Don't Get Cocky

electricblue66 said:

I want the owner of the script she used for the brand graphic to pursue her for breach of contract. One of the lawyer babbles noted that it's a term of their permission to use the script, that nothing was to be trade-marked from it.

Click to expand...

Sounds like that brand graphic owner is onboard - I saw a twitter post from him saying the licensing agreements specifically states it can't be used for trademarking.

Anyhow, here's a good one...

Don’t Do This, Ever: Faleena Hopkins Cocks The Whole Entire Fuck Up

And an excerpt I really liked.....

Before I end this blog post, Faleena, I have some words for you that are original, not copied from anyone, and straight from the heart:

You are a nasty piece of fucking work, lady.

Nobody was ever copying you. Nobody knows who you are. The most common reaction seen on social media when your name started coming up was, “Who?” followed by “Who does she think she is?” We had to ask these things because we legitimately had no clue you existed. But boy howdy, do you exist now. See, you’re not famous, but you’re infamous. You probably thought all publicity was good publicity. That is not the case if the publicity you’re getting is just making people become more and more furious and fed up with you. I haven’t seen anyone say they planned to read your really interesting and unique books as a result of your Highlander mentality. I’ve seen a lot say the opposite.

You have burned a bridge the size of the Mighty Mac, Faleena. Not just burned. You blew a bridge up, but you didn’t quite get off it in time and you’ve blasted yourself into the ravine below. No one is going to invite you to their signings. No one is going to include you in their anthologies. If you have the courage to show your face at an industry event, you’re going to find yourself sitting alone at the bar. You might get a drink thrown in your face, soap opera style. I hope someone gets a photo.

Professional organizations will likely not allow you to join. Traditional publishers aren’t going to waste their time on your books now that you’ve shown your entire ass. You have poisoned yourself with your own bile.

........

but no, sweetie. You’re not indie because you’re above it all. You’re indie because you’re too insecure to try. You’re afraid that you’ll be rejected. You’re afraid you can’t hack it when compared to other authors. And that’s why you’re trying to sabotage them. Because you’re afraid that you’re not good enough to succeed on your own merit.

You’re not, by the way. I picked up one of your books. Congrats on being the third overall Kindle return I’ve ever made. Jesus, you’re not even good enough to be first at that. How embarrassing for you.

So, you think if other authors can’t afford to publish, if they can’t promote their books, if you hit them where it hurts, you’ll be the only one out there. You think you’ll get their readers. You won’t. And you won’t ever receive support from anyone in the community. Ever. You’re pretty much universally hated, so…there’s the door. Bye-bye. You can’t sit with us.

PS: your “cocky” series debuted a year after Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Cocky Bastard became a huge hit. So, who’s copying who, you busted ass bitch?

And she's already getting the one star reviews on Amazons. I think someone's just shot themselves in the ass big-time. May take a while to work through but she's toasted herself. I sure hope so, anyhow.

This is going to end badly for a lot of romance and erotica authors.

there is a #cockygate hashtag on twitter full of authors saying how they're going to get back at this ditz by publishing books with the word cocky in it....

Brilliant because now amazon is going to go on a banning spree citing not The author's copyright, but that these books are in the spirit of retaliation, or not even giving a reason at all.

The lynch mob mentality is going to get indy authors lynched and we all know amazon doesn't just stop at one thing once it has an excuse.

The answer is to dispute this through author's guilds, etc....not childishly popping out crap books just to use the title.

lovecraft68 said:

The answer is to dispute this through author's guilds, etc....not childishly popping out crap books just to use the title.

Click to expand...

Goddammit, there's always an adult around. Yes, Amazon will go on a killing spree and probably clock up a few authors, but life's more fun when there's a touch of chaos. Come on. You know it's true. Come on.

I was going to use the c**ky word today. Then I remembered all that lottery money that's waiting for me. Can't screw that up.

