Netflix Hit with Choose Your Own Adventure Lawsuit over Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

Megalith

Megalith

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Black Mirror: Bandersnatch may have been a novel concept for Netflix viewers, but not for Choosec, the children’s book publisher that owns the “Choose Your Own Adventure” trademark. Choosec claims they were in negotiations with Netflix over a license, and while that never happened, the streaming giant ran with the idea anyway and benefited from its association.

This isn’t the first time that Chooseco has dealt with Netflix. In the complaint, Chooseco says that it sent a cease-and-desist request to the streaming company at least once over the Choose Your Own Adventure trademark in the past. This isn’t the only trademark issue Netflix ran into in 2018. In October, the Satanic Temple filed suit against the streaming company, saying that a copy of the church’s proprietary statue appeared in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series.
 
The show wasn't even that great. It was an ok show, annoying to have to keep replaying for 5+ min to get back to the point where you can choose the other option.
I hope we don't see a lot of this content
 
Megalith said:
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch may have been a novel concept for Netflix viewers, but not for Choosec, the children’s book publisher that owns the “Choose Your Own Adventure” trademark. Choosec claims they were in negotiations with Netflix over a license, and while that never happened, the streaming giant ran with the idea anyway and benefited from its association.

This isn’t the first time that Chooseco has dealt with Netflix. In the complaint, Chooseco says that it sent a cease-and-desist request to the streaming company at least once over the Choose Your Own Adventure trademark in the past. This isn’t the only trademark issue Netflix ran into in 2018. In October, the Satanic Temple filed suit against the streaming company, saying that a copy of the church’s proprietary statue appeared in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series.
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The idea is great but the movie itself was freaking awful. Absolute garbage.
 
So have they sued every text based adventure game in existence? I feel as though this is much closer to a choose your own adventure novel than Netflix was.

The idea hardly seems novel and innovative enough to warrant a copyright.

How about Phantasmagoria? Or the first King's Quest? They were pretty close.
 
WBurchnall said:
So have they sued every text based adventure game in existence? I feel as though this is much closer to a choose your own adventure novel than Netflix was.

The idea hardly seems novel and innovative enough to warrant a copyright.

How about Phantasmagoria? Or the first King's Quest? They were pretty close.
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No, because they didn't use the trademark "choose your own adventure". That may have been the draw of those games, but they never used the trademark, so no foul. Trademarks are different from copyright or patents, although sometimes I wonder.
 
The trademark should be thrown out for being fucking obvious. it's like water is wet(TM)
 
Choose your own adventure is a set of directions, but I see how it could be trademarked. Trademark law is different than copyright law, so the company may have legal footing. It's the same as ComiCon™ vs. a comic convention, or comic Con. Having the ComiCon ™ is stupid, but legally valid, just as choose your own adventure ™ sounds to be. I think it's absurd that a description of something can be trademarked, but those are our ridiculous laws.
 
I am going to register the trademark, "Go eat a dick," and then make a single four-panel comic strip called "Go eat a dick." And then I am going to become a trademark troll.
 
I liked Bandersnatch, I thought the actors pulled their roles perfectly and I did spend an evening on trying out different things just to see how things play out. But how can they have any legal ground here? The Choose Your Adventure book was, to my knowledge, imaginary and it was not based on anything real that is copyrighted. Now I do understand that the concept of "Choose your adventure" novels is trademarked but I'm not sure if that can prevent Netflix from ever mentioning such a thing in a story?
 
MaZa said:
I liked Bandersnatch, I thought the actors pulled their roles perfectly and I did spend an evening on trying out different things just to see how things play out. But how can they have any legal ground here? The Choose Your Adventure book was, to my knowledge, imaginary and it was not based on anything real that is copyrighted. Now I do understand that the concept of "Choose your adventure" novels is trademarked but I'm not sure if that can prevent Netflix from ever mentioning such a thing in a story?
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You don't trademark ideas, methods, or content; You trademark slogans, brands, and such. It's the specific words "choose your own adventure," used to describe a very specific type of experience which their brand brings, which is trademarked – and they have a lot of legal ground to stand on.

In fact, they have quite a few books published with the trademark in question, one being published as recently as last year (2018).
 
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Nobu said:
You don't trademark ideas, methods, or content; You trademark slogans, brands, and such. It's the specific words "choose your own adventure," used to describe a very specific type of experience which their brand brings, which is trademarked – and they have a lot of legal ground to stand on.
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From a few IP experts I've read, they mostly agree this will be thrown out. From my understanding, the only use of the phrase by Netflix itself was one line in the movie where a character says "so you can choose your own adventure?" That likely falls under fair use. The people who tagged this movie with the CYOA wording are the media, Netflix never did so in PR.

Additionally, Netflix has a strong chance of challenging it as being generic now (in the general lexicon).
 
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Spidey329 said:
From a few IP experts I've read, they mostly agree this will be thrown out. From my understanding, the only use of the phrase by Netflix itself was one line in the movie where a character says "so you can choose your own adventure?" That likely falls under fair use. The people who tagged this movie with the CYOA wording are the media, Netflix never did so in PR.

Additionally, Netflix has a strong chance of challenging it as being generic now (in the general lexicon).
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So, netflix may be clear, but the media outlets could be asked to reword their articles.
 
Madoc said:
How the heck did "Choose your own adventure" get trademarked? That's like saying, "Take a left at the next traffic light" should be trademarked. Silliness!
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Or like trademarking the term Kleenex! I mean what else are you going to call the nose tissue blowy things!
 
Could it possibly be because in the first 5 or 10 minutes of the show they referred to the book he was reading as a "Choose your own adventure" ?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Or like trademarking the term Kleenex! I mean what else are you going to call the nose tissue blowy things!
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Facial Tissue?

Kleenex is a trademark that took over common language. Just like "Google it" became a verb, we have thermos instead of vacuum flask, Band-Aid instead of adhesive bandage, q-tip instead of cotton swab, super glue, Velcro, hundreds of medications...
 
Crackinjahcs said:
Facial Tissue?

Kleenex is a trademark that took over common language. Just like "Google it" became a verb, we have thermos instead of vacuum flask, Band-Aid instead of adhesive bandage, q-tip instead of cotton swab, super glue, Velcro, hundreds of medications...
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Velcro is actually still a protected trademark. Because of that, 3M has to use the more awkward "hook and loop fastener" for their competing product.
 
I don't really care what they call it. As someone that actually read the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books in the 80s, I thought the episode was very unique - I really enjoyed it along with it's retro computing theme.
 
Nobu said:
Velcro is actually still a protected trademark. Because of that, 3M has to use the more awkward "hook and loop fastener" for their competing product.
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Yep, just like band aid, aspirin, q-tip, super glue, formica, and romex.
 
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