Bitcoin Forum

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crazy that such a big company cares about that shit  :D

Yeh, "Bitcoin changes how the money works" ;)

Yea I saw someone posting a simillar comparaison between Bitcoin & Wester Union and I guess that the fact WU responded to it means that it is actually a big threat to them.

Interesting that they would take the time to pursue copyright claim against this.

Large companies like this go after small firms all the time for things (ads, logos, ect) that may even be remotely similar.

Good to know. I will begin spamming the world with this graphic.  ;)

please do it  :D

and dont forget:

https://i.imgur.com/hYJYG58.jpg?1

Now we are talking :D

Instead of fighting against a new technology these companies should embrace it.

But hey, I can see why they don't like that image  :D

Where exactly did they see this AD :p I didn't see it no where but Bitcointalk forums honestly :p so I don't see why they would mind

Looking at here (https://imgur.com/r/Bitcoin/bjRILt4), it seems that there is actually a series of ads that has been created mocking WU. Who did this great job ? :D

Oh I see now how they noticed it , 62,000 views :o damn xD
Well I'am pretty sure it's someone from bitcointalk

What a stupid move by WU, worst case scenario (for them) this just causes these images to go viral  ;D

:D :D :D They are total idiots they have given this small issue of marketing so much attention yet fail to address the fact that Bitcoin shits all over their service in every way possible

Either western union is behind Bitcoin or they are total fuck sticks

It's just like
FU Bitcoin we know were way overcharged but we provide these services and you don't
Whistle whistle whistle
(Which btw cost us at most a dollar)  2%
The rest is our profit margin  ;D (Gotta love the 8% on 50 dollar rake)

You mean 'shit' as in such images, or that the ad is 'shit'? Because the 2nd thing wouldn't make much sense.
The AD is great. If Bitcoin was not so volatile, everyone should switch like right now.

No.  You can't copyright a picture.  This is a trademark.  In US law, if a company does not vigorously defend their trademarks, they lose them.  That is why you will see this all the time, a huge company filing suit against some small individual for things that hardly bare any resemblance at all.  They have to be able to demonstrate that they are enforcing their trademarks who they stand a chance of losing them.  It has nothing at all to do with perceiving something as a threat. 

You guys forgot to put the 1-2% it costs to buy the BTC then the 1-2% to sell it! You also forgot to put the hoops you have to jump through to buy bitcoin. Much tougher then filling out a form at WU.

Just use the version with Onion instead of Union, just as effective ;)

Clearly this means they perceive bitcoin as a genuine threat. :D

That is seriously fricking awesome. Thank you for taking the time to find this or put it together if you did this! lolol its so great i cant help but feel all christmasy inside! LOL

They got nothing else to do or maybe they both hire the same person or company who made the ads.

haha.  that's great.  maybe some media attention over this.

jajaja I love it!

Great job.

Once I get my hands on Bitcoin why the hell would I convert it back to fiat? I get paid in Bitcoin, I pay employees in Bitcoin, and I buy items directly with bitcoin which allows me to save up to 15% off of anything on Amazon.


Buying BTC is trivial, and simply involves clicking a button. The setup and authorization process for circle/coinbase is much easier and intuitive than W/U as well.

I am still having trouble seeing where a copyright infringement has occurred.  Can someone help me out or is this just an abusive DMCA takedown?

Its a clear case of fair use or parody, and thus an abusive DMCA takedown.

The CEO of bitcoin may get sued so we better start collecting for his legal fund. ;)

I doubt Western Union sees Bitcoin as a threat because people use Western Union to buy Bitcoin.

I am sure that i saw an article somewhere that said that since Bitcoin went viral, WU money transfer has been down by 3%. That's a lot given the amount of money they transfer.

Here's the story behind this.

I posted the picture on my large bitcoin facebook page.  www.facebook.com/BITCOlN (http://www.facebook.com/BITCOlN)

Two days after posting, I received an email from facebook saying that Western Union Holdings, Inc filed a DMCA claim against me, citing their ownership of the Western Union *trademark* (strangely, not their copyright on the ad), and that Facebook decided to remove the content.

