Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Movies Atlanta Braves pick fight with Pixar princess
Posted by Curt Holman @Curt_Holman on Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:55 AM
- Pixar Films
- THE NEW FACE OF THE ATLANTA BRAVES? Pixar's Princess Merida
The Atlanta National League Baseball Club, owners of the Atlanta Braves, formally filed an objection to many of the trademark applications. Although trademarks are specific to their singular and plural forms and the Braves do not possess any trademarks for the word BRAVE (only BRAVES), the organization believes that damages will occur as a result of Disney’s trademarks being approved as they have used the singular form before on merchandise and insist it is common for fans, media, et al to use the singular form when referring to a single player, whereas the pluralized form refers to the entire team. Private negotiations between The Walt Disney Company and the Atlanta National League Ball Club are currently taking place in regards to several of the objected filings with the ball club intending to file an objection against yet another of the registrations.
Now, none of us are fancy big city lawyers here, but it sounds like the Atlanta National League Ball Club believes its fans will struggle to distinguish between a computer-animated Scots princess with a shock of red hair, and a team of male, flesh-and-blood professional athletes. It's not like the team is named the "Atlanta Wee Bonny Lasses." But that's not a bad idea.
Comments (6)
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I'm a Braves fan, but there really is a certain irony that they are threatening legal action for ownership of a "name" (that is really just a term), and that if anything, they basically stole first from Native Americans.
...I still can't believe the Washington Redskins are allowed to have their name, when you think about what it's actually saying...I mean, if you named a team in a similar fashion after white, black, or asian, people for example, it would probably never be allowed.
The Redskins are able to keep their name because Native Americans by a ten to one margin aren't offended by it.
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org…
According to it's Wikipedia page, the movie's been titled Brave since this summer at the latest. Not only are the Braves' owners way over their heads, they're pretty late.
Centennian said: "The Redskins are able to keep their name because Native Americans by a ten to one margin aren't offended by it."
That's the argument?...They don't seem to care much, so it's fine?
Well, I think the minority is right in this case. And I suspect the rest may have bigger issues to deal with (like the extremely low per capita income, education, and employment that still exists on most reservations).
But it's offensive, for sure.
If you renamed them the "yellowskins" and made the mascot an asian american...a lot of people would be raising hell about it, and rightfully so.
From the standpoint of the Braves Ball Club...what they're worried about is name recognition, and potential financial repercussions. And yes, there will inevitably be people who confuse the two, or who search for 'Brave' or 'Atlanta Braves' and end up with info on the other side. Then again, seeking to trademark 'Brave' in the first place is a little silly
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