Checked them out. Calling them metal is very generous.
Can’t you see, you’re not making Christianity better, you’re just making metal worse.
Being Christian in a field dominated by secular faux-Satanists is so metal that it wraps back around the other side and just becomes lame again.
Publicity stunt. The home schooled red state Skeeters who are this band’s fan base will flood GoFundMe with their beer money.
Conservatism. Grifting grifters grifting grifting grifters.
It’s a grift grifting grift for grifting grifting grifts.
Give send go, gofundme is for take populists gsg is pretty specifically conservative.
mogged? is that what mogged means? i thought it involved the butt.
Oddly enough it was originally a millennial slang term from the aughts
The fuck were we meaning back then?
It’s a shortened version of AMOG (alpha male of group) from pickup artist communities, which unfortunately I think has filtered through to the youths of today via shitbag redpill influencers.
The hell it does. It means to do a booty dance in a picture at someone who is oblivious in the picture well enough that you are awarded points
Yes and the definition of meme is a picture with text on it
It certainly can
To prove their point, included in the filing is an email from a person who spent $500 on top-tier tickets to a Demon Hunter concert in Albany, thinking they were purchasing admission to a KPop Demon Hunters event for their children, aged five and six.
I kind of get it. It’s not like the movie has nothing to do with music.
Imagine spending $500 on something and not, idk looking at the fucking promo picture. Also, Demon Hunter is objectively better than Huntr/x.
I still can’t get over the fact that this shit-tier band even tries to sell $500 tickets!
Also, Demon Hunter is objectively better than Hunter/x
_
Christian Metal band
I respect your opinion, but I doubt its accuracy.
Why sue? Just flip their desks and throw them out of the building. /s
I’m concerned that children may have been exposed to Christian “metal”. That is a traumatic experience that can ruin your enjoyment of metal, rock, and live concerts in general.
Demon hunter actually had some bangers back when I was in highschool
How does that work, though? It must be weird banging your head into a Bible.
Closest they ever get to reading it
i mean i’m not christian but project 86 and underoath are absolutely amazing and tooth and nail had some goddamn great acts.
And recent P86 got so damn heavy. I love it.
I love mewithoutYou. I’m glad they branched out (in multiple ways)
Black Sabbath is my favorite Christian metal band
Lamb of God is brilliant as well!
Isn’t Christian metal just lead paint?
Won’t someone please think of the white, Christian men?
The most persecuted of all.
Christian metal? For good reason too. Lame crap.
I’ll tell you what though, Jesus will grind Satan’s skull.
Based on what I know of trademark law they have a case. Also, they have sue to protect their trade mark they can loose it.
They have a bit of a case, but not really because “demon hunter” is a generic term that predates their band by hundreds of years (LOL).
Trademark is not copyright or patent. Copyright and patents exist to protect the rights of a creator. Trademarks are more about provenance. It protects brands, but also protects consumers of those brands by preventing confusion.
Trademarks are pretty specific. Dr Pepper’s trademark on sugary drinks isn’t infringed by a company selling black pepper because nobody will confuse the products.
Wal-Mart can sell sodas that are similar to popular drinks like Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper, but they call them something like “Mountain Lightning” and “Dr Thunder”. They’re clearly meant to be similar products, but they’re also clearly not the name-brand stuff. But Walmart can’t start selling a knockoff low-calorie soda and call it “Low-Cal Dr Pepper” because it may mislead customers into thinking it’s related to Dr Pepper.
And that’s essentially what’s being claimed here. The band has a trademark on Demon Hunters that specifically covers a band named Demon Hunters selling tickets for live music events. And while there’s going to be some understandable confusion given the popularity of the film, the band alleges that the concerts related to the film should be marketed differently. This is especially true when the band from the film already has a different established name.
The commercialization of Christianity this band takes part in upsets me, but they may also be in the right here. They don’t want their fans buying tickets to a K-Pop show instead of theirs, and K-Pop fans will also be pretty upset when they buy tickets and go to a show only to get preached at.
