Anonymous To Stop Business (I Stand Corrected)
Recently a video was put up on YouTube by Anonymous regarding their logo. A French company wanted to trademark it. On the video description, they claim:
“Anonymous will take down any business they have going on the internet and the ninety nine percent will not stop until the registration has been revoked and a public apology has been made.”
Before: Firstly the claim made by most commenters on the video is that anyone who uses the Anonymous logo could be sued. The problem with that is we don’t know whether or not they will be sued or if the French company has intentions which are in line with Anonymous’s. There is no indication of whether or not the French company will actually sue if anyone besides them uses the logo/slogan. Secondly, they are free to do this. There is a grey area, because Anonymous doesn’t claim to be an organization. It hasn’t copyrighted its logo/slogan, and is available everywhere on the internet. There is no clear idea of where the logo/slogan came from. This is precisely the idea of why patents, copyrights, etc were invented, in order to stop this kind of thing from happening. Instead, Anonymous ignores this fact because it is working on “higher moral principles”.
I feel this is the current problem with Anonymous. It appears to be working entirely on unquestioned principles. While I may agree with some of them, they are nevertheless completely dogmatic in their desire to act in terms of “the greater good” (which has, mind you, had various interpretations throughout human history). Not only that but there is little room for dissent- anyone who disagrees with Anonymous, appears to be against Anonymous. Why? Because, they are a “collective”. They see the world in black and white and there are absolutely no grey areas whatsoever. I admit, I am not entirely fond of Anonymous. I support some of their actions with regards to violations of privacy and things like that. But, I personally cannot support anyone who claims to be free from error because they are working on “higher moral principles”, even if I agree with some of those principles. I’ll add that doesn’t mean I’ll support anyone who’s against Anonymous.
Here is the video:
After:
Apparently, this link exists. http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/08/02/despite-all-the-fuss-trademarked-anonymous-logo-might-not-be-valid/
theuncynic 