Monday, March 21, 2011

Take Back Urban Homesteading Petition


Another Action Day in the Urban Homesteading Battle. Today we are asked to sign the following letter/petition. If you care to sign, you may do so here. More info at Take Back Urban Homesteading(s) My own view is you cannot copyright a lifestyle, especially one started by our forefathers and foremothers generations ago. Anf part of what cracks me up is the DerVaes claim that copyrighting Urban Homestead and Urban Homesteading protects their intellectual property. What toast- as you can see in the petition letter Mother Earth News had articles in print in 1976 and 1980, predating the Dervae's latent claim of the year 2002.
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The Letter:
Greetings Jules and the Dervaes Institute Corporation,
I am writing to ask that you cancel the Trademarks on "Urban Homestead" and "Urban Homesteading" in good faith from the urban homestead community. The Urban Homesteading movement was addressed in two articles by Mother Earth News, a 1976 Article on the Integral Home (1) and a 1980 Article on Modern Homesteading (2) which both pre-date the 2002 date of first use as claimed on your trademark filing. As such, I believe that your group has laid false claims on the rights to the term.
Your actions go against the spirit that makes up the Urban Homesteading
community. Furthermore, I will be boycotting your digital properties and
physical goods until your corporation legally cancels the trademark
registrations.

1. http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1976-11-01/The-Integral-Urban-House.aspx

2.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading/1980-09-01/Community-Homesteading-Programs.aspx?page=4"

1 comment:

EcoCatLady said...

I am just totally blown away that anyone would even think to try to copyright such a phrase. It's sort of like copyrighting the phrase "suburban housewife". Are you sure they have copyrighted it and not tradmarked it?

But what really amuses me is that back in the 1980's I remember the term being used to mean something entirely different. At the time, here in Denver at least, there was a great deal of gentrification going on in crime-ridden urban neighborhoods. And when wealthy white people would move into a predominantly black urban neighborhood, they would call it "urban homesteading".

Speaking as a person who had to completely dismantel a previous blog because someone threatened to sue me over the name (they claimed I used a word that they had trademarked) I'm really starting to think that this whole concept has gone entirely too far! Brings up images of Monsanto patenting seeds etc.

I think I'll go apply for a patent on air and charge everybody to breathe!