
Instagram insists littergram app is renamed - rmason
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-36148093
======
kagamine
Lucas should have his lawyers send a telegram to Instagram's lawyers
explaining where the _gram_ part of the name comes from, and ask them to
change their name.

The idea that large companies can own a word, that they themselves have
appropriated, is at least egotistical, at worst unethical (imo).

~~~
drb311
Here's how the BBC describes the product:

"Littergram invites people to share pictures of rubbish."

It's pretty clear that -gram here is used to signal that this is a picture
sharing app.

If Instagram didn't exist it's unlikely Lucas would have called his app
Littergram.

~~~
kagamine
> "Littergram invites people to share pictures of rubbish."

I think they put the wrong app name in there. Given that sentence, they are
identical apps.

~~~
chris_wot
LOL!

------
chrischen
Instagram also insisted we change our name from Instapainting.com to something
else or remove all Instagram references (we used filestack.com which includes
Instagram as an upload option).

When I complied and removed the Instagram reference they then decided to
extend it to all Facebook references (like button, Facebook upload, etc) on
the grounds that people might get the insta prefix confused with Facebook
since it owns Instagram.

~~~
charlesdm
I have built apps that integrate closely with known popular video streaming
services (hint, hint), and I've dealt with both their legal departments.

1\. Most people are clueless about the law / their rights. Companies will try
and bully you into taking your site down, without any legal basis.

2\. Read up on nominative fair use of a trademark. You are allowed to make use
of a competitors trademark, even for commercial purposes.

3\. You probably didn't have to make any of those changes. While I'm not a
lawyer, both legal departments backed off after sending them a well-argued
reply to their bullshit (sorry, that's the only way to describe it) arguments.
I do work with an excellent IP law firm, but I didn't even have to contact
them to handle this.

4\. I highly doubt a tech company would sue you in a meritless case. Even a
simple case will cost them $30-50k. The in house lawyer contacting you is
often a paper pusher that has to scout the internet for "possible
infringements" of the mark. They'll need to get approval to sue you, and risk
vs. reward will be considered. If you're based outside of the US, even better.
They'll usually have to sue you in your local jurisdiction.

5\. Obviously, be prepared to fight if they do come after you.

~~~
arethuza
My understanding is that a small percentage of legal disputes involving
lawyers result in a court action actually being raised and only a small
percentage of court actions actually run - most of these settle "at the door
of the court".

------
jaaames
They need to take a page out of this guys book.

[http://www.slutsofinstagram.com](http://www.slutsofinstagram.com)

Link is SFW, about a magical duck named Slutsof and his tales in the land of
Stagram.

~~~
chris_wot
If he wanted a holiday he should visit
[http://gotahoe.com](http://gotahoe.com)

------
plcancel
When I clicked on the link, I thought the article was going to be about a
dispute about an app highlighting all of the digital junk on
Instagram/Facebook feeds.

It occurs to me that my brain now readily connects these brands to trash.
There was a time when that wasn't the case.

~~~
kagamine
Which may be what this is actually about; having the words 'litter' and 'gram'
together. Speculating that 'keep-britain-tidygram' might not have attracted
attention.

------
SixSigma
They should send a bunch of anagram digram via telegram, cabelgram or
sonogram, possibly including an angiogram or mammogram to tell that what tits
they are being.

Perhaps they could contact Polygram and use paper with a monogram of a
decagram, hexagram, octagram, parallelogram, trigram, or pentagram.

If we prapared a cartogram or histogram it could serve as a diagram of their
foolishness.

It would certainly serve as an epigram to this whole program and then even an
engram will not find a memory of it.

~~~
venomsnake
Calling lawyer and C levels executives tits is very offensive for the mammary
glands and their bearers. Tits are awesome. They nurture life, they look
pretty and they are instant antidepressant for a sizable chunk of males (and a
lot of women in my recent environments, but that is another story). And they
are also forbidden from Instagram - so I guess people working there have no
idea how they look like.

~~~
DiabloD3
Its also offensive to a certain type of bird.

~~~
chris_wot
Not to mention feathered animals!

------
ianpurton
Instagram sounds like an appropriation of Telegram (invented 200 years ago?).
So proof of prior art in my opinion.

If they plan to do this in a UK court then he can represent himself pretty
cheaply. Think of all the publicity.

I'm not a lawyer but I've been watching Suits (3 Seasons), I could definitely
win this for the guy.

~~~
drb311
I've been listening to a lot of Rumpole on Radio Four Extra.

Let me know how I can help.

~~~
ianpurton
Your credentials blow mine out of the water. I'm promoting you to head council
for the defence.

~~~
drb311
Any Ally Mcbeal fans here who can advise us on American law?

------
rolfvandekrol
Am I the only one here who thinks Instagram has a point here? This guy named
his photo sharing app littergram which clearly is a reference to Instagram.
There might actually be people in the target audience of littergram or
Instagram who think these apps are related. If Instagram is evil for doing
something about this, I really have no idea what constitutes as good trademark
protection.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So if I advertise my kissogram service using that word then people will think
it's from Instagram?

How about my hydraulics company BigRam?

Suppose you think Apple are infringing Facebook by using the term face-time?

Good TM protection is stopping people from using your trademark in a way that
confuses the origin of goods/services of theirs as being yours.

Littergram if surely a reference to sending a message (-gram) about litter.

Similarly, FWIW, Instagram aren't ripping off Instapaper either in my opinion
but they're a lot closer to it than the Littergram service.

If Instagram wanted a more unique name they should have chosen one that wasn't
the combination of a well-known prefix and suffix.