Surely, consumers will be confused as fuck when they try to purchase a demon hunter service and they end up with some weird metal band.
If anyone’s confusing the market it’s the band!
That’s exactly what trademark doesn’t cover. If it’s different industries with no overlap it’s fine.
I have a Delta scroll saw at the house, and I’ve flown to Atlanta on Delta. They’re different companies sharing a name, but that’s okay because their products don’t overlap.
A more interesting example is Apple. Apple Records and Apple Commputers got info a trademark kerfuffle in the 2000s when Apple Computers started selling music on iTunes.
The term “demon hunter” has been in use for hundreds of years as a generic term but how long was it in use as a something related to music before the metal band Demon Hunter started using it?
Cool, the word “Queen” is generic so I should be able to start a band named that, no problem.
Turns out that ‘generic term’ is contextual, and in fact many generic terms are trademark protected especially in the musical group area.
What doesn’t help your argument is that it seems Netflix ran the concerts under “kpop Demon Hunter” not “Demon Hunter”
Also it doesn’t help that there are 65 entries of bands with “Queen” in their name in the metal genre alone.
https://www.metal-archives.com/search?searchString=Queen&type=band_name
They actually have a decent case here.
They’ve been a band with a trademarked name for 25 years. Netflix used that same name as part if the movie title. The band can show measurable harm to their trademarked brand, by citing Google search results for Demon Hunter.
I can’t imagine Netflix would change the name of the movie, but paying the band for the damage to their trademark, and compensation for having to rebrand and trademark a new band name is a reasonable cost of sucess for Netflix.
Sort of reminds me of when Apple moved into music, and Apple (music publisher) started dragging out documents that said they couldn’t do that.
Money won that case, and will win this one. Netflix could just pay them to go away, but honestly this case in 2 days has probably got more people hearing about Demon Hunter (the band) than 25 years of touring ever did…
Watch the Legal Eagle video on John Oliver Vs. Buckee’s. There’s a huge uphill battle here for this band no one has ever heard of.
I did. Court would be a coin toss. They’ll settle.
yeah, the trademark wouldn’t extend to the movie, but it definitely could extend to concerts. they just need to adjust the name a little and make it clear which is which, which could legitimately involve both adjusting the names of their concerts in an amicable agreement. you’d think the kpop would be enough differentiation tho, but my wife educates the littles. i won’t say we’ve met some stupid parents, but we’ve met some exhausted parents.
Yeah this is weird, this seems specfically why these laws exist.
And to be fair, no matter what sum they have to pay, it’ll be pocket change for Netflix at most.
They’ve been a band with a trademarked name for 25 years.
They trademarked “Demon Hunters” in 2022…
Their case is shit, its frankly a miracle they were even able to trademark “Demon Hunters” because it’s so generic. I see this going nowhere.
my dude, Coke is generic. in the steel industry. there are hundreds if not thousands of coke companies. In the food industry? If there are more than one Coke company, they are subsidiaries of the Coca Cola Company.
This seems to be a bit mixed in reporting.
Seems like it depends on what the outlet wants to spin.
One article cited the trademark for recorded music and merchandise in 2022, but vaguely said there was a separate trademark for performance, but that was left unspecified. That article seemed to want to induce a narrative of opportunistic trademark, but even then that’s perhaps a bit of a stretch as they wouldn’t have known it would have gone down as a media sensation that soon, though it had been announced as a thing.
However, another article explained that the performance trademark was registered in 2014. That is pretty unambiguously way before Netflix would have even had it as a thought.
Their case is shit, its frankly a miracle they were even able to trademark “Demon Hunters” because it’s so generic. I see this going nowhere.
How many band names would not be considered generic independent of context? The Cure is trademarked, R.E.M. is trademarked, Queen is trademarked… Famously Apple computers ran up against Apple records trademark and it was deemed both ok for Apple Computer to continue without declaring it genericized, just that they were trademark in their respective markets. Until iTunes, then Apple had to change the arrangement.
its frankly a miracle they were even able to trademark “Demon Hunters” because it’s so generic
Far easier than you’d think. The patent office is understaffed and the rules for this kind of thing are fairly loose.
