Photoshopping your Xerox of a Kleenex
If you've been surfing the blogs lately, you've no doubt seen the recent furor over Adobe. First it was discovered that the company inserted code into its latest version of Photoshop that checks to see whether an image you're tweaking is one of the world's major currencies -- and if it is, Photoshop won't let you open it. Users, quite understandably, flipped out, pointing out that there might be plenty of valid reasons one wants to photoshop a piece of currency. They also noted that the new counterfeit-detection algorithm sucks up a healthy amount of processor speed, slowing Photoshop down significantly. But hey: The government demanded that Adobe insert the code.
Which, once again, gives us a lovely illustration of Larry Lessig's central thesis: That in the modern world, code is law. Ever wonder why America Online won't let more than a couple dozen people convene in a single chat room? It's not because it isn't technologically possible. It's because they just don't want more than a few dozen people using AOL to convene. That could be for plenty of reasons, but one of them easily might be political: Protest and dissent rely on people convening together, and AOL likely doesn't really want to be a vehicle for that. It has essentially designed "public spaces" out of AOL-land; the code is as specific and powerful as a federal law prohibiting groups from gathering, a popular tactic amongst banana-republic dictators. (I'm not suggesting that AOL's designers are behaving like dictators, of course; in a private-enterprise setting, the comparison is politically meaningless. Though it's also funny to note, as Lessig does, that while AOL puts strict limits on how much interaction AOL "citizens" can have with one another, AOL's "king" -- Steve Case -- can and does often send out an email to all seven bazillion of AOL's members, much like Castro blasting a message island-wide via the P.A. system. Comrades, lend me your ears!)
But je digresse.
Let's get back to Adobe -- a company that seems hellbent on exquisitely ruining its reputation amongst its web-savvy fans. On the heels of being outed as the latest enforcement wing of the US Treasury, Adobe decided it was also time to join in on America's hot new pasttime: Policing your trademark! They've apparently decided that too many people are using "photoshop" as a verb (including -- whoops -- me above, in this very post). So they've issued a set of directives clarifying the appropriate use of their name:
Trademarks are not verbs.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
INCORRECT: The image was Photoshopped.
INCORRECT: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped.
Barristers, start your engines.
By the way, notice the lovely bit of corporate bumphery up there: Adobe continually suggests that the correct way to refer to using Photoshop is to say that you "enhanced an image" with Photoshop. But what if what you did with the image isn't really "enhancement"? What if you made the image suck more? I think I'm going to take a bunch of pictures and render them virtually unreadable; I could then follow Adobe's guidelines to the letter, by using the following perfectly-legal explanation:
The image was made to massively suck using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
(Thanks to Fark for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at January 19, 2004 04:20 PM
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Oh, man...
I've commented previously in your commentspace about corporations policing their trademarks (Godzilla was the example), and once again am forced to shake my head at the idiocy of lawyers in driving this sort of crap.
The elevation of your tradename to verb or new cultural-wide descriptor ("to Xerox," all disposable paper tissues are called Kleenex, we call cotton swabs "Q-Tips," etc.) is a compliment you morons! It's evidence that you're cream of the crop, king of the hill, totally l33t, and have transformed how people relate to a particular thing (product, activity, etc.)
Jeez, some people just can't take a compliment. :)
As for the sniffer code that spots currency -- that's just lame. As someone writing on metafilter said, "Well, there goes my best tool for designing new currency and financial notes..."
Adobe may find that sales of their CS suite fall much short of what they'd like due to many people not wanting to "upgrade" to the paternalistic new version. I'm sticking with v7.0.1 for the foreseeable future...
Posted by: bud at January 20, 2004 1:26 PM
This thread, about the proper way to write the GameBoy trademark, makes a good point:
http://www.igja.org/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=5&showtopic=3
I can understand defending the trademark, but lawyers are not writers and the prefered method for writing a trademark might be stylistically horrible.
Not to mention, it makes any writing seem like a press release.
Posted by: nowak at January 20, 2004 7:45 PM
Bud -- that point about it being a compliment is utterly bang on. I have no idea why they can't get this through their skulls.
That Game Boy stuff is really interesting. The Nintendo lawyers seemed to have a slightly better sense of humor about it ... but ultimately, still came up with incredibly wretched abuses of language.
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Oh, man...
I've commented previously in your commentspace about corporations policing their trademarks (Godzilla was the example), and once again am forced to shake my head at the idiocy of lawyers in driving this sort of crap.
The elevation of your tradename to verb or new cultural-wide descriptor ("to Xerox," all disposable paper tissues are called Kleenex, we call cotton swabs "Q-Tips," etc.) is a compliment you morons! It's evidence that you're cream of the crop, king of the hill, totally l33t, and have transformed how people relate to a particular thing (product, activity, etc.)
Jeez, some people just can't take a compliment. :)
As for the sniffer code that spots currency -- that's just lame. As someone writing on metafilter said, "Well, there goes my best tool for designing new currency and financial notes..."
Adobe may find that sales of their CS suite fall much short of what they'd like due to many people not wanting to "upgrade" to the paternalistic new version. I'm sticking with v7.0.1 for the foreseeable future...
Posted by: bud at January 20, 2004 1:26 PM
This thread, about the proper way to write the GameBoy trademark, makes a good point:
http://www.igja.org/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=5&showtopic=3
I can understand defending the trademark, but lawyers are not writers and the prefered method for writing a trademark might be stylistically horrible.
Not to mention, it makes any writing seem like a press release.
Posted by: nowak at January 20, 2004 7:45 PM
Bud -- that point about it being a compliment is utterly bang on. I have no idea why they can't get this through their skulls.
That Game Boy stuff is really interesting. The Nintendo lawyers seemed to have a slightly better sense of humor about it ... but ultimately, still came up with incredibly wretched abuses of language.
Posted by: Clive at January 20, 2004 8:14 PM
Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that
called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all
the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed;
otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded
and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off.
Finally the company president called Sam into his office.
"Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's
a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign,
you're fired. As of right now."
Sam signed the papers immediately.
"Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you
couldn't have signed earlier?"
"Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so
clearly before."
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called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all
the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed;
otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded
and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off.
Finally the company president called Sam into his office.
"Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's
a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign,
you're fired. As of right now."
Sam signed the papers immediately.
"Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you
couldn't have signed earlier?"
"Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so
clearly before."
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