[HN Gopher] ARM wrestles assembly language guru's domains away, ...
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ARM wrestles assembly language guru's domains away, citing
trademark issues
Author : torstenvl
Score : 169 points
Date : 2023-09-01 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| wilsonjholmes wrote:
| What a fantastic title (:
| tambourine_man wrote:
| "...she shared on Xitter..."
|
| OMG, it took me a second to figure it out, but this is the
| perfect new name for the service. Just brilliant and hilarious.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| It rhymes with pockmarks on teenagers.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| If the Chinese name Xi is pronounced like English "she", does
| Xitter get pronounced "shitter" ?
| talideon wrote:
| Portuguese too!
| tambourine_man wrote:
| That's how I read in my mind.
| FrankoDelMar wrote:
| Relevant SouthPark reference
|
| https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/m31v1z/south-park-
| it-s-...
| babypuncher wrote:
| "Tweets" are now called "Xcretions".
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| you can just call them Xits
|
| musk brought this on himself with the smiling poop emoji
| responses to press requests, what are we supposed to think?
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| I vote that every time we refer to ARM in future that we write
| LEG instead.
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| To make sure nobody missed this. From the article:
|
| > Yes, there is a need for trademark holders, like Arm, to assert
| their ownership and rights and protect their marks.
|
| Sad in this case but absolutely true.
| User23 wrote:
| This is probably a non-infringing use, but who wants to pay
| lawyers for a multi-year lawsuit with a billion dollar company
| over a fan-site?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Thing about corporate lawyers is. They'll never make a
| judgement call where they stick their neck out. And unless
| someone important is threatening them they're utterly lazy
| and unaccountable.
| garba_dlm wrote:
| the open and freely available documentation of anything is being
| taken down.
|
| it is expected that we pay to know things, this is what is
| ultimately being reasserted.
|
| this comes with the same techniques that all piracy, DRM, IPTV
| takedowns, and dynamic dns seizures and traffic blocking...
| because it's all the same on the computer level.
|
| the erosion of our purported freedoms is but collateral; maybe we
| should forget what the internet could have been and embrace the
| pay-to-click world that is incoming.
|
| it's strange that we will be able to pay with likes 'reddit karma
| points' and Retweets/boosts that we receive.
| undersuit wrote:
| This is ridiculous. The domain was strengthening the ARM
| trademark, it wasn't infringing. The domain was made by
| collaboration. Now with the leg-assembly.com the author can
| branch out and focus on other less litigious microarchitectures
| if they want.
|
| Who gave SoftBank a gun that fires into their foot?
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| > This is ridiculous. The domain was strengthening the ARM
| trademark, it wasn't infringing.
|
| This is like a small company or group asking for something from
| a company cause it will be "free advertising". No it's not and
| most companies won't do that.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Seems like it's a gun that fires into their LEG.
| [deleted]
| pavlov wrote:
| _> "Who gave SoftBank a gun that fires into their foot?"_
|
| They probably paid a billion dollars to the guy who invented
| ShootMyFoot.com, and another billion for him to walk away after
| everything collapsed. And now that this product is a strategic
| core part of their portfolio, the CEO insists that foot-
| shooting be part of every transaction because he is a visionary
| who thinks in 100-year cycles.
| diddothat wrote:
| Haha that's bang on and most likely so true
| nottorp wrote:
| So all books and SO questions about anything related to the leg
| architecture also need a trademark license from the owners of
| leg? I mean, they have to protect their trademark.
|
| Do I need to get their permission to mention I have a Mulberry ph
| on my desk?
| barryrandall wrote:
| WEI says yes.
| wmf wrote:
| Fair use of trademarks is pretty nitpicky. Most policies say
| that the trademark can't be the first word, so for example "ARM
| Reversing" is not allowed but "Reversing ARM code" would be
| allowed.
| solomatov wrote:
| Policies aren't always binding. There're companies which
| include a point about complying with the trademark policies
| in their terms of use, there're some which just located on
| their site under the name guidance.
