Hacker Scouts is served Cease and Desist letter from Boy Scouts of America
hacker-scouts.org
hacker-scouts.org
I say this as an Eagle Scout, and someone who had a great time as a Boy Scout from around age ten to eighteen. The Scouts are a great organization on a local level, where there's little bureaucracy, and most decisions are made by or with the boys. You gain a good sense of responsibility when you're the one in charge of overseeing all the camping gear for your trip, or planning an outing over a weekend. There's also a lot to be said for the personal growth that comes from starting as a ten-year-old, learning from the older boys, and then realizing at age eighteen that you're one of those older boys who is looked up to by the young ones.
However, the BSA at a national level is a pretty awful organization. They routinely discriminate against atheists and homosexuals. I'm an atheist myself, as were many in my troop. Again, at the local level this was fine -- nobody cares, provided the other members of the troop are sensible people (which, in my case, they were). But at the national level, any atheist is treated as a Godless Communist.
The same goes for gay boys and leaders. The BSA takes the delightfully antiquated stance of equating homosexuality with pedophilia, with no shortage of moral indignation at the idea that people could feel affection for those of the same gender. Until they do a bit of soul-searching and come into the 21st century, I'll have nothing to do with the national level of the BSA.
Thank you for pointing this out. I've been trying to explain this to people for years. When I was a kid in the Scouts, we lost a grant for a brand new gear trailer (that we badly needed) because of the bigoted stance that National had just taken on homosexuality. As a troop, we tried to explain this dichotomy to our would-be funders, and even went so far as to openly refuse to enforce National's policy. We lost our trailer anyway, and National continues to reduce the credibility and relevance of the BSA in the eyes of less conservative Americans to this day. And it's a damn shame, because it's really a great organization.
Note that the BSA is not unique in this regard.
At the local level, people genuinely care about the sense of community enabled by the organization.
Whereas at the national level, the only thing people care about is politics. And politics attracts all kinds of assholes.
This was in my hometown.
This fat fucking sack of subhuman dogshit was also a resource officer at the school and the interim chief of police. When he was the resource officer at my high school, everyone called him "Baby Huey."
The reference, for those that aren't over the age of 60 in the US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkkTbOs6pmA
At the local level it is hit or miss. You end up with people who don't care if you are gay or an atheist, or it becomes a problem. Because the national organization is bigoted, people who experience discrimination at the local level are left with no recourse. I cannot advocate for "local BSA" because I know nothing of the particular troop somebody will interact with, but I do know that "national BSA" are scumbags. The best I could possibly do is tell people that a particular troop was decent.
(My troop was filled with bigoted shitheads. I got a "get eagle scout or we cut you off and kick you out at 18" ultimatum, and got eagle scout a few months before I turned 18. I did manage to never have the award ceremony though, that was my little personal victory.)
You age out at 18, and become ineligible to rank up on your birthday. That has nothing to do with your troop... Even if they wanted to make an exception for you, they couldn't. It's the same rule for everyone.
I wanted nothing to do with them but was emotionally/financially blackmailed into completing the program. In retrospect I had more capacity for independence than I gave myself credit for at the time, but it was a shitty thing for my parents to do (we have since come to terms about this though).
Dear Hacker Scouts Family,
For the past several months we have been dealing with an issue that we now feel is at a point where it is important to let you know what is going on. A few months ago, we received a Cease and Desist letter from the Boy Scouts of America when we tried to trademark our name. Through various letters, we have tried to quietly come to a compromise, but the BSA position is clear: change our name or they will take us to court.
This is a difficult situation for us. We believe in our name and our right to use the word "scouts". The BSA's main argument is that they have a constitutional charter that they interpret to mean they have the right to use and trademark any word they choose. We disagree. We believe the charter itself may be unconstitutional, and that "scouts" is a world-wide connotation for a youth organization that existed before them and will exist long after them. We have also tried to be very clear in our message that we are not affiliated with the Boy Scouts nor are we trying to replace them. We do not offer the same experience, nor do we have a similar model as they do. We did not base our organization on them.
Our board will be making a decision soon, based on advice from our lawyers and our own sense of duty. Our primary responsibility is to act in service of our mission and the kids we serve. We have been thinking a lot about our core values and what path models those values to the community we care so deeply about; moving on when it is necessary or standing up for what is right. Thinking about this situation in that context has been powerful and meaningful for us.
We will let you know soon what the decision is, and how you can help. Thank you for your support and understanding.
The Hacker Scouts Staff, Board, Leaders, and Mentors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America#Federally...
The BSA holds a Congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code,[19] which means that it is one of the comparatively rare "Title 36" corporations in the United States.[20] The 1916 statute of incorporation established this institution amongst a small number of other patriotic and national organizations which are similarly chartered,[21] such as the Girl Scouts of the USA, the American Legion, the Red Cross, Little League Baseball, and the National Academy of Sciences. The federal incorporation was originally construed primarily as an honor, however it does grant the chartered organization some special privileges and rights, including freedom from antitrust and monopoly regulation, and complete control over the organization's symbols and insignia. As example, outside of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, no other youth organizations may use the term "scouts" or "scouting" in their name.
I don't know what the branding of Hacker Scouts is, movies have always seemed able to skirt the BSA trademark issue by calling themselves things like "Wilderness Scouts", etc. So I'd imagine it would be hard for the BSA to claim ownership of the entire "scouting" landscape.
I assume these people don't have access to the capital necessary to fight this in court, which is a shame.
As an Eagle Scout who has been pretty unhappy with the conduct of the BSA since my teenage years, I would be very happy to see them lose a case like this (although that's easy for me to say, as I'm not on the hook financially for it).
But if I'm running Hacker Scouts, now I'm actually competing with BSA for members to some degree, so if there's any danger of consumers being confused by the similarity of the marks then the obligation is on me to change it.
Courts treat this 'consumer confusion' as key. As a third example, if I came up with a brand called 'Night Scouts,' but the brand was attached to a line of night-vision goggles rather than a membership organization, a court would (I hope) find a low probability of confusion between the two as long as the packaging for my product didn't use any graphics, slogans, iconography etc. that suggested a connection with BSA. BSA might claim that they had total ownership of anything involving the word 'scout' whatsoever, but a court would usually find that claim overbroad.
However, that doesn't mean BSA would be wrong to make the claim. One peculiar things about trademarks (and quite different from copyright) is that courts take a 'defend it or lose it' view - so if there's a possibility of infringement, then the trademark owner basically has to make a fuss about it. If they don't, then later they may have trouble with halting a genuine case of infringement. So when you hear stories of trademark holders suing over very faint similarities, it's not that they really really want to shut everyone else down, but that they're going on the legal record as aggressively defending their mark against any possible infringer. If they failed to do so, someone else might point to their non-action as evidence that they had voluntarily abandoned the mark. Sort of perverse, but there you go.
And that's not only US law. If memory serves right, e.g. German laws are similar.
All corps fight to protect their trademarks, even when the 3rd party use is beneficial. If they don't rigorously defend them it could weaken the trademark and they could lose it in the future.
One of the many reasons I don't donate to Red Cross, actually. Too much money on advertising and lawyers.
There can't be a logical explanation for trying to harm an organization that helps children unless they are intentionally trying to impersonate the BSA.
I can't believe that they can claim "scout". After all, scouting is a global phenomena!
HS: No.
Seriously - fark off BSA. You do not own the word "scouts".
And frankly, if ANY court said they "legally" did - I would never accept such a statement. I'd offer BSA exclusivity over the word "Asshole" instead.
Absolutely no. I use it a lot.