How things change.
From Techdirt:
mbedded from the even-stranger-things dept*As noted in June's "Shave the Billionaire or Life Has Its Ups and Downs":
Last year we discussed a dispute between Roberto Escobar, brother of the infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel's accountant, and Netflix over the latter's hit show Narcos. It was a strange dispute for any number of reasons, ranging from Roberto Escobar's demand for one billion dollars and the rights to alter content in future episodes to the fact that Escobar's demands didn't lay any actual claim to any intellectual property in dispute, all the way up to the fact that Narcos doesn't actually portray Roberto Escobar at all. Much like the silly dispute between Activision and Manuel Noriega over publicity rights, it was pretty much assumed that this nonsense would be done away with more quickly than a federal informant working on the inside of the cartel.
Sadly, however, this still appears to be a thing, and it's getting quite strange. For starters, Escobar's legal team claims that a capitulation of sorts by the show might be in the works. It all starts as you'd expect, with the legal team for Narcos detailing via a letter how silly Escobar's claims are, as well as how plainly false the applications Escobar subsequently made for trademarks on terms and titles from the show were.
Narcos Productions, LLC (NPL) — the company behind the series and its popular video game spinoff Narcos: Cartel Wars — contend that without NPL's "knowledge or consent, on Aug. 20, 2016, Escobar filed use-based applications to register the marks NARCOS and CARTEL WARS with the [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] covering a range of goods and services." Those services include everything from "downloadable ring tones" and "sunglasses, decorative magnets" to "temporary tattoos, bookmarks and sheet music," according to the trademark application documents included with the letter. The letter calls the claims "fraudulent.""For example," writes NPL attorney Jill M. Pietrini, "Escobar claims that it has used NARCOS in connection with things like 'operating a website' and 'game services provided online from a computer network' since Jan. 31, 1986. However, the internet had not been developed for widespread consumer use in 1986, nor was the capability to provide audiovisual works nor game services available at that time."So basically the lawyers for the show are demonstrating how flimsy Escobar's attempts to setup a legal way to extort the show are. Trademark law is quite clear on the rights it affords to those who are the first to use a trademark in commerce and ought to act as a shield to these attempts. Despite that, emails obtained by THR from Escobar's legal team to Escobar himself seem to indicate that Narcos is considering just paying Escobar to go away anyway....MORE
... Medieval Europeans were firm believers in the Wheel of Fortune:
Detail of a miniature of the Wheel of Fortune with a crowned king at the top, from John Lydgate's Troy Book and Siege of Thebes,
with verses by William Cornish, John Skelton, William Peeris and others, England, c. 1457 (with later additions), Royal 18D. ii, f. 30v.
-from the British Library Medieval manuscripts blogSometimes you're up, sometimes you're down.