Well the latest is she's taken her Facebook Authors page and her video rant down - but someone else copied her insanity to YouTube for the world. She's definitely torched herself. Some of her readers are turning on her now. Without a cocky publication of my own, I'm watching this with the same fascination that one watches car crash videos. Amazon has even reinstated some books they took down. Wonders will never cease.

From Tumblr - http://www.aimmyarrowshigh.com/post/173686741010#_=_
An action has been filed with the Trademark office against her registration.

The PDF of the filing if you don't want to go to tumblr:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dled0pgdgjws5wm/Petition to Cancel Trademark 5447836 - Redacted.pdf?dl=0

What a mess !

ChloeTzang said:

Well the latest is she's taken her Facebook Authors page and her video rant down - but someone else copied her insanity to YouTube for the world. She's definitely torched herself. Some of her readers are turning on her now. Without a cocky publication of my own, I'm watching this with the same fascination that one watches car crash videos. Amazon has even reinstated some books they took down. Wonders will never cease.

Click to expand...

Ah yes, the liberal style we don't like what she did let's bully and destroy her!

The internet has created the ultimate 'safe place' for people with no balls to ruthlessly attack people. I miss the old days where they kept their mouth shut or had it shut for them.

FaeLissa said:

From Tumblr - http://www.aimmyarrowshigh.com/post/173686741010#_=_
An action has been filed with the Trademark office against her registration.

The PDF of the filing if you don't want to go to tumblr:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dled0pgdgjws5wm/Petition to Cancel Trademark 5447836 - Redacted.pdf?dl=0

Click to expand...

The correct way to handle it. But its more fun to abuse her online and go on 12 year old spree of 'oh, yeah I'll do it anyway"

Also if any of these idiots really bothered to look at facts she did not Trademark the word itself, but presenting it in a certain font, setting.

In other words she trademarked a logo that has the word in it.

Example Target has trademarked their logo which is the word ina certain style. Anyone can use the word target in anyway, but not presented the way they do it.

But hey, who wants to pass up a chance to grab torches?

I hope every author publishing a 'cocky title' now has it and all their books banned, Its what they deserve.

RubenR said:

I wonder if you missed this part:

Click to expand...

That doesn't dispute my point, she TM's a logo.

As for her trying to pull down books for just using the word? Guess who that's on? The platform listening to her without researching it. If someone went to Laurel and said to remove your books, you want her to just do it or you want her to take a look and be sure you actually violated a rule first?

But its no fun to go after a site or business when you can just kick a person around the net right?

I've been through these witch hunts before and seen people who used their writing to feed their kids lose all of it over having their books blocked for BS reasons.

That's going to happen and its not going to be because of her, but the morons who are going to 'show her'.

Take it to court, contact platforms and ask where they stand on it, present them the facts, do it like an adult, do it like a professional.

Or do it like a school yard bully protected by the internet who thinks its fun to gang up on a person (especially a woman) and ruin their life because that's what they're doing, she's shutting her media pages down because she's being threatened and abused.

That okay with you or you want to take another shot at my point?

Before you do? The law has seemingly granted her this request.

Mature people are challenging the law which should be the target of this.

But again....this isn't about a word most people would never use, its about the chance to abuse someone and while doing soi is going to lead to a mass banning that will cost people money they use for their families.

That's my point. Is it to hard to understand?

Seems like it is.

Amazon is deleting books based on her fraudulant claims. This is not a case of people are panicking over nothing - this is a case of someone abusing the trademark system and Amazon's policy of deleting stuff whenever there is controversy. Books are being removed from circulation because of her fraud.

This is not a 'well, there are two sides' issue, this is a case of fraud, misrepresentation, and direct violation of US trademark rules that is hurting and will hurt authors until it is stopped. Hopefully the case filed with the trademark office will put a stop to her.

Some people think the damage to her reputation from this will be enough 'punishment', but I am not into punishment (in this context). It needs to be stopped. If her reputation recovers - I don't care. As long as teh abuse of the trademark system is stopped I am happy.

