, she had TM'd the word, in that specific font ... then I can actually understand why she wanted to protect her "brand" but, BUT!!! that doesn't mean that no one else can use the word.

BUT ... the font she used was un-TM-able (according to the font designer) And if she had only been given the TM based on THAT font only, then why are Amazon now deleting books with the word cocky in the title, AND deleting reviews for ALL books where the word cocky is used in the review !? (as in, I liked the character, even though he was cocky ...)

Is she going to go after George Lucas for writing the word in Star Wars, A New Hope?? (think it was Han Solo who said to Luke, "don't get cocky"

 

she removed it, and her facebook page not long after doing it, I watched about an hour - when I say watched, I listened to it while I was tinkering in the bathroom/bedroom/kitchen.

 

My thoughts too, because the letter/messages/D&C she sent to authors, was actually from her personally, it was not from a layer or on headed paper ...

 

that's the one!!!

 

Her trademark protection isn't limited to the typeface. She has one registration for "cocky" in stylized letters (e.g. the typeface) and another registration for "cocky" simply as a word mark, which means it isn't limited to a particular typeface.

Whether the creator of the typeface has an enforceable license agreement against use in trademark registration is a separate issue. In the U.S., a typeface isn't protectable by copyright law, so it's not certain that the font owner could impose such terms via a license. Some people are arguing that having the license term is copyright misuse, but I'm not convinced that it is.

 

she doesn't, one of her books has various mistakes on the first page, including missing closing speech marks ...