Boingboing had this as the top story, while I noticed this BBC headline: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38721056. Trump killed the TPP. If we focus on the abundant goofiness, we’re going to miss the big moves, however good or evil they may be.
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Don’t know if anyone else has remarked on this, but that is one ugly-ass cake.
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Trump’s is one inch taller.
Frasier is looking dapper!
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All this act did (Goldwater Nichols) was to streamline the chain of command when directives are given by the President to the armed forces. It has zero to do with the President’s position as the Commander-in-Chief. It’s not like presidents have been intimately involved in designing military offensives; that’s what the generals’ and/or admirals’ staff does. They make suggestions, they give the presidents options and risks, and the president makes the bigger decisions.
Think about MacArthur. He was fired (relieved of duty) for insubordination, he wasn’t court-martialed. Why not? Because President Truman was a civilian.
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This is whats so god damn funny about BoingBoing…you can go from complaining about how something should be illegal and wrong in one breath, and then realize that it goes against your marxist belief that intellectual properties are rent seeking evils and go against it again!
My point has always been the hypocrisy of it all.
As for what we should do? Again, I believe in intellectual properties. I believe there should be some sort of test for novellness. It would be more akin to a patent than copyright, but who knows. I know that creative thought deserves protection, but I’m no damn lawyer.
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The new yorker noted
By imposing a single legal regime on trade throughout its area, the T.P.P. would have offered incentives to firms to partner with others in the region. As the dominant party in the pact, the U.S. would have controlled future access to that zone. Labor and environmental activists in America had already won major victories, insuring that the T.P.P. would force a new set of standards on trading partners. For the poorer countries, especially Vietnam, these would have meant real advances for workers and the environment. After passage, other countries in the Pacific and in South America would have been anxious to join this large and growing trading zone and would have wanted to make sure they stayed on the good side of the United States. The zone would have all but surrounded China, which was not part of the pact, and would have served to pressure that country to change its own practices.
on the other hand
But, even if the estimate turned out to be right, it would represent just half a per cent of the over-all U.S. economy—outweighed by even slight changes in, say, the average price of oil or the Federal Reserve’s key interest rate—and would have essentially no measurable impact on almost anybody’s life. In other words, it could easily be seen as somewhere between worthless and barely measurable in economic terms.
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Sure that’s fine. But when you start to apply that to food and recipes it starts to get weird. And the whole functional base of how good and drink operate ceases to function.
Take the buffalo wing. A novel creation of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo NY. Let them copyright that and chicken wings likely never become a national craze. More over what is the copyright on? It’s basically fried chicken with hot sauce, a concept that existed long before Anchor Bar. And there were very similar preparations of that in upstate NY at the time. Is it on fried wings in general? Fried sauced wings? Just the sauce? Just the sauce when made of some one else’s copyrightable and trademarked product and mixed with butter? Do they have to get a license from Frank’s? Or start producing their own hot sauce? And so forth.
Or you can look at the areas where the IP protections that are extended to this area already cause issue. Dark 'N Stormy as a cocktail name is a registered trademark of Goesling’s Rum. If you serve a Dark 'N Stormy under that name using any other brand of Ginger Beer and Rum you’re in violation of their trademark. And they do occasionally sue people, including small businesses over the issue. You can largely skirt the issue by calling it a Dark and stormy. But that still leaves you open.
Here’s the thing though they didnt come up with the drink. It’s just a rum buck. Bucks/mules, especially rum bucks. Are one of the oldest cocktails out there. I’m not even sure they came up with the name. Though they certainly popularized the drink more recently. The trademark already creates a hell of a lot of weird. If you add copyright to that. Your either giving one party a copyright on an entire, old, category of drink. Composed from other people’s commercial products or your creating a copyright for a thousand variations of the base cocktail. To the point where it lacks all utility.
Now you look at that situation and say “well nothing there is novel so nothing gets a copright” problem solved right? Well my point is that almost everything in regards to food and drink looks like that when you unpack it. Genuinely novel work. Novel enough to unpacked and separated froma few millennia of prior art can generally be protected by patent, trade mark and such. But that sort of thing is rare. And often comes down to processes/equipment or trade names logos and the rest. Rather than the food itself, or it’s precise arrangement on the plate.
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Can’t tell if troll or…
You know perfectly well the issue here isn’t whether or not the cake has (or should have) intellectual property protections.
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[quote=“Medievalist, post:114, topic:93433”]
But my opinion is that you should cut cake with a straight bladed sword[/quote]
Pfft.
Axe.
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I would have gone with “ostentatious” but I’m not going to say “ugly-ass” is wrong. It’s striking rather than beautiful.
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No trolley. It is just “I’m Disappoint” (someone please put this on the list) because there is always a double standard of what is acceptable behavior here, based on who is doing it. At some point the bias has to go away. I can’t stand Trump and I voted for Hillary (Bernie in the primary), but so much anger over the fact that this was done by Trump. If it were Hillary or Bernie cutting it, we’d be bragging about how great it is that food can’t be copyrighted and that this chef that is getting upset over it is just getting his undies in a bunch. I personally side with the original chef. I’m also glad it has a happy ending because I also think that people SHOULD work together.
