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19 pointskarjaluoto22 comments

I'd just like to quickly make note of something.

I'm a big fan and regular reader here, and as a result, I'm very careful about what I post on HN. Lately, though, I've posted a few times with links to this video channel.

Each time I do so, I feel a twinge of hesitation. I don't want to pollute the site, but, at the same time, I think there are stories here that might be helpful to the HN community.

If any of you feel that the content isn't appropriate (or that I'm linking to it too frequently), please let me know. I certainly don't want to overextend my welcome here!

Happy Saturday!

I really thought the topic was okay and fine but personally it was impossible to watch the spliced upped video being shown so I just switched to another tab and listened.

I'm still working on sorting out how these are edited. Most are linear and shot in one take with no editing. In order to get longer stories into a tighter time frame, though, I've been playing with compressing the gaps.

So far I'm unsure of how to approach this. I've been casually asking friends on Twitter and Facebook to view and comment on their thoughts. Most seem split right down the middle, with half preferring them without edits, and the other half liking the ones with.

But, this is very much the way we've urged others to approach such things. Put something out, test it, augment, refine, repeat. (Perhaps it's "agile" storytelling.) With each one I think I'm figuring some things out. Hopefully in videos to come they feel more natural.

Thanks for giving it a listen!

Perhaps you could post an unedited version and a version where you compress the gaps?

That's not a bad idea, but then I'd have to spend even more time on these videos, and my wife would really hate that. (I'm home far too little these days as it stands.)

"I'm home far too little these days as it stands."

Well, the solution there is to be sure to have a complete development setup at home as well.

Who could possibly complain then?

Ever tried to edit video with a 1 year old and 3 year old at foot? ;-)

How about a middle ground: compress the gaps, but not remove them completely: leave some gap, as a resting point.

I think a better title for this is: "What to do when a larger company infringes your trademark", since it was more about having a clever response to the name similarity than being featured on techcrunch per se.

I had contemplated that as well, but in other instances I don't think it would have played out the same way. (If the same thing were repeated, it might not work--this one just timed out nicely.) So, for many in a trademark dispute, lawyers may still be the way to go.

My reason for referencing TechCrunch (specifically here) is that we tried doggedly to get on it with one of our startups. It proved to be very difficult to do, regardless of who we approached or how. We finally did get on for that project, but it took an awful lot of prodding and wrangling.

This one, however, was done in a pretty casual way, and I just tossed Michael an email (on what was probably a rather slow day). It did strike me as notable that no matter what I said regarding the startup, none of it was as easy to get his attention with as this was.

And I suppose that's the whole point. People like stories, not feature lists or pitches.

These guys really didn't have a legal case against Discovery? Sure, Discovery has a lot of lawyers. But they also have a lot of money. Where's 'grellas when you need him?

Our trademark is a Canadian one, not an American one. We could have opted to get one in the US when we first registered, but cash was limited, so it wasn't really an option. Plus, trademarks are like country domains--getting one everywhere just becomes impractical (unless you're MS).

The second aspect of the challenge was that they weren't in a directly competing area. We build websites and create little startup projects; we make no television content. As such, we would have had a pretty weak case on our hands.

And besides, this was much more fun. ;-)

BTW: Who's 'grellas?

Bay area tech lawyer; one of the people on HN who I read via RSS on their SearchYC comments; invariably awesome.

I am sorry about what happened to you guys. We're a small-ish firm too and I can only imagine how pissed I'd be if our name got Smashlabbed.

Thanks for that--I appreciate it!

We were pretty "choked" about the situation initially. Honestly, though, it all worked out pretty well, and the whole "smash lab sucks" thing proved to be a rather interesting experiment.

And in the meanwhile, we receive some pretty interesting mail and phone calls. (Even a letter from an inmate who had an "idea" for the show.)

karjaluoto already sorta mentioned it in a comment on here, but a key aspect of this is that usually (but not always!) trademarks only cover names for a certain type of product or within a certain area of industry - the main goal of trademarks is to prevent consumer confusion. (For example, for many years in the UK there used to be both a lemon juice and a kitchen cleaner called Jif. The kitchen cleaner only became Cif to match the European brand name.)

If you created a fabric conditioner called "Microsoft" with a radically unique logo, then Microsoft probably wouldn't have a good trademark case, but they could cause one hell of a fuss and most likely bankrupt the defendant from legal costs alone. This guy and his company almost certainly couldn't do that to Discovery and since they're not using the trademark in the same line of business, the chances of them winning and getting any costs back would be low.

Precisely.

In fact, on the day of the video, we had started with the discussion, "do we change the name of our company?" This, however, turned out to be a much more enjoyable option.

It's a little like the "Michael Bolton" bit in the movie Office Space. Although the singer (in this fictional setting) knew little of the inconvenience caused to the fellow who he shared a name with, it became a nuisance nevertheless.

That was the spot we were in. We didn't feel that Discovery had done anything deliberate here. They likely just came up with a name (or the producers of the program did) and used it. They may have seen that someone had the URL and was operating with it, but didn't think much more of it.

In a way, I'm quite happy that the program is so bad. (Well, from what I hear at least--I've only watched a brief snippet.) Being so poorly received means that the program will likely not be renewed. Sure, it will live on in syndication for another few years, but we'll likely outlive it.

If we would have been called Mythbusters... we would have been completely screwed. ;-)

BTW, assuming you're the guy from the video.. good job. It reminded me of Ze Frank a bit (a good thing) :-)

Thanks--glad you liked it! I worry about the Ze Frank feel. He's great (and I do appreciate the compliment), but I really don't want to rip him off.

Maybe Discovery chose the name SmashLab in order to (subconsciously?) piggy back on the popularity of their other show, CashCab. I mean, they rhyme.

Could be. It sure will make the next round of programs tricky, though, won't it?

- TrashFlab - BrashGrab - GashBlab

Oh... it's going to be ugly. ;-)

Example of a small error on YouTube's part: "more info" and "less info" shows exactly the same info text.

That is something they might want to detect.

or you can just pay for it... http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/an-apology-to-our-reade...

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