I went ahead and filed a counter-claim, where I had to swear that I believe Facebook wrongfully granted their takedown request.  Now, Western Union has 10 days to either file a federal court order, or Facebook will reinstate the image.  I see it as a win/win situation.  If western Union actually sues me for posting the image, it will come back to bite them 1000x over in negative PR alone.  Plus, I'm not the original content creator, and the image should be legally protected as "comparative advertising".  

And you will lose.  US courts are *very* generous when it comes to defending trademarks, and clearly you are using a trademarked image (not sure why you and everyone else keeps calling it copyright, this has nothing to do with copyrights). 

As stated before, it has nothing to do with them being afraid of bitcoin; if it can be demonstrated in court that they knew you were using their trademarked image and they did not oppose your use, you could then claim ownership of the trademark for yourself.

Comparison advertising has a long history and is completely legitimate.

Truthful comparative advertising even using a competitor's trademark is entirely valid if done correctly.

(This one presents a few issues that are not necessarily fatal, but it should not present the WU logo more prominently than the Bitcoin logo or otherwise look as if it might be suggesting the competing product is actually endorsed by the competitor.)

ETA:  Actually they're the same size but the whitespace on the right side for Bitcoin is a) unsightly but b) more importantly, makes it look less prominent.  Should probably be surrounded by some color itself.  Also, it doesn't note that the Western Union trademark belongs to (duh) Western Union.

I would be very careful. I am not sure, about US-Laws, but something like that, can end in a hefty fine for you.
Don't take a unnecessary risk until you have at least talked to a lawyer. Don't take posts on this forum as legal advise.

This.  Consider contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which even if they might not necessarily give you free legal advice, has been known to hook people up with free/cheap legal counsel, usually experienced people.  Just having any response you make to their posturing come on legal letterhead can make even corporate bullies think twice.

Would we of had such hand wringing from them if the picture had shone WU in a good light?

Probably. If it was shown in a better light then the satire could have left out some important disclaimer or condition of using their service and as a result it would add liability to Western Union.

There is a long history of examples where corporations don't waste their time defending their trademarks/copyrights because it isn't worth their time or they benefit from the advertising.

W/U is clearly making a calculated attack because of a perceived threat.

Do you have any examples of this? Filing a DCMA complaint would only draw attention to themselves and the picture in question. If they were making an "attack" because of bitcoin's threat then they are doing it wrong because their "attack" is drawing attention to the comparison between bitcoin and WU

Yes, but you are ignoring the fact that the lawyers are getting paid for defending W/U trademark regardless of the Barbara Streisand effect or whether or not it is a wise tactical decision for W/U as a whole.

There are too many examples to mention but here is a prominent one :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088931/

No permission was granted , and Coca Cola was unaware of this project but decided to not sue or attack Dusan Makavejev because the movie didn't show Coca cola in a completely negative light.

That's not necessarily the case.  Nothing is even on legal letterhead yet.  Noticing a Facebook post has all the hallmarks of some intern or other schlub doing busywork hunting down shit on social media and then notifying it with little to no more effort to it than that.  A lot of paralegals or new lawyers do just this.  A DMCA notifier need have no particular qualifications.

(Confession:  I've done this myself though I hope I did a better job.)

I wouldn't take a mere takedown notification as meaning much if anything without more.

The DMCA takedown was filed by Erin Schol who is a legal analyst for Western Union. S yes, some lawyers within W/U saw this ad as a threat.

The attorneys are not the ones who make the decision on taking action against someone  infringing on their trademark.
How do you know that no permission was granted and how do you know the rationale behind their decision not to go after the creators of the movie?

In this case it was one of W/U legal advisors who filed the DMCA.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088931/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

This film was produced without the knowledge or consent of the international offices of the Coca-Cola Company. However, since both the company and its product were depicted so favorably in the film (as well as the film being free advertising), they took no legal action against the parties involved.

