Guest Post: Poaching for Profit?
Note from Flying Booger: Minneapolis hasher Pooper Scooper sent this as a comment to a previous post, but I think it’s worth posting right out where everyone will see it (everyone who reads this blog, that is . . . all eight of you). PS raises an interesting point, one that dovetails with some of my earlier musings about a popular hash motto. Maybe we don’t “own” the phrases PS mentions, but maybe we should do something to head off someone else “owning” them . . . and then trying to charge us for using them.
Booger:
I remember a blog a while back regarding your establishment and nurturing of half-mind.com, and how you eventually turned its operation over to others committed to furthering the goals of the hash. You added that you spoke to a hasher who “hoped you made a lot of money” off the site before turning it over. You explained that that hasher was missing the point of all your work on half-mind.com, which was to further the enjoyment of hashing for all hashers with no expectation of cashing in on it.
Which brings me to the reason for this post. The New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting that the National Football League is claiming to have trademarked the phrase “WHO DAT!” I remember hearing that phrase from New Orleans Saints fans as far back as the late ’80s and as far as I know, it had no origin with the NFL’s marketers. The NFL, ravenous in its desire for new revenue streams, hopes to to cash in on a phrase that grew out of the enthusiasm of the Saints’ legions of fans.
That got me thinking; as far as I know, the phrase “On-On” isn