~~~
kitd
I find the case a bit borderline, but I can see Instagram's point. It's not
_just_ the -gram ending context-free.

Unlike kissograms, or even the Telegram app, Littergram is specifically about
photo sharing, which risks confusing people into believing they and Instagram
are related.

TBH I think the guy has done a good job of getting publicity. He should use
this opportunity to get some goodwill, and use the publcity to change the name
to something close enough but not infringing.

I'll offer LitterBot ;)

~~~
wycx
Litter book?

~~~
kagamine
FaceTrash - because he's trying to get people to face up to trash.

------
dandare
As somebody pointed out, Telegram want's Instagram to change their name :)

Actually, this may be one of the best things that could happen to LitterGram
from the marketing point of view, I too had tweeted to FB and Instagram asking
them not to be so narrow minded.

~~~
Intermernet
We could invent a new app where budgies could vocally send selfies to each
other and call it tweetfacegram...

------
hashkb
Instacart has photos... Instapaper has social features... FB is instadumb.

~~~
chris_wot
Instapaper was on the scene well before InstaGram...

------
EugeneOZ
Looks like Facebook wants to be next "evil corporation" in developers minds.
Microsoft already knows how difficult is to wash out this reputation.

~~~
chris_wot
That was established years ago when they got rid of all Facebook apps. At that
point, Favebook was actually pretty cool - in fact it was an extensible
platform and you could do cool things.

Now it's a pure advertising machine. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, not
much would be lost.

------
samdung
Telegram and Instacart are next.

~~~
taneq
Wow, I can't believe those Telegram people thought they could get away with
making up a name out of 'Telephone' and 'Instagram'.

~~~
pferde
I'm more appalled at Alexander Graham Bell for his blatant ripoff of Apple's
"iPhone" trade mark.

------
ungzd
All *book words should be banned because of Facebook trademark.

~~~
coldcode
As well as face*. Clearly Mark owns all marks.

------
tonylemesmer
Is Instagram's problem that they think people might accidentally think
Littergram is Instagram?

~~~
chris_wot
That's not what I meant when I called your photos rubbish!

------
lxw
_be_ renamed. Really a careless error for BBC.

~~~
blowski
So "Insists it be renamed" vs "insists it is renamed".

IMHO the first option sounds formal and archaic. The second sounds more in
tune with contemporary English.

That said "insists they rename it" would get rid of the passive and avoid the
problem entirely.

~~~
livatlantis
Yeah that was the first thing I noticed as well. I'm somewhat surprised (a
little sad, even) that the BBC chose not to write it in the subjunctive mood,
which is precisely what is required here.

I thought when I read the headline that Instagram was insisting (that is,
reiterating) that Littergram was already renamed.

~~~
dempseye
The subjunctive is ingrained in my internal English grammar model, as is the
who-whom distinction. I've been thinking about dropping them, though. They
have started to sound a bit elitist.

~~~
livatlantis
Well, you can always adapt your speech to your audience. But I don't see why
it should be seen as elitist.

------
dreamdu5t
I can't believe people are defending Instagram here... They haven't got a case
but are bullying with their lawyers as all big companies do. How pathetic!
Queue the armchair lawyers saying Instagram has to because trademarks require
enforcement and other nonsense.

------
poooogles
Previous 'discussion'
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11587265).

Not sure how the dupe detection works here, but I submitted the same exact
link yesterday.

~~~
parenthephobia
I believe HN's algorithm discounts links which didn't attract much attention
last time, so as to allow for interesting links that happened to be overlooked
to get a second chance.

------
roddux
Any clues as to what Littergram's legal position would be if they were to
completely ignore Facebook?

Would Facebook really bother with blackmailing ( _court fees are expensive_ )
a small nonprofit into changing it's name?

~~~
chris_wot
They have to I'm afraid. Trademarks can only be made on words that are not
considered generic. If the trademark does end up being used by the general
public as a common or class name for a particular product, then you lose the
exclusive right to the mark. You therefore _have_ to defend it, even when
you'd really rather not.

------
personjerry
Who is going to mistake "Instagram" with "Littergram"?

And what about my valentine's day Candygrams from 10, 20 years ago? Should we
rename those too?

This seems a bit ridiculous.

~~~
chris_wot
Since when do candygrams take photos?

------
zoidb
If they think they will win this fight they should talk to the old Lindows
linux distro/company..

------
cmdrfred
My favorite childhood cereal Golden Grahams should demand Instagram change
their name.

------
kamilszybalski
Latergramme just changed their name to later.com....

------
tdkl
Fuck Facebook.