Yet Apple has Apple. Trademarks are about markets. You can make a purse called Apple but you cant make computer hardware or software called apple without at least a C&D from Apple. Demon Hunters is so less generic than Apple and they probably only have it in music and maybe visual arts because of music videos.
Ironically, Apple got the shit sued out of them for the name by the Beatles because it infringed on the name of their record label.
Yes, and it’s an excellent example that Apple the record label trademark was valid yet Apple the computer company could use it in a separate context, but had to change when they did iTunes.
Here it’s squarely in the same market. The cited example of customer confusion about a concert event works strongly in their favor.
Trademark law is all about how much the target market overlaps. Since they are a band and the movie is about a fictional band, they might have something
They got the trademark as soon as they started marketing their band. They may not have registered the trademark until 2022. Things like trademarks and copyright are implicit to the creator. Registering them just makes it easier for others to find your work and deter infringement and makes filing some paperwork, namely lawsuits, much easier.
Demon hunters is not generic. It doesn’t work the way you think. I hold a few trademarks.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I hunt demons.”
“So, you’re a demon hunter?”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous. Demon Hunter is trademarked by a band no one has ever heard of. We call ourselves ‘Demon Stalkers’ to avoid an infringement lawsuit.”
lol they have no case at all.
I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a compelling point.
You should really become a litigator.They’re just going to settle out of court anyway, so I guess we’ll never know.
Good enough to get a settlement, at any rate.
Yes and no. While they have the older brand, the term “Demon Hunter” could easily discounted as a generic and therefore not worthy of protection.
Microsoft skirted this issue with Windows (which is officially “Microsoft Windows”), and they can easily prove that their brand is associated with their product. But a third class niche band? I would not bet on it.
I don’t see how you could be right on this. It’s not generic and the band has used that mark for decades even if it was unregistered. If you use a brand for commerce that’s your proof you hold that mark. They had it for 25 years. Imo Netflix did cause them harm. I bet they do have a case here.
It was probably not registered because it is generic.
I see what you mean and I understand how it’s more serious than it sounds as first. However, a band shouldn’t be able to lay claim to every version of demon hunter in media. Will they go after Wow for the class named such? How about the various animes with some variation in their title? Sure they can protect brand in a musical space, but that extends over to movies? When the movie title quietly literally describes exactly the protagonists?
You’re right. They might be able to win this case, but shouldn’t.
Absolutely agree. They shouldn’t be able to go after every use of demon hunters. And they aren’t. They’re only going after the one that’s caused actual demonstrable damage to the use of their trademark.
The risk the band took when naming themselves behind a concept. Irrespective of their personal harm, reaching across mediums to claim the name from a movie is the same as reaching to a video game. The concept of hunting demons is exponentially older than this bands formation in 2000. Hell, the Abrahamic demons they sing about aren’t even in the same mythology as Korean shamanic demons. The band should not get to lay claim all these different interpretations from their name alone. This is even more egregious than Buc-ee’s sueing any store with a cartoon animal logo, since at least they are both stores selling physical goods. Demon Hunter the band can’t even muster that much of a claim.
Well see how this plays out. While I’m definitely not rooting for Netflix, I am decidedly rooting against cross genre, cultural and medium trade mark overreach.
The band should not get to lay claim all these different interpretations from their name alone.
Which is exactly what they’re NOT doing. They had a name that was working for them for 25 years. They never sued anyone over using that name, because none of the other uses caused any problem for them. But now one has. When trying to find and identify a band named demon hunters, there is confusion with the movie. People can’t find the actual band any more. It’s only right for Netflix to compensate them for that harm.
I’m sure they’ll settle out of court, and come up with a new band name.
Demon Slayers sounds obvious to me. Or maybe The First Demon Hunters.Well, I don’t want to argue so it seems like we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. But I do feel like you are misunderstanding how trademark works.
