Freecyclers Freecycling Freecycles
It appears that I am not the only person who thinks that restricting the word freecycle to being a trademarked noun is totally stupid. Take for instance Kansas freecycler and blogger Elizabeth wrote just yesterday in all manner of glowing words around freecycling in her blog entitled, Letters from a Small State. Much, if not all of what she said is true and I support her and many other bloggers who talk about the beautiful aspects of freecycling around the globe.
However none of it mentioned TFN’s trademarking fiasco. Nor, like a whole host of other bloggers does she even adhere to the TM requirement that TFN absolutely insists on, when it wants to. Instead she just gets on and happily freecycles as does the rest of the world. No doubt by the end of the day TFN will provide a link via their newswire to this story, thus showing that they don’t really care about the TM issue either, unless they want to close down a group.
Hey Andy,
Thanks for the hit to my mention on Freecycling. When I came across the trademark issue I decided, as you did, that it wasn’t worth the mention.
Why? Because TM for a name like that doesn’t work, whether or not it is legal. Branding works. Identification of a brand works, but simply grabbing onto a name and saying “that’s mine” is ludicrous. It’s like the British trying to hold onto the English language. It flows through their fingers like water.
Besides, people will continue to do their freecycling (and take their aspirin!) while the rest of the world moans and groans over such laboriously useless issues.
Personally, I’d rather spend my time in the garden.
Cheerio!
Elizabeth