|
| P.S. I am not a lawyer.
| snvzz wrote:
| Remember: ARM is a liability at all levels.
|
| It is time to embrace RISC-V.
| nvy wrote:
| Semiconductors being what they are, I don't see how a
| grassroots movement can drive adoption of something that
| essentially nobody's making.
|
| Are there credible RISC-V based replacements for the Raspberry
| Pi, the STM32 blue/black pill, and the Cortex chips in phones?
|
| Honest question, because I'd love to dabble in RISC-V but last
| time I checked the options were poorly-supported, expensive,
| and sparse.
| snvzz wrote:
| >but last time I checked the options were poorly-supported,
| expensive, and sparse.
|
| I recommend checking again, as growth has been exponential.
|
| >Are there credible RISC-V based replacements for the
| Raspberry Pi, the STM32 blue/black pill, and the Cortex chips
| in phones?
|
| I'd recommend a look at the market of publicly available
| cores[0], some lists of chips[1] and boards[2][3], and about
| MCUs specifically[4].
|
| The one specific recommendation I'll make is to get
| VisionFive 2[5], the first mass-production RISC-V SBC from
| StarFive, with strong standards compliance and effort to
| upstream driver support[6].
|
| 0. https://riscv.org/exchange/?_sft_exchange_category=core,co
| re...
|
| 1. https://muxup.com/2023q1/commercially-available-risc-v-
| silic...
|
| 2. http://krimsky.net/articles/riscvsbc.html
|
| 3. https://hackerboards.com/?cpu_architecture=RV64
|
| 4. https://codeberg.org/20-100/Awesome_RISC-V/raw/branch/mast
| er...
|
| 5. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starfive/visionfive-2
|
| 6. https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan
| yieldcrv wrote:
| treat your supporters as equals
| [deleted]
| type0 wrote:
| I just hope they won't go after Armbian and similar cases
| jake_morrison wrote:
| The fundamental problem is that domain name trademark enforcement
| is handled by the legal department when it should be handled by
| marketing, business development, and/or DevRel.
|
| While companies can enforce their trademarks, it's generally
| better to allow people who are using domains in a reasonable way
| to continue. Taking the domain away and then doing nothing with
| it doesn't benefit anyone.
|
| Even in parasitical scenarios, allowing squatters to get
| affiliate revenue by redirecting traffic to the company is better
| than fooling around with the legal process.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| Companies have to be seen to be enforcing their trademarks, or
| they risk losing them. (AIUI, IANAL)
|
| Although again if it were handled by marketing, might they just
| agree to licence the trademark to this person for this specific
| purpose for a nominal sum?
| jpgvm wrote:
| Or just adding a notice to the site that `Arm is a registered
| trademark of Arm corporation` or similar bullshit which gets
| exactly the same job done.
| [deleted]
| deelowe wrote:
| Not quite. They simply must be seen as actively using the
| trademark. Simply sending the domain owner a notice with
| strict rules describing how to avoid trademark confusion
| would be enough to show ARM has not relinquished it's mark.
| There is no requirement that they must aggressively go after
| people like this.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| Maria Markstedter should register new domains that are suitable
| to give ARM a bad reputation such as replacing "arm" by "harm" in
| the faulty domains (I did not check whether these replacement
| domains have already been registered):
|
| * arm-reversing.com -> harm-reversing.com
|
| * arm-exploitation.com -> harm-exploitation.com
|
| * arm-basics.de -> harm-basics.de
|
| and add some text to these websites why the author chose these
| new names. Feel free to get more creative with the replacement
| domains. :-)
| dundarious wrote:
| She's one step ahead, and has already registered http://leg-
| assembly.com
| sp332 wrote:
| That's funny, but it's not absolutely safe. E.g. "South Butt"
| getting sued for trading on the North Face trademark.