So you're here defending WU? Something smells, and it ain't me nor my Bitcoins.  :)

I'm pretty sure that they do things once they receive orders.

If they responded to that AD , this means they simply think that Bitcoin is a real threat for them  ::)

Company lawyers often work without consultation, especially in a big company. I think, the higher ups in an international company have better things to do, than to decide, if they should sue some small fry.

The company would likely have some kind of policy in place to sue in certain circumstances. The lawyers may have authority to make the conclusion that the criteria has been met, however they must follow the procedure, as it would be the higher ups who would ultimately be held accountable in the event a lawsuit would not be beneficial for the company

Yeah but this time it's different. Bitcoin cannot be sued and if things go viral, some deletes won't even be noticed because it'll be everywhere :)

Yeah some deletes won't be noticed .. *cough* thread *cough* all over reddit and news sites *cough*.

Says on her LinkedIn she's an "assistant legal analyst."  Sounds like a fancy name for scutwork.  I forget what I called it when I did it.  Something I made up.

She was the person who actually filed the request. This does not mean that she was the person who actually made the decision, or even did the research to determine that filing the takedown request would even be justified.

Lets see if she gets fired for insubordination or not following company policy since you are insinuating she went rogue. If she was doing her job than w/u does indeed fear Bitcoin as they pay employees to file DMCA take downs against any perceived threats.

I'm not insinuating she went rogue, but that it is often a (bad) policy of corporations simply to send out shotgun notifications against anything that references their trademark in any way, often using inappropriate mechanisms like the DMCA (since you describe a DMCA notification). 

If it's worth anything, the address on the LinkedIn address is in Colorado, there's an Erin Schol in Aurora, Colorado, and there is no "Erin Schol" listed in Colorado's directory of licensed attorneys (http://www.coloradosupremecourt.com/search/attsearch.asp), nor can I find anything online about her graduating from any law school in the period shortly before she got this job that would, if done by a law school graduate, have been an entry-level job.

Just because the WU address is in Colorado doesn't mean our Erin Schol is in Colorado, or that the Erin Schol in Aurora is our Erin Schol, or that Erin Schol may not be licensed somewhere else.  But it seems like a good guess, and my initial guess is she isn't a lawyer, but just a DMCA notification agent.

They aren't backing away from Erin's decision though as their official company spokeswoman responded:

Kristin Kelly, a Western Union spokeswoman, told Ars in an e-mailed statement: "Western Union takes all brand matters seriously, and we take steps that we believe are necessary to protect our intellectual property interests."

This is ridiculous! Since when it is illegal to compare services/price of 2 companies and who exactly are they suing for it. I believe I saw it first on FB I think and since then it must have been posted all over the net.

She shows up here (http://corporate.westernunion.com/news_factsheets/wu_factsheet_corporate.pdf) as a media contact.

You should consider contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or at the very least submitting this incident to the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse (https://www.chillingeffects.org/), which keeps track of bullshit like this (if you haven't already).

It isn't.  And so far, they've just made a takedown notice and then made noises in response to media contacts.  They're probably just used to bullying social media and YouTube and the like without anyone standing up to them.

I said this on reddit too --- Sometimes it is just nice to see a bully being bullied.  ;D

The unfortunate part is.... The bully, with the amount of money to their disposal, can easily change their business model, to accomodate for this competition, or invest in a competing technology, and become a bully again.

They already profitted hugely on their previous model, and they might just adopt to the change.  :(

it seems WU knows what will happen.

With Bitcoin, not really. The problem still lies in the people more than in the technology (yes Bitcoin is not perfect).
Adopting Bitcoin would be the way forward, and later on some other currency to be the alternative. Companies like WU would go bankrupt very quickly.

I don't see anything offending or breach of copyright trademark. Even the colors are different

Crazy that they cause because of this free advertisement to bitcoin :)

Forget about 'comparative advertising' - you are also fully protected by 'fair use' parody.  Further, your Facebook 'use' is not a commercial use; and still further, there is no 'likely to confuse (as to source of goods)' - an essential element of trademark infringement.  There could be some argument from WU that 'dilution' is causing damage as your use is disparaging to their mark.  However, 'fair use' takes care of that again.  

