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The following news is a few days old, but I was (and still am) very distracted by Dragon Age: Origins and only noticed this yesterday before I went to bed. I'm writing this post in English, because I think it might interesting to some people in English fandom as well as those affected by it in German fandom.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender there are, as the title says, Airbenders (well, one Airbender). There are also Waterbenders, Firebenders and Earthbenders, from what I can tell. I know there are no Lightbenders, but some fanficcers like to make up superspecial powers for their OCs. The German word for Lightbender is Lichtbändiger. Quite harmless, right? Yes, until a firm that designs glasses registers "Lichtbändiger" as a trademark. And sends a cease and desist letter to a German fanfic archive. The following is a rough translation of a few paragraphs from this post:
Yeah. I'm not sure I'm as outraged as I could (should?) be because I'm not yet past the WTF?-phase. It just seems so bizarre. But it's not yet April Fools and the post has been up for a while. There even is a follow up post. I still don't quite believe it and hope it's just a really bad joke.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender there are, as the title says, Airbenders (well, one Airbender). There are also Waterbenders, Firebenders and Earthbenders, from what I can tell. I know there are no Lightbenders, but some fanficcers like to make up superspecial powers for their OCs. The German word for Lightbender is Lichtbändiger. Quite harmless, right? Yes, until a firm that designs glasses registers "Lichtbändiger" as a trademark. And sends a cease and desist letter to a German fanfic archive. The following is a rough translation of a few paragraphs from this post:
That is to say, the company Lichtbändiger Brillenglasdesign registered the term "Lichtbändiger" as a trademark. Under this trademark, they sell a variety of glasses whose colourful decorations are their distinguishing characteristic. These glasses can look like this, this or this.
The company Lichtbändiger Brillendesign asked FF.de to remove all stories that contain the term "Lichtbändiger". We contacted our lawyer, who advised us to comply with the request. While there is in fact no direct relation between the element benders from Avatar and the glasses, the trademark "Lichtbändiger" applies to electronic publications, which fanfics are in a sense, as well, and so the trademark law applies.
Yeah. I'm not sure I'm as outraged as I could (should?) be because I'm not yet past the WTF?-phase. It just seems so bizarre. But it's not yet April Fools and the post has been up for a while. There even is a follow up post. I still don't quite believe it and hope it's just a really bad joke.
