Boycott Magic Hat Brewing Company...

[mr x]

I also don't think magic hat was thinking they were being sneaky and trying to steal the "#9" idea from the beatles. If anything it blends with their hippy/hipster marketing. I don't think they would deny at all that it was more of an homage than something they would try to claim as their own.

On the other hand, 9# could create confusion in the marketplace, as JP outlined. I don't think that legal action was necessarily the best solution that they could have taken, but it was definitely their right (sleezy or not).

Your needle is still stuck on the law. Whatever their reasoning, that beer name is using the Beatles's song as it's marketing. Why right does Magic Hat have to be the only beer company to steal somebody's else's work? Did they get permission...?

[JP]

Isn't that song called Revolution number 9? Not just "number 9".

The law does not weigh heavily on whether or not a consumer can be confused, because that is subjective anyway. As far as I understand it is more about brand dilution and if the name is similar enough to benifit from the other's markleting. I could be wrong.

Look, we have a system in place to challenge these "wrongs", where everyone gets a chance to explain themselves. This other brewery doesn't need money or lawyers or anything, they can just go show up. Fuck it, they were going to roll over anyway, so why not rep themselves? Nobody needs to boycott another business because that business protects their brand - I'm surprised that in this free market thing we got going on that so many people are upset about this.

[thatguy314]

I talked to my brother, who is an intellectual property lawyer. He said you can't trademark a single number or letter like that, so they'd have a hard time proving the case. So it does in fact look like they're throwing their bigger muscle around a bit.

[JP]

the name is Number 9. and if that were true, Heinz 57, A-1, and others like that would not be around.

[thatguy314]

I also don't think magic hat was thinking they were being sneaky and trying to steal the "#9" idea from the beatles. If anything it blends with their hippy/hipster marketing. I don't think they would deny at all that it was more of an homage than something they would try to claim as their own.

On the other hand, 9# could create confusion in the marketplace, as JP outlined. I don't think that legal action was necessarily the best solution that they could have taken, but it was definitely their right (sleezy or not).

Your needle is still stuck on the law. Whatever their reasoning, that beer name is using the Beatles's song as it's marketing. Why right does Magic Hat have to be the only beer company to steal somebody's else's work? Did they get permission...?

They didn't steal anyone else's work. They're using the number 9. Which may reference the song, but it's not actually taking anything from it other than the number 9. If someone could call the number 9 theirs, then we'd have to start counting from 8 to 10. It's a basic part of language. If they called the beer revolution #9, then it would be stealing from the beatles.

Again, I don't think you understand this. The problem isn't that they both use 9. The problem is that the labels themselves look very similar, and could confuse an uneducated consumer. It's not about who stole what. It's that a product was labeled in a certain way, and another company subsequently produced a very similar looking label. The issue is who labeled their product first. Intellectual property law in this country is very much about who came up with the idea first. Like it or not, first matters.

[mr x]

If you all think that Magic Hat #9 does not directly reference a Beatles song, then you all need to stop drinking. It is a direct rip-off. I don't think YOU understand my point. It is about the ethics of saying to somebody else that you don't have the right to steal that name because I stole it first. And as far as JP's point goes, if you don't have the right to boycott somebody because you believe they are being sleazy, well, if that's the way you want to roll....

[JP]

Of course not, because you are stuck on an invalid point. A beer and a song have nothing in common besides them being inspirations for each other at times. The Beatles song was Revolution #9, they say number 9 all the time in it and its a shitty song anyway - just because that is the only point in your personal history that you can remember someone saying #9, doesn't mean that's what Magic Hat was using.

[mr x]

Sleazy behavior is not an invalid point where I come from. Like I said, if you think that the beer isn't a direct rip-off of the Beatles song, it's time to put down the bottle.