And Amazon may have seen the light on this one. One of the authors whose books were taken down, Tara Crescent, has just had has "Cocky" books reinstated and they're now available (I just checked). I'm a bit stunned by that. It's a first!

But for once Amazon seem to be seeing reason. Maybe because RWA kicked in?

FaeLissa said:

This is not a 'well, there are two sides' issue, this is a case of fraud, misrepresentation, and direct violation of US trademark rules that is hurting and will hurt authors until it is stopped. Hopefully the case filed with the trademark office will put a stop to her......If her reputation recovers - I don't care. As long as the abuse of the trademark system is stopped I am happy.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Sounds like she'll lose this one fast enough - and I hope to god it's a lesson to any one else with an attitude like hers. As far as her reputation, well, she did it to herself and her attitude doesn't help.

I can't wrap my head around what the author in question is really on about. It has to more than the word 'cocky' itself. I knew nothing about Hopkins until this trademark issue started buzzing about. It's a sad way to become famous/infamous.

Maybe others are using that print cover style of the work 'cocky as well?

When people joke about 'walking on ice' with words - jeeze. Not such a joke anymore is it?

Thanks to Bramblethorn for bringing this to our attention.

ThatsTheGuy said:

I can't wrap my head around what the author in question is really on about. It has to more than the word 'cocky' itself. I knew nothing about Hopkins until this trademark issue started buzzing about. It's a sad way to become famous/infamous.

Maybe others are using that print cover style of the work 'cocky as well?

When people joke about 'walking on ice' with words - jeeze. Not such a joke anymore is it?

Thanks to Bramblethorn for bringing this to our attention.

Click to expand...

If you do an image search in Google, you'll see there are at least half a dozen books that use a close variation of 'Cocky Cowboy' - which seems to be at the centre of this entire debacle - but interestingly, she's managed to get almost all other mentions of those titles removed from the general Google web search.

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at LumenDatabase.org.

I can't get onto the page to see the complaint - I suspect it's getting 'heavy' traffic.

It makes you realise a couple of things. 1) That the majority of erotica covers are all depressingly similar, and 2) That it's very hard to come up with a title that hasn't already been used, that is also helpful for selling erotica.

In a saturated market, how do you make your book stand out, and still tell the audience what it's about? And then, how do you pay for that, if you're engaging a proper cover designer?

For those of you who do market your books, and actually sell, did you invest in good covers from the get-go, or only once your work got traction... and did you notice a significant uplift in sales that'd justify the investment?

I do think as authors, we need to be prepared, if we don't invest in our cover art, to see similar titles, and similar cover art at some point. Unless we're Chuck Tingle. Kudos to that bastard, he carved out his own niche.

Thanks JasonClearwater.

lovecraft68 said:

Ah yes, the liberal style we don't like what she did let's bully and destroy her!

Click to expand...

LC, I have a lot of time for you, but this thing of turning anything you don't like into a rant against "liberals" is a mite tedious.

The internet has created the ultimate 'safe place' for people with no balls to ruthlessly attack people. I miss the old days where they kept their mouth shut or had it shut for them.

Click to expand...

...dude, do I really need to point out the irony in complaining about "safe spaces" at the same time that you're talking nostalgically about shutting the mouths of people whose speech you don't like?

lovecraft68 said:

Also if any of these idiots really bothered to look at facts she did not Trademark the word itself, but presenting it in a certain font, setting.

Click to expand...

Dude, if you're going to complain about "idiots" not bothering to "look at facts", at least do yourself the favour of reading the thread you're responding to. There are facts in it.

I already mentioned in this thread that she has TWO trademarks. Trademark 5458137 is for the word mark, which is indeed specific to that typeface.