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna36334733
| ajdude wrote:
| Reminds me of what nissan.com used to do:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170120210929/http://www.nissan...
| greysun wrote:
| This seems to be a bit of a non-story, these kind of cease-and-
| desist letters (when it comes to trademarks) are usually
| triggered by automatic systems that monitor trademark usage
| across the web.
|
| While Azeria is definitely a well respected member of the
| community, there was a lack of due diligence on her part,
| specially when she has claimed on her "arm-assembly.com" website
| "All Rights Reserved", which she can't clearly claim from the
| domain.
|
| It's not nice to receive a cease-and-desist letter but we need to
| put things in perspective and put the emotional part aside before
| throwing drama on Twitter.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| I highly doubt it was the case,and follow-ups should have
| cleared a few things and not a straight uncompensated handover,
| especially to someone who keynoted your conferences. In light
| of IPO, most likely the corporation wanted to kill any lose
| ends and it results in a PR disaster which eventually won't
| have any impacts. So for arm, it's a win win.
|
| Funny things, they registered a riscv domain in the past to bad
| mouth RISC.
| greysun wrote:
| The first letter she got, which she published on Twitter,
| explains very clearly what is happening with the case.
|
| Automatic system or not, the end result would have been the
| same. A trademark comes with legal implications.
| goku12 wrote:
| > A trademark comes with legal implications.
|
| Of course, that applies to Arm too, right?
| https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/
| pgeorgi wrote:
| > A trademark comes with legal implications.
|
| Those would have been satisfied by a friendly "You know, we
| need to keep track of uses of our trademark and see that
| they're in line. You keynoted our conferences, your sites
| are valuable for our ecosystem. How about you put a
| trademark notice somewhere and we call it a day?"
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Funny things, they registered a riscv domain in the past to
| bad mouth RISC._
|
| Who are you referring to here? It's sorta confusing.
| imtringued wrote:
| ARM
| goku12 wrote:
| This is from 2018:
| https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/
| sitkack wrote:
| ARM excluded their FUD site from the wayback machine,
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/riscv-
| basics.com boooooo!
|
| But someone made this, https://www.arm-basics.com/ nice
| work!
| [deleted]
| sitkack wrote:
| Everyone including ARM already has an architectural license
| for RISC-V. Bad mouth away!
| fencepost wrote:
| _someone who keynoted your conferences._
|
| What are the chances that this whole mess gets regular
| mention in future conference appearances.....
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| > This seems to be a bit of a non-story, these kind of cease-
| and-desist letters (when it comes to trademarks) are usually
| triggered by automatic systems that monitor trademark usage
| across the web.
|
| But you're still morally responsible when you set up an
| automated system to do an awful thing - if I set up an
| automated gun to shoot everybody who comes through the door
| because they might be criminals, it's the same as if I
| indiscriminately shot them with my own hand.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's not an awful thing. They have no easy way to assess
| whether a given domain is a cool project run by a cool person
| or a malware sheltering scam site. Histrionic comparisons
| don't alter the fact that it would have been smarter to
| respond to the C&D letter directly.
| mrighele wrote:
| "I wrote my thesis about Arm security features and exploit
| mitigations for Arm's internal use, [have] given internal
| presentations, keynoted their conference, advocated for
| them, visited them at their HQ in Cambridge - all without
| compensation because I wanted this to be a mutually
| beneficial relationship instead of a gig." They already
| knew she was a cool person
| jjk166 wrote:
| > They have no easy way to assess whether a given domain is
| a cool project run by a cool person or a malware sheltering
| scam site
|
| There most certainly is an easy way: have a human check the
| website. What you meant is there is no easy way that costs
| little to no money.
|
| Unwillingness to pay for an adequate solution is not a
| legitimate excuse for negligence. If you can't afford to do
| things right, you can't afford to do them at all.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The trademark attorneys aren't well qualified to do that,
| which is why it would have been smarter to respond to
| them directly and refer them to someone at ARM itself.
|
| _Unwillingness to pay for an adequate solution is not a
| legitimate excuse for negligence. If you can 't afford to
| do things right, you can't afford to do them at all._
|
| This is how you want things to be, not how they are.