So no trolley…I’m just providing commentary the same as everyone else.
And I have no problem with this. Would you have a problem with someone creating movies with a drink called Coka-Cola? I mean, they are a HUGE company…and everyone knows not to mess with that. Why would you want to take someone else’s name for a drink? Just seems bad taste. Call it the name that it was called before someone came up with a marketing name they trademarked. A rum buck with lime is more descriptive than Dark N’ Stormy.
I’m sorry, could you just point out where anyone has argued food should by copyrightable? I’m just not seeing the hypocrisy that you’re calling out. It seems like you’re really reaching to find something to criticize (hence the accusation of driving trollies).
Can you hold the idea in your head that both these things might be bad (perhaps for different, not especially related reasons)?
- Trying to use intellectual property protections to prevent other people from making food.
- Slavishly copying someone else’s design in a food medium.
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I don’t share your premise that if this was done “the other way around” (i.e., let’s say Obama had used a Bush cake in his celebrations) that there wouldn’t have been chastizing there, too. I do agree that calls for an activity like this to be somehow illegal or actionable are silly. It’s a cake! In this case, the cake is literally a lie!
However, I will agree that as a species we are very much subject to enacting double standards. If your idol turns out to be a douchebag, well, surely there’s been some sort of mistake, because they’re not like that! It’s difficult for us to remake the world of our minds when things change. Everyone is guilty of it.
However, in this case, the newsworthiness of the cake, IMHO, isn’t that it’s a plagiarized cake, and therefore at issue because it was plagarized, but instead that it’s an unoriginal cake from a predecessor, and therefore an acceptable subject of ridicule. Subtle but different meanings.
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Like I said I’m not entirely certain its their name for a drink. Meanwhile unlike Coca Cola it is not a packaged, prepared product with logos and special packaging. Made from their exclusive recipe. Neither did they create the drink. Their innovation appears to be abbreviating the word “and”. More over they did not originally manufacture ginger beer. And only started doing so recently. So the terms of abiding by the trademark spontaneously changed when they introduced the ginger beer.
My point was not that they shouldn’t have been granted that trade mark. But that with regards to food and drink this shit gets complicated, and often lacks real utility.
If you hadn’t just discussed the topic with me. And you walked into a bar. And saw “Rum Buck” (the lime/citrus is an inherent part of a buck) would you know what that is? Would the general public? Craft cocktail geeks, and talented, attractive bartenders know the term but its hardly common parlance. Mule is better recognized. Largely thanks to the Moscow Mule. Another variation on the drink that was popularized or created as a marketing gimmick. This time for Smirnoff. Though they didn’t trademark the name. Smirnoff isn’t as closely associated with the Moscow Mule. But they’re still getting a marketing boost out of its current popularity.
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No, actually its one of my favorite drinks. Though most of the time I just say dark and stormy because it’s easier to order (and ask if they have spicier Jamaican ginger beer…most places carry only one kind). The lime isn’t ALWAYS a thing because the ginger beer often fills its purpose. They protect the trademark because its theirs…they don’t tell anyone they can’t make these sorts of drinks, they say they can’t use the name.
Chainsword and full Space Marine cosplay.
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Right because that’s the limitation. What the trademark gets them is the ability to prevent other liquor companies from using the term “Dark 'N Stormy” or derivatives in advertising and merchandise. What they have to do to maintain that is occasionally sue bars and restaurants for serving drinks under the name Dark 'n Stormy (or its derivatives) that don’t use Goeslings products. So
You’ve just asked the bar to violate a trademark and open themselves to lawsuits! Goslings mostly uses their mark to enforce their exclusivity to the term in advertising. But on occasion they’ve used it to ensure that their products are stocked in bars and restaurants in the US. As when they introduced the ginger beer. Their ginger beer sucks. And almost noone prefers it. I’ve worked at several bars that stock it exclusively for fear of law suit. In many places the drink is a top seller under the name Dark and Stormy, and unmarketable under another name. And if you really want to cover your ass are you going to have your staff telling customers “No I can not legally make you a Dark 'N Stormy, I can however make you a Gosling’s Buck as our Ginger beer is from a different brand”? See what I mean about this being a great example of weird?
Additionally Goslings only has that trademark in the US (so far as I know) so none of this is an issue anywhere else. And yet they’re still almost exclusively associated with the drink in other countries. And functionally it almost never matters. Gosling’s only very occasionally decides to drop the hammer on anyone, though when they do it seems pretty random. And the vast majority of people, even in food/bev aren’t even aware of this or that they may be in violation of some one else’s IP if they make a change.
No the lime is ALWAYS supposed to be a thing. The category of drink is defined as hooch with ginger beer and citrus. You’re not exactly making a novel variation if you drop the lime, but you’re omitting a critical flavorful garnish. As a beverage professional I’d be looking side eye at anyone who handed me a Dark and Stormy without one.
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It’s the sort of thing a tacky tinpot dictator would do, so of course the idea appealed.
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