Trademark only protects against customer confusion, not other projects becoming popular. Reasonable people looking for the band who instead find links to the movie are not likely to think the movie and the band are the same project or brand.
Look at the examples from the patent office .
When a consumer knows what goods or services you offer, what other goods or services might they reasonably expect you to offer?× For example, if you sell hot dog buns, a consumer may expect you to sell hamburger buns and loaves of bread.
It’s irrelevant that the movie is now showing higher on search results. The relevance of trademark will apply to other touring bands selling music under the name Demon Hunter, or names like “D. Hunter” / “Demons Hunted” or if the movie characters were styled after the IRL band, they might have a case. But an all male metal using Christian imagery and prayer band is quite different than a fictional all female pop band that does dance fighting. The content of the 90+ minute film is sustainably different than the content of 3-4 minute religious metal song.
However I’ve said my piece and I don’t wish to belabour the point further. Time will tell who wins, but according to actual mechanics of trademark law the court will only rule for the band if they can show reasonable people confuse the musicians for a movie, which I think would be an unrealistic accomplishment.
They have an email from a confused consumer asking for a refund due to them mixing up the band with the movie. They absolutely have a case.
No the movie is putting on a show and tour with the same name which is confusing consumers, as the band has proven, and that goes against their trademark.
I really don’t understand the logic you all have. Is this general ignorance of trademarks or some Netflix dick sucking that’s happening?
Netflix didn’t give the movie its title, how do you figure they are liable at all?
Even if the movie had been a Netflix production, how is netflix liable for the behaviour of a third party algorithm?
Netflix is the distributor. They do approve the title it’s sold under.
It’s not about the search rankings directly, that’s just a signal of the effect of the trademark dilution for the band. It’s proof of the damage.
The title is a little misleading, Google searches aren’t involved, that was colour added by the author
The thing they have to fight though is that when you register for a trademark, it doesnt apply to every sector.
For example, Nintendo lost a trademark to a supermarket in I think costa rica named “Super Mario” (it was a supermarket owned by a guy named mario), because Nintendo did not own the trademark rights to supermarkets(however they held one for food products branded it, so the same supermarket could not name their home branded products super mario)
Its a matter if the band holds the trademark for movies, as the band in the show itself is not called Demon Hunters (its Hunter/x)
I wonder if using just Mario for the food would be fine.
Go to Super Mario’s and then get Mario’s lasagna!
First names literally cannot be trademakred for living beings, but they can for commerce purposes so long as said commerced entity doesn’t also attempt to sue Mario for also using his born name on a non-trademarked product.
I dont understand what you mean by the so long as part?
A notable high-profile legal defeat over first name usage involves reality star Kylie Jenner losing a trademark opposition against international pop singer Kylie Minogue.
Basically, the name Kylie is perceived by the public as a first name, NOT a brand and therefore is unenforceable in a court of law. They can continue with the trademark all they want, but their limited to only suing other companies, not humans using the name.
ah, gotcha. Thanks!
The movie title is referring to a fictional band, so even if you google “demon hunters band” you’re almost certainly going to get K-Pop Demon Hunters nowadays. I wouldn’t even know how to search for them and reliably get them to show up.
…well except this news story has gone viral so now they DO show up on top. The internet is weird man.
By using the old ways of search fu.
“Demon Hunter Christian Rock -pop -k-pop -k-pop”
What search engine do you use that respects that type of search now? I’ve found that for years now Google just ignores the -pop or sometimes just ignores the “-“ and adds the thing I’m trying to avoid directly to the search query.
Yeah. Google started ignoring you more and more with it over the past like 5 years or so, but duckduckgo still uses it correctly.
What search engine do you use that respects that type of search now?
kagi.
I hate monthly subscription anything, though. I don’t want to pay $5 a month to search for things. Duckduckgo is fine, and it also works with -
I don’t think Kagi are unfair charging a subscription, it means they have financial incentives which aren’t mass cyberstalking like the adtech search providers. If a commercial service is free, you are almost certainly the real product.