| Corporations are focused on maximizing profits and
| lowering risk and cost.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > This is how you want things to be, not how they are.
|
| Calling it negligence is a judgement, not a wish.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Where she went wrong was in contacting ARM to try to get it
| resolved. The smart thing to do would have been to politely
| reply to the C&D and refer the lawyers to her contacts at ARM,
| CCing it to the people she worked with there.
|
| _" I wrote my thesis about Arm security features and exploit
| mitigations for Arm's internal use, [have] given internal
| presentations, keynoted their conference, advocated for them,
| visited them at their HQ in Cambridge - all without
| compensation because I wanted this to be a mutually beneficial
| relationship instead of a gig."_
|
| When are engineers going to learn that corporate entities have
| no more capacity for friendship than a scorpion? They are run
| as and attract people interested in the mindless accumulation
| of more capital. You can have warm personal relationship with
| individual people at a company, but unless they are the top
| executives or largest shareholders those warm personal
| relationships don't mean anything compared to a spreadsheet.
| The corporate officers are not your pals.
|
| People are downvoting the parent comment here, but it's
| correct. If you're going to name your domain after a commercial
| product in some way and you are all buddy-buddy with the people
| that make the product, _get it in writing_ instead of relying
| on good vibes.
| sitkack wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
| mort96 wrote:
| "It was an automated system" isn't a defense unless the entity
| which performed the automated action immediately reverses
| course when made aware. So far it seems like ARM/SoftBank is on
| board with this action, automated or not.
|
| Isn't "all rights reserved" a copyright thing, not a trademark
| thing? I don't think I've seen anyone interpret "all rights
| reserved" to mean "I own the rights to all trademarks
| mentioned".
| polalavik wrote:
| Just because there are _rules_ doesn't mean they make sense in
| context. This doesn't serve ARMs best interest nor Azeria. It's
| a lose lose.
|
| Maybe it was automatically triggered, but I guess the point is
| a lot of things in the world are some shade of grey and
| employing machines to make a binary decision without any review
| process doesn't serve anybody's best interest. Perhaps throwing
| "drama on Twitter" is the only way to get a real human in the
| loop of the automated insanity we've trapped ourselves in.
| greysun wrote:
| I don't think Arm's boss is personally offended by any of
| this but trademark laws require companies to protect their
| own trademark, otherwise they might simply lose the rights to
| own it.
|
| It is explained in the article:
|
| "At the same time, we have a duty to protect the Arm brand,
| which has been built over more than 30 years. Like all
| companies with registered trademarks, Arm is legally
| obligated to ensure those trademarks are protected and used
| appropriately. We recognize that this activity is sometimes
| met with frustration and are actively working to find a
| solution that works for all parties involved."
|
| It's not about 'rules', it is a legal requirement.
| spookie wrote:
| Understandable, it's unfortunate
| lesserknowndan wrote:
| This is wrong. Companies only need to "protect" trademarks
| by going after companies that offer similar products using
| that trademarked name. Unless a company gets a service
| mark, trademarks also only apply in certain categories.
|
| This was massive overreach by ARM. And frankly it was
| really inappropriate of the hosting provider to interfere
| with the websites.
| greysun wrote:
| "Effective Trademark Enforcement Without Litigation
|
| As the trademark owner, it is your legal duty to police
| the marketplace for infringement on your trademark."
|
| https://www.gerbenlaw.com/university/trademark-
| protection-pu...
| shkkmo wrote:
| Those websites were not selling chips or chip designs.
| Those websites used the trademark to refer the same
| product and do not create any potential for confusion.
|
| Please show me where there is a "legal duty" to go after
| fair use and be callous and lazy towards someone who is
| actively working to make your product better.
|
| Edit: Even if ARM had been completely unwilling to allow
| the fair use here, they could still have reached out
| directly since there is already a close relationship,
| rather than to going to the hosting provider and getting
| everything, even unrelated stuff, yanked down.
|
| I sure hope this is the end of the Pro Bono work the
| author does for them.
