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US Entertainment Firm Milks Croatian Concert Promoter With Trademark Rights It May Never Have Owned

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We see all kinds of dumb and frustrating examples of trademark bullying here at Techdirt. From questionable claims of infringement entirely, to the over-policing of broad or generic terms that never should have been granted trademark protection to begin with, to vice-like licensing terms that appear to be designed more to put licensees out of business rather than building any kind of long-term business model out of trademark rights. That said, at least in most of these stories the offending party has the trademark its bullying with. That may not be the case when it comes to Worldwide Entertainment Group Inc., which is being sued by a Coatian festival promoter after being milked over a trademark the promoter says Worldwide doesn't actually have.

In a federal complaint filed in Miami, plaintiff Adria MM Productions Ltd. says it has been the exclusive promoter of “Ultra Europe” and other “Ultra”-branded events since July 2013. It claims the inaugural electronic music festival attracted 100,000 fans, and that the audience has grown with each successive event. The defendant Worldwide Entertainment Group Inc., also identified as “Ultra” in the complaint, is the organizer and promoter of the Ultra Music Festival that takes place every year in Miami.The complaint says Ultra entered into various licensing agreements to grow its brand around the world, and sought out AMM ” because AMM is one of the largest promotion companies in Croatia and holds exclusive licenses and rights to venues in Croatia and was a successful promoter of musical events in Croatia.” AMM says that Ultra made it believe that it owned the mark “Ultra Europe,” and the five-year licensing agreement required it to pay the defendant licensing and promotional fees for the use of its proprietary marks in Europe.
From there, the complaint details just how Worldwide put the squeeze on AMM through its evolving licensing terms, which only evolved in the direction of higher fees and more control for Worldwide. And the restrictions were fairly intense, including giving Worldwide the right to approve vendors at AMM festivals, providing for exhorbitant arrangements for Worldwide staff, and adding on fee after fee. All of this was, mind you, while AMM was entirely responsible for putting these concert events on. All Worldwide was doing was licensing the term "ultra" for these festivals. Because of all of this, AMM was losing money on its events.When the original five-year licensing agreement expired, Worldwide demanded even more from AMM in a new five-year agreement. AMM attempted to negotiate, but Worldwide instead pulled the plug and cut AMM off from email and social media channels for the European events, prohibited AMM from promoting the 2017 festival in Croatia, and even sent a notice of default to AMM saying that it had breached the two companies' original agreement.Then, this.
AMM says that at that time it discovered that Ultra didn’t have any rights over proprietary marks in Europe, specifically in Croatia.
Damn. Specifically, the complaint states that Worldwide "held no trademark rights in Europe and, specifically, Croatia at the time it entered into the agreement with AMM." If that ends up being proven, it's difficult to see how Worlwide isn't in an absolute bucket of trouble. It's one thing to bully and squeeze a licensee over a valid trademark, but to do all of this and not even own the rights that are the basis for the licensing agreement to begin with? That's all kinds of evil.

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How Moral Panics Can Turn Into Therapeutic Tools: The Dungeons And Dragons Edition

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It seems there must be something in our human DNA, something that hasn't been filtered out over the generations, that causes the masses to engage in moral panics. When you peruse our previous posts about moral panics new and old, it highlights how laughably absurd they tend to be. Specifically, if past is prologue, you get a fair understanding of how our current moral panics will be viewed in the future, as we laugh now at the consternation caused by such demons as telephones, comic books, chess, and pencils. And that laughter causes no pause about the current moral panics surrounding social media, certain forms of music, and video games.Sandwiched in between antiquity and modernity is Dungeons & Dragons, the popular tabletop role playing game that experienced its own moral panic decades ago, but which has since risen dramatically in popularity. This game, once thought by parents to create potential Satan worshipers out of their little darling children, has already been pushed as a fantastic starting point for would-be creative writers. More recently, however, therapists have begun using the game as a therapeutic tool in sessions with patients. Adam Davis runs one of these groups using D&D in therapy, called the Wheelhouse Workshop, and details one story in which he uses the game as a therapy tool.

Davis, who runs Wheelhouse Workshop out of an office in a large, brick arts building in Seattle, is used to seeing sides of kids that don't usually come out in school. He, along with co-founder Adam Johns, designs D&D games that are less like hack-and-slash dungeon-crawls and more like therapy with dragons. In D&D's Forgotten Realms world, the kids' psyches run amok. Earlier this month, over the phone, Davis told me about Frank (not his real name), a tall, lanky teenager who barely spoke above a whisper. In school, he tended to sit with his feet in front of his face, so no one could really see him. He hated to take up space. After his parents and teachers noticed that his body language seemed a little stand-offish to peers, they enrolled him in Wheelhouse Workshop."The character he chose was a dwarf barbarian," Davis recalled. "He was really loud and bumbling and unapologetic. It was a really obvious opportunity for this kid to play with qualities other than his." Adam had Frank sit like his character, spreading his legs apart and slamming his elbows onto the table. In dwarf-barbarian mode, Frank could experiment with new modes of relating to others.
In the link, there are other examples of other groups using D&D in therapy sessions, and it becomes instantly obvious why it's such a valuable tool. Letting kids play the game to work out real life issues, or work on modes of interaction and socialization, is what every tabletop RPG session is to some extent. But for those whose interactions aren't merely escape from reality, but a way to work on their real life interactions, the lessons learned in the game can be profound. Therapists have always used role-playing in therapy sessions, of course, but allowing for an in-game narrative filled with social interaction and potential consequences adds a new layer. When the therapists explaining why they use the game as a tool in this way talk about the benefits, it will likely sound familiar to what the proponents of more recent moral panic targets have to say on the subject.
Because D&D is inherently cooperative and escapist, it urges players to re-imagine the ways they interact with peers. And because each player has their own specialty, like communicating with dragons, they'll have their moment to feel valuable in a group setting.At worst, kids who are socially isolated can enjoy hacking up some goblins after a crappy school day. "For someone who never leaves their house except for school, to have a peer say, 'I need your help picking a lock' makes a huge difference," Johns told me.
That sure sounds like someone describing interactive multiplayer video games to me, among other things. The point to understand here is that thirty or forty years ago this game was absolutely vilified. Unfairly so, by a public too willing to buy into fears about something they didn't understand and a media environment happy to whip that fear into a fervor. No part of that equation has changed saved for the target of the moral panic du jour. Hell, we've already heard of things like video games and other technology being used in therapy sessions, yet what percentage of parents polled today would have negative things to say about those games?If moral panics are in our DNA, or perhaps merely in our social fabric, we need more people to have a greater understanding of how often these panics melt away and the benefits of the thing feared are then realized. Maybe then we can at least muffle these types of moral panics.

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