I’m happy with their pricing and service level, while I prefer to self-host good luck self-hosting a search engine.
search engine SEOs are a separate issue than trademarks though. there isn’t any law that im aware of that requires search engines to be neutral on how searches are organized (or even if something shows at all). If Demon Hunter wants to fight against not being able to be found, theyd essentially for example, be fighting against every corporate who uses DMCA powers to force google to remove some links from being indexed.
It’s about being able to easily demonstrate harm to their brand by making it difficult to find them with a normal search.
They’re not suing Google though right? They’re suing Netflix.
You are right, but this isn’t a video game versus a grocery store chain comparison here. It’s a real life band vs a movie of a fictional band. The question of trademark infringement is not necessarily even about direct competition or intentional use. It is about whether a reasonable consumer of their product might confuse the two names/logos.
Were the movie just about some typical warriors fighting demons and others just sharing a similar name, I doubt that they would have much of a case due to lack of overlap. But as the film is about a band (even if the band itself has a different name), and the actual soundtrack for this fictional band is immensely popular and carries the film name, I think they could make a really good case about consumer confusion.
Edit: They even demonstrate actual consumer confusion that has already occurred in their court filing.
To prove their point, included in the filing is an email from a person who spent $500 on top-tier tickets to a Demon Hunter concert in Albany, thinking they were purchasing admission to a KPop Demon Hunters event for their children, aged five and six.
Yes they have proof delivered straight to them that consumers are confused. I think they have a case.
The thing they have to fight though is that when you register for a trademark, it doesn’t apply to every sector.
Absolutely true! Which is why it’s good that they’re both in the entertainment sector.
And I’m sure it’s a non zero percentage of people who do think the fictional band is called Demon Hunters. But that may not even matter. There is a lot of overlap, being both in entertainment, and about music and bands etc. Hell, both are even about actual demons! This is a Christian metal band after all.It’s hilarious that you use Apple as an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
Sosume
I think they are or did also sue Apple Theaters even tho Apple Theaters was operating long before Apple TV.
It’s like the Buc-ees gas station suing an underwear company because they had a squirrel logo (Buc—ees logo is a beaver).
That’s probably why they chose Apple as an example in the first place. Apple Computers was allowed to continue using the name because their computer business didn’t overlap Apple Corps’ music business.
Honestly, no one was searching for this trash band before. I guarantee that this has at the least given them more exposure. This lawsuit is entirely performative (it’s needed to maintain trademark).
I have no love for netflix or it’s terrible movie, but if it hurts some shitty christian band I have a real hard time being upset.
The thing is a trademark can’t trademark something “generic”.
Like you can’t trademark “chocolate dreams” ans a name for a band… and the go after some one that uses the phrase “chocolate dreams” for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
Did you read the article? They are now doing a live tour of KPop Demon Hunter" and they have at least one example of there being confusion in the market. AEG and Netflix could have promoted the tour as HUNTR/X: KPop Demon Hunters or something to avoid this. I suspect there will be a settlement as just because there was no confusion when it was just a movie doesn’t mean they can go into live concerts with the same name.
No. I didn’t because I have better things to do.
But no, they still haven’t shown trademark infringement. You’re really going to tell me that the metal band lost measurable business because some idiot on the internment couldn’t tell the difference between a kpop musical on Netflix and their metal band.
all because they were either to cheap to pay for SEO or so crappy that paying for SEO still doesn’t matter. (Bet: the settlement includes SEO.)
Sorry. No. That’s not trademark infringement. It’d be like McDonald’s Plumbing suing McDonald’s burgers.
Guess what- these things happen, and they’d have to show that that the decision was intentional and malicious, when the people making the decision probably didn’t even know the metal band existed. That’s not going to happen.
Again, please read the article. The more apt comparison would be if McDonald’s Plumbing started selling and marketing burgers. This is a pretty straightforward case and will likely be settled for a sum that can be found in Netflix’s/AEG’s couch cushions. Also, “maliciousness” is not a factor in determining trademark infringement.
No it wouldn’t.
Again. Please try and understand what I’m saying.