| [deleted]
| talideon wrote:
| This isn't one of those cases. This isn't a Xerox,
| Hoover, or even Google situation. Simple reference of a
| trademark is allowed. What holders need to guard against
| is dilution and generification within the applicable
| domain.
| clankyclanker wrote:
| Nowhere does acknowledging and permitting the use require
| a C&D. A simple "we see you and this is fine" letter
| would've also met the policing requirement.
|
| The C&D is only required when you want to shut folks up
| and get the lawyers their bonuses.
| shkkmo wrote:
| That's the assertion ARM made.
|
| Yet it seems to me that is is pretty unclear that this is
| an open and shut case of trademark infringement. This
| appears to an example of fair-use to me as there is nothing
| her that would indicate any potential for confusion to the
| market or harm to the brand.
|
| Part of problem here is that the incentives support over
| enforcement, there is little to no legal consequence when
| companies go after fair use and a lack on enforcement does
| carry risks of eventually losing the trademark.
|
| However, that doesn't justify ARM's actions here. There are
| plenty of ways that ARM could have approached this that
| would have protected their trademark without the loss of
| goodwill from someone they have a valuable relationship
| with.
|
| Taking this approach is indicative of laziness and
| indiffence.
| toast0 wrote:
| For a case like this, it's easy: give this site a license
| (or sell it one for $1), have them put trademark notices,
| and call it a day.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| This feels like it's come down to "we own the trademark and no
| one can ever _refer_ to the thing without our permission ".
|
| It really makes me curious what if any limits there are to the
| power of trademark holders.
| nickt wrote:
| Land Rover did this years ago against some of their biggest fans
| and supporters- they received nasty letters from legal just
| because they used "rover" in their domain names.
|
| This is when the company jumped the shark, there used to be a
| bunch of petrol-head engineers who'd worked their way up to
| executive level who were passionate about the brand and product.
| They retired or were replaced by generic executives doing generic
| big company things which unfortunately you see across many
| industries these days...
| pseudotrash wrote:
| Landrover jumped the shark even harder when the turned their
| Defender into a PS100K+ abomination of a vehicle that is
| garbage in real off-road condition.
|
| Now it's just another SUV for the same class of people that
| buys Range Rovers or BMW's.
| hedgehog wrote:
| To the people saying this is reasonable: Arm has a lot of options
| on how to defend the trademark that are not as wildly dickish as
| this, for example they could license the trademark to Azeria for
| this use, they could come up with a mutual process to transition
| her over to non-infringing branding in a way that was less
| disruptive to her work (and the benefit they get from it), or
| they could at least coordinate the whole mess with her internal
| contact to put a nicer face on it. Why they chose to go full
| lawyer hostile is not clear, probably they either don't care or
| are not internally well-coordinated enough to do better.
| [deleted]
| MR4D wrote:
| If only "farm.com" were available....or "F-Arm.com". Yeah, I like
| that second one even better.
|
| Obviously if someone decides to be more explicit, then this could
| get pretty funny. The trolling level here goes to 11.
|
| ------
|
| EDIT: f**arm.com is available
| roryisok wrote:
| > ARM wrestles
|
| nice pun
| ctenb wrote:
| Arm wrestles... I see what you did there :)
| [deleted]
| spookie wrote:
| Remember, you should help those who respect you.
|
| Hope she employs her great mind helping other, more respectful
| architectures.
|
| (edit) After reading other comments, I do hope they do come to
| some compromise. It's understandable from arm to do this,
| unfortunately.
| andromaton wrote:
| This is extremely short sighted. License the name to her, talk to
| her.
| jonah wrote:
| Related question - if you own a domain and then afterwards,
| someone comes along and starts a company with that name (and
| presumably trademarks their company name) do they have recourse
| to seize your domain?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Somewhere between letting your trademark be overrun by
| unaffiliated trash sites and destroying the SEO of every fan site
| by forcing them to use keyword-weak domain names lies a happy
| medium.
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