Dude - don't worry about those fuckers at WU.  Their lawyers are pussies and they just want to stick it to their client with tons of fees 'to defend their brand'.  Their lawyers know this goes no where.  They just love more billable hours.  Let WU spend the money - it's fun!  The more WU spends on dumb ass stuff like this, the less profit they book at the end of the year.  Therefore, you are duty bound as a Bitcoin enthusiast to cause WU to further waste their money.  Take every action imaginable to keep WU's lawyers busy.  

However, this trademark issue is the least of WU's worry.  Bitcoin is going to take over remittance 100% in about 3 years.  WU is either going to be based on bitcoin, or they are going to be eliminated.  

http://40.media.tumblr.com/b00d20c57bbe7156aa02ee627c932982/tumblr_nfltkanfbW1s9zihro1_1280.jpg

Excellent!  Who can come up with others? We should make a Bitcoin bounty to pay for a parody competition.  Can anyone organize that?  

Maybe try something with this one...

http://www.gbssite.com/img/western_union/western_union.jpg

Or this one...

http://stlinusonlineinstitute.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/western_union1.67223627_std.jpg

It is nice to see how streissand effect works in the net  ;D

Actually, it makes it much more likely that it will have increased 10-1000% in value.

This actually results in the likelihood that you might not receive it at all because whoever you contracted with might just decide to default on the deal and keep their BTC.

Don't tell anyone this is bad for something that wants to be a currency, because they won't believe you.

Well the other person is wrong. Bitcoin doesn't change it's price by 10-15% in 1 hour often, thus this is false.
You're right. Over time you have more value, or if you're lucky and you get bitcoins a few days before a spike.

Well they used their full logo which they obviously didn't like. I'm not sure if they have any legal grounds to squash it though, it's more just the threat of possible action.

Well the price of bitcoin really could go either way by the time the receiver is able to pay for whatever they plan on paying for or converting the received bitcoin to fiat. If the receiver is going to convert to fiat then the time they would be exposed to price changes would only be ~a hour, however if they plan on paying for various things with the bitcoin they receive then the time they are exposed to price swings is much longer, potentially several weeks 

Fair use is a copyright defense.  It is not a trademark defense.


This is true, but I wouldn't rely on this much.  It is pretty easy for a trademark plaintiff to gin up some ludicrous claim that a defendant somehow profits in some intangible way from an "infringing" use and then claim that the use is therefore "in commerce."  That's why I didn't even mention that potential defense, because unless you're a lawyer, you shouldn't be telling people facing a potential lawsuit that they're completely in the clear. 

Citing fair use in a trademark dispute just demonstrates this further.

Just because the *non-lawyers* Western Union is using to make its stupid claims are confusing copyrights and trademarks does not mean that this is a wise choice or that we shouldn't avoid it ourselves.

If we are paid with BTC in salary, then these costs will be eliminated.

https://i.imgur.com/GSmJ3qR.jpg


 ;D

I pay 0.35% to buy and to sell. There might be some other small fees for transaction Bank to Exchange, but summa summarum it should be less than 1%

and we are only at the beginning of that industry.

Many people do not use exchanges and I would say the average 'cost' for these kinds of trades (either on forum or via ATMs) would be in the 5% range. I think this is still cheaper then using Western Union, however these kinds of trades should be factored in when marking cost comparisons

At this stage, there will be companies who would handle all the exchange and charge a reasonable fee 1-3%. Exchanges will be cheaper if you have high volume, thus it makes more sense for service providers opening up.

As Bitcoin becomes mainstream, you will not have to worry about volatility and avg person can comfortable use bitcoin to send money. (even avg person hold a small fund in bitcoins for online shopping)

Bottom line is still alot cheaper than WU.

Not true. This would only be correct if you were able to spend your salary in bitcoin (which would require a much larger merchant adoption and a much more stable price for it to make sense to do so

That day will come slowly.