But the one she invoked in her cease-and-desist is Trademark 5447836. I quote from that record:

"Standard character claim: Yes. The mark consists of standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color. "

So, yes, she is claiming "Cocky" in connection to "a series of books/e-books in the field of romance" REGARDLESS OF FONT.

lovecraft68 said:

As for her trying to pull down books for just using the word? Guess who that's on? The platform listening to her without researching it. If someone went to Laurel and said to remove your books, you want her to just do it or you want her to take a look and be sure you actually violated a rule first?

Click to expand...

It's on Amazon AND it's on her. Just because they gave in to a shyster doesn't mean the shyster is any less to blame.

I've been through these witch hunts before and seen people who used their writing to feed their kids lose all of it over having their books blocked for BS reasons.

That's going to happen and its not going to be because of her, but the morons who are going to 'show her'.

Click to expand...

It has already happened, because of her, to authors whose only crime was to use "Cocky" in a book title.

Take it to court, contact platforms and ask where they stand on it, present them the facts, do it like an adult, do it like a professional.

Click to expand...

LC, do you remember what you were doing in the late 1980s? Of all the people on this board, I would have expected you to understand that people can't always rely on the legal system for justice.

IP law is one of the most badly broken parts of that system. When it comes to trademarks (or indeed patents), you can register just about anything, because it's simply not feasible for the USPTO to do thorough research on prior art. Any author who fights this in court will most likely "win"... but that "win" isn't likely to cover the costs of their legal fees, let alone the time and stress it takes to go through those proceedings. IP litigation can take years.

If you've got thousands of dollars and enough free time to fight this sort of asshole in court, good for you, but most authors don't have that luxury. They are very fortunate in this case that the RWA has decided to intervene (and apparently on behalf of non-members as well as its own members), but if she doesn't back down in a hurry this could still mean years of hassle for the authors who are affected.

ThatsTheGuy said:

I can't wrap my head around what the author in question is really on about. It has to more than the word 'cocky' itself. I knew nothing about Hopkins until this trademark issue started buzzing about. It's a sad way to become famous/infamous.

Maybe others are using that print cover style of the work 'cocky as well?

When people joke about 'walking on ice' with words - jeeze. Not such a joke anymore is it?

Click to expand...

As per my previous post, it's not just about the style - she really is claiming ownership of "cocky", in any typeface, in connection to a series of romance books.

Similar crap happens all the time in patent law; searching "patent trolling" will find plenty of info about it. Basically, you patent something that other people are already using but which hasn't been formally registered, and then you gouge them for infringing on your patent; often people decide it's easier to pay up than to fight.

It's a major problem, and it's alarming to see it coming up in trademarks too; I certainly hope RWA are able to stomp on it hard enough to discourage anybody else from trying it on.

What a weird claim. She owns two registrations -- No. 5458137 for the word "cocky" in a stylized form for ebooks and books and No. 5447836 for the word "cocky" itself, unstylized, for the same thing. But what's weird is she only claims she's been using it since 2016. There must have been many erotic authors with book titles that included the word "cocky" before that, and if that's so her rights should be pretty flimsy.

SimonDoom said:

What a weird claim. She owns two registrations -- No. 5458137 for the word "cocky" in a stylized form for ebooks and books and No. 5447836 for the word "cocky" itself, unstylized, for the same thing. But what's weird is she only claims she's been using it since 2016. There must have been many erotic authors with book titles that included the word "cocky" before that, and if that's so her rights should be pretty flimsy.

Click to expand...

Which is the argument being used by the guy (another romance writer) who has lodged the appeal with the Trademarks Office, citing at least a dozen publications in the same marketplace in the years before she lodged her trademark. Her trademark lawyer must have been a rank amateur not to have done that basic check first. "Ah, sorry honey, someone's beaten you to it, publishing wise."

She's a fool, taking advice from a bigger one. Given the groundswell, she's got her fifteen minutes of infamy. They'll make a movie next, or start a religion.

Bramblethorn said:

As per my previous post, it's not just about the style - she really is claiming ownership of "cocky", in any typeface, in connection to a series of romance books.

