Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Especially, John, when they cannot reliably spell Trademark, much less understand that of the two important elements of precedence down at the PTO in DC, "First Date of Use In Commerce" takes priority over "Confusingly Similar in the same market". And THAT is why the 1960-1961 date of the first use in commerce of the 4001, and yet-earlier 4000, takes priority over what date infringing competitors started making confusingly similar basses, even if it was the 1970s and RIC had not been reliably enforcing prior to then.

I just wish people would learn the difference between the meanings of copyright, trademark and patent before starting or joining such a discussion.

I said "Eddy"; UK slang that I've heard in reference to Edinburgh. What I don't understand is this attitude that I occasionally see that some people take against RIC and John and even his family as a sort of personal thing, attacking with childish glee.

Although I was posting my lead-in remarks (including the "Eddy" comment) tongue-in-cheek and secondary to my remarks on intellectual property, they were taken as personally insulting, and led to some other personal stuff being unleashed on me (including "toady") which were not addressed by the webmaster-dude of that augustly-named online body.

Sheena, rudeness was not intended--just a sort of gentle regional jibe. Your reaction tells me two things:

1. An outsider has no business poking fun at another's place of residence (although people do it all the time...after all, insiders usually have neither objectivity nor sense of humor about their hometowns or countries!).

This is odd, because I've never heard worse bashing of other regions in one's homeland, than is dished out by my UK friends, including Scots.

(Edinburgh joke:

"The difference between Edinburghers and Glaswegians?

Well, show up unannounced at an Edinburgher's front door at dinnertime, and he will say, 'Come in! Glad you could join us for dinner!

Show up, however, at a Glaswegian's door at dinnertime, and he'll say, 'Come in! By now, of course, you'll have had your dinner already. Glass of water to wash it down?'"

Still doesn't give me the right to call Edinburgh, "Eddy", though, I suppose.

2. A certain percentage of people will miss tongue-in-cheek and go for literal every time. That's what I do when I hear jokes in Portuguese being told by Brazilians. I need to go literal in my first attempts at understanding humor. So it could be a language/culture thing.

But everybody in that forum was English-speaking. I could tell by the language they were using in their negative replies...

JH is absolutely right when he says

"...take random bits of information, fasten them together, and create a new, alternate, totally distorted reality".

I used to chat on the WAL site on Dudepit. I didn't stay long. No sense of humor and quite frankly a bit nasty.

Geez, the moon's not full, is it???

(In response to the Rugby pile-on over there, not Brian's or JH's remarks.)

JH's comment about taking bits and stringing them is "gossip" and it's what a large part of this world is fueled by. Which is why the so-called MSM would rather do this than be objective.

I went to check out the place with all this "jingle-jangle" folderol, and I left with a bad taste too!

Are we really insular & anti-social here?
I didn't think so, at least as a group (well, I'm anti-social, but that's neither here nor there).

I still don't get why "Eddy" is insulting, eh!

Kevin,
I'm originally from the other side of the country in Scotland (just outside Glasgow) I've not come across the nickname "Eddy" before, and like you I can't think why it'd be insulting.

Jim, can I have a glass of water?

I'm awful parched...

All I can say is it's a great place there, as long as you agree with them. I suppose they would say the same about here. Still don't agree with their ideas on fakers and justifying them.

For years, the designs of Gibson and Fender were shamelessly copied. Fans of those instruments have become used to the idea and simply accept it as a fact of life. Rickenbacker is one of the only marques to hold their ground on the issue. That strikes many as odd, at best, downright militant at worst. Hence the self-righteous indignation and protracted rants about how nuts John Hall must be because he protects his IP. Bassassin did show JH due respect in some of his posts but reserved the right to have a differing opinion. Fair enough. As John said, they don't want to have to worry about that stuff, They just want to make guitars.

Heck, Paul, I'm awful even when I am not parched.....

Paul,
As long as you don;t want to put it into the whiskey then certainly !!

Well, at least i'm not the only one who didn't get the humour & took that comment as arrogant or offensive. As far as "insiders/outsiders" are concerned - for instance, many Russians will not laugh at the joke told by a "foreigner" about Chernobyl. Because Chernobyl was no fun at all. Somehow people living in a country tell "dark humor" jokes about their own country, but if the joke about their country is told by a "foreigner", they may take it as an offence. I guess, many Russian jokes about Americans could be taken as an offence by Americans themselves. That may be a psychological thing which could, in short, be described as "that's mine & i can touch it but you shouldn't".

Still, looks like you've missed my point, Paul. What i wanted to say was - they probably thought that what they said about RIC, its trademark policy & the forums was nothing more than a joke, and you probably took it as an offence to RIC. You thought your reference was an innocent joke, and they took it as an offence. I could've taken your comment about insiders having no sense of humour about their home towns/countries as an offence, too... As far as why they've missed your main point - well, many people react at the 1st phrases. And if the 1st phrase sounds like an offence/personal attack, it's sometimes hard to "take it like a friend" & see the main point in the poster's message.