I have advised Mo and Wil to register (at least) a UK trademark for Britcoin. Whilst the basic build of Britcoin is based on Bitcoin, all other layers of IP are effectively open to copyright (subject to the original MIT license of the software) and trademarking.
...Good luck!!!
Interesting idea trademarking Brit as a legal brand.
I'm not sure if we need to? But then again i'm not up on my trademark law.
I'll talk to the investor, and report back.
How is all that investor stuff getting on?
Trademarking something decentralised sounds like an oxymoron to me. Someone has to own a trademark. Craig Wright is essentially trolling Bitcoin right now trying to file patents for Bitcoin, this is a similar vain to be honest. And who's to say Mr Investor has everyone's best interests at heart? Surely the real Satoshi being anonymous is the only saving grace for when big establishment try and wield control of BTC, therefore trying to formalise all this and give people, organisations and government a 'target' seems rather counter intuitive.
Besides, Britcoin was the name of an exchange back in 2011, wouldn't they qualify for prior use or have existing marks?
I spoke with the investor today about trademarking Brit, he said it would be very difficult to do, but suggested that we register Brit as a LTD company to protect us fro the man down the road so to speak.
As for having everyone's interest at heart? He said to me only get into this project if you want to make money PERIOD! The guy is has a personal wealth of £50M, for him to take on this project, he obviously sees that it has potential. So does making money sound like he has everyone's interests at heart?
No good. A Ltd company doesnt really protect the brand, all that does is prevent another person from setting up a company called Britcoin or "trading" as Britcoin. This has no effect, particularly as the base is open source. You will simply be shut down by the government - if you also create a LTD company anything you create BELONGS TO THE CROWN - so your investor is giving you BAD ADVICE. I dont think you have an investor, if you do however he made his millions I will never know!
What I am suggesting is that;
- an individual (or public trust in ownership of stakeholders) - an official foundation is created with official stakeholder membership, a charity, a not for profit, its easy to do.
This acts similar to a political party, and as such has stakeholders, directors and members. There is no other way to protect Britcoin, the UK Government and HM Treasury will steamroller you any other way. The ONLY saving grace is that with the UK leaving Europe (you should research the date of Brexit and what it means) many UK countries now want to be independent, as such Britcoin is perfect as a completely nation independent digital currency to supercede the GBP.
BTW I am NOT endorsing forking Britcoin just so "the investor can have some coins" - I remind you - I, and others, are investors and bought the coins in good faith from an exchange - I own over 500,000 Britcoins and as such am a MAJORITY STAKEHOLDER, a Britcoin Whale so to speak. Any investor MUST buy coins on exchanges at the going rate, what you are doing by creating more coins without distributing to stakeholders through POS is going to be your own downfall
1 - you arent a bank and cant print your own money
2 - you dont own britcoin as as such do not have permission for the fork
3 - you dont have full support to print/create more coins
4 - more coins will devalue the existing currency and therefore reduce stakeholder support
I would suggest that you think through your actions, you should also really look at your legal position in doing the fork, because legally given the advance notice and information above you are absolutely responsible for the losses of stakeholders and as such legally and financially accountable - regardless of what any legal representative may say.
Now would be a good time to advise us of who the investor is, what your roadmap is, what his "aims" are as a "fellow stakeholder".
Shouldnt it be a foundation made up of stakeholders that is funded rather than two people?
Personally I will not be moving on the new fork, I will simply look to recover any losses at a later date to the value of the coins lost.
If you create more coins from the chain without the full support of stakeholders that makes you worse than existing banks that create more money to give to themselves.
I hope that is clear!!! Otherwise I am happy to support with my 5%.
ADVICE: As I instructed before, my position is to simply increase the POS for a fixed period ONLY (NO additional coin creation) so that stakeholders and people that buy coins will receive the additional benefits, as would your investor if he bought up coins - thats like me asking Bitcoin to print more coins because I wasnt around at the launch, you just cant do that lol - come on guys take it seriously you're on a thin line here, if it was Bitcoin investors would lose money, do you understand.
Increase the POS to 200% per month for a year if you wanto create a bigger distribution, i dont support printing a million coins just because you guys are getting a wage
By the way can you both post up your bitcoin addresses, and the investors send address so we can see the amounts the investor is paying you each month? That would help demonstrate that the investor thing is all legitimate and above board. Thanks.