Similar crap happens all the time in patent law; searching "patent trolling" will find plenty of info about it. Basically, you patent something that other people are already using but which hasn't been formally registered, and then you gouge them for infringing on your patent; often people decide it's easier to pay up than to fight.

It's a major problem, and it's alarming to see it coming up in trademarks too; I certainly hope RWA are able to stomp on it hard enough to discourage anybody else from trying it on.

Click to expand...

Ha. This Hopkins is starting to remind me of someone who was here long ago and possibly still lurking.

I’ve not much to add except to say that Faleena Hopkins has behaved appallingly and, however she wishes to dress it up, seems to have been motivated by nothing other than a desire for money by eliminating “lesser” authors from competing with her (she specifically targeted indie writers rather than anyone with a publisher) but as has already been noted, she clearly felt empowered by Amazon’s notoriously unfair system.

She’s a bully but she wouldn’t have been able to bully if the people she was targeting had felt safe in the knowledge that Amazon would protect them and not immediately acquiesce to her legally dubious claim.

Fortunately the involvement of the RWA and the Writers’ Guild, as well as actual legal professionals taking a case forward to the TTAB has caused Amazon to pause (and reinstate any books they took down) but it is still a system many writers find hard to trust.

Of course the Twitterati were largely too busy making up clever hashtags, spamming Amazon with hastily-written “Cocky” short stories and chortling gleefully at all the retaliatory one-star reviews Faleena Hopkins was getting to consider how someone like Hopkins was able to feel she could get away bullying other indie writers in the first place...

electricblue66 said:

Which is the argument being used by the guy (another romance writer) who has lodged the appeal with the Trademarks Office, citing at least a dozen publications in the same marketplace in the years before she lodged her trademark. Her trademark lawyer must have been a rank amateur not to have done that basic check first. "Ah, sorry honey, someone's beaten you to it, publishing wise."

Click to expand...

An IP lawyer certainly can do that kind of search, but they'll charge for it. It may be she chose to save money by doing her own search, and half-assed it.

Or it might be that they did a search, warned her that it might not hold up, and she ignored their advice. From what I've seen of her, she might not be overly endowed with common sense.

Bramblethorn said:

An IP lawyer certainly can do that kind of search, but they'll charge for it. It may be she chose to save money by doing her own search, and half-assed it.

Or it might be that they did a search, warned her that it might not hold up, and she ignored their advice. From what I've seen of her, she might not be overly endowed with common sense.

Click to expand...

Are people really that stupid?

Wait, what am I saying? Of course they are!

Something this debacle has taught me-not here, but what's going in the pay writing community is an affirmation of the fact people are idiots.

When you start selling you are now a business and a brand. You have to take it seriously to have any type of success, especially sustained, and you have to be professional-yes even publishing porn you have to be a professional.

All I see on social media now is personal attacks against this woman from 'authors' threats, abuse, and of course the litany of they're all going to post books with cocky in it to get even with her. Contesting the decision? Asking platforms where they stand on it? Being careful and not using a word they had no desire to use anyway until this runs its course and is over turned? Those are boring adult things to do.

They're all setting themselves up for trouble with amazon and perhaps other sites. Amazon is going to get real sick of this real quick and they are amazon, they will block with impunity and what are you going to do about it.

These people should know that. They should also know that other people are looking at them slinging insults and acting like children. Way to sell books and be taken seriously.

Having said all that, I'll apologize for posting about the potential disaster in the paid market and wasting my breath in speaking about professionalism, responsibility, damaging your own brand, risking your own books due to mass banning, and making yourself look like a bullying sack of shit on the internet where it will live forever under the name you're trying to sell books under.

At times I forget where I am so I'll leave you all to talk about the really important things. Like sweeps and red H's. This isn't the platform to talk about anything unrelated to what anonymous is up to now, what story should I write that will get the most votes and discussing why underage sex can't be written here.