The differences in other branding are sufficient that no one looking at the webpages or whatever they clicked on would be confused. There’s not a likely chance that someone is going to confuse Demon Hunter the Metal Band with KPop Demon Hunter the Anime. And even if they did click the wrong link there’s no real harm. All it really means is that whoever took the wrong link hop needs to work on their google-foo.
I mean. really. look at the difference in branding:
Vs:
The concept of “Demon Hunter” as a thing is something that’s common enough that it’s going to bump into other brands. It’s not like they went after the 2005 movie “Demon Hunter”
and while things may have fallen through the cracks, but when you apply for a trademark the USPTO searches their database to verify that there’s nothing already trademarked that you might be infringing on. given that netflix has a trademark, that search happened in some form and they decided it was acceptable.
Generic is not what you think. You’re trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. I’m sorry you’re just wrong about this.
First off there’s a reason I put it in quotes.
And second, that wasn’t what I was arguing. Nice straw man.
Third, you can’t trademark something after people who have similar names just because they have similar names.
Demon hunter is a metal band.
It’s very unlikely that they lost business because someone wandered into an anime called “Kpop Demon Hunter”… and even if they did, it wasn’t named to trade on the metal band’s name.
Good. I hope it goes to trial, and they show that the monopoly Google is unfairly fucking with search results, as we all know they do, and some sort of regulation comes from it.
Please elaborate on how Google is changing the search rankings. I’ve worked with Google SEO for decades and I’ve never seen or heard of this. I’ve only seen people try to outsmart the system, and then years later are blacklisted for doing shady stuff. Nothing in the article even mentioned Google.
But I’ve never heard of Google manually changing rankings. So you’re saying there’s a conspiracy to rank a Christian metal band from 20 years ago lower than a newly released movie/series with a similar name. Which just happens to be the most watched movie on Netflix.
The system seems to be working exactly as intended. Fresh original relevant content to the top rankings.
Why would someone expect the opposite? Why do you think Google is involved at all?
I feel really bad for the mom that spent $500 for her kids to see huntrix. Poor kids must have been so disappointed.
I feel bad for the kids, not for the mum. I think parents should take an interest in their kids’ interests. If you’re gonna spend 500 bucks on a band and you can’t be arsed to learn their name, you gotta pay the parent-who-doesn’t-care-about-your-kids-interests tax. The kids probably watched the movie 100 times, you should have been paying attention one of those times. Letting the TV parent your kids, and not even bothering to learn what the TV is saying to them, is neglect.
Great point, I know that shit by heart from my son lol
That’s the thing, these guys are definitely dining out on the confusion. No “Christian metal” band is realistically charging $500 for vip tickets. Especially considering they only sold 600k records in the last 25 years and over +12 albums. They would be lucky enough to be hitting the state fair circuit.
At least two kids + two parents means four tickets total for 500$. I’m not too familiar with average US ticket prices, but 125$ per person doesn’t sound too far fetched even for a smaller band, considering all the upcharges they have on everything.
According to the court filing it was 3 tickets for a mother and two children, so a little over $165 a ticket. I checked the bands website and they just so happen to be coming to a small venue near me which I have frequented several times.
This is a tiny venue which is usually frequented by small indie and cover bands, and the prices for this show are a lot higher than I’ve ever seen. Usually you can catch a show here for 20-30 bucks for an open floor ticket as there is no seating.
They are charging $45 for general admission, but they also are selling access to a roped off section in front of the stage for nearly $200 a ticket. I haven’t actually ever heard of the venue ever doing this, and I don’t even know how they are going to enforce it. The venue is a small room that used to be an old timey movie theater that they ripped the seats out of. It’s small enough to where you wouldn’t really be able to have security on the floor separating the crowd, the total occupancy for the building is like 500 people and that would be packed to the gills.
Either this band has a dedicated weird cult like following… Or they are taking an opportunity to eat out on this confusion.
…idk fellas, ya might want to just leave this one to the Satanists. Stick with the Gregorian chanting and call it a day. Also stop fucking altar boys.
