ORWELL ESTATE SENDS COPYRIGHT TAKEDOWN OVER THE NUMBER “1984”

"Kleenex" or "Kleenex tissue" was a trademark of the Kimberly Clark Corporation. KC lost its trademark rights when "Kleenex" became a household word describing a basic product, namely facial tissue. The word "Kleenex" became so synonymous with "facial tissues" that it could no longer be held as a trademark.

The question is, has something like this happened with a copyright, or could it? The Orwell Estate might be endangering their own copyright if they mess with the wrong person, and he takes them to court on it in the right way. Here is what Wikipedia says about generic trademarks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark:

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A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that has become the generic name for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, usually against the intentions of the trademark's holder.

A trademark is said to become genericized when it began as a distinctive product identifier but has changed in meaning to become generic. A trademark typically becomes "genericized" when the products or services with which it is associated have acquired substantial market dominance or mind share such that the primary meaning of the genericized trademark becomes the product or service itself rather than an indication of source for the product or service. A trademark thus popularized has its legal protection at risk in some countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, as its intellectual property rights in the trademark may be lost and competitors enabled to use the genericized trademark to describe their similar products, unless the owner of an affected trademark works sufficiently to correct and prevent such broad use.

Aspirin, heroin and thermos are examples of trademarks that have become genericized in the US.

Genericization or "loss of secondary meaning" may be either among the general population or among just a subpopulation, for example, people who work in a particular industry. Some examples of the latter type from the vocabulary of physicians include the names Luer-Lok (Luer lock), Phoroptor (phoropter), and Port-a-Cath (portacath), which have genericized mind share (among physicians) because (1) the users may not realize that the term is a brand name rather than a medical eponym or generic-etymology term, and (2) no alternative generic name for the idea readily comes to mind. Most often, genericization occurs because of heavy advertising that fails to provide an alternative generic name or that uses the trademark in similar fashion to generic terms. Thus, when the Otis Elevator Company advertised that it offered "the latest in elevator and escalator design," it was using the well-known generic term "elevator" and Otis's trademark "Escalator" for moving staircases in the same way. The Trademark Office and the courts concluded that, if Otis used their trademark in that generic way, they could not stop Westinghouse from calling its moving staircases "escalators", and a valuable trademark was lost through genericization.

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Despite the fact that 1984 is part of a copyrighted book, seems to me that it has become a generalized trademark among the people. If it isn't being used in a way that infringes directly on the copyright, 1984 simply refers to a loss of freedom in a certain way. The Orwell Estate is promoting loss of freedom among the people if it is truly attempting to enforce a copyright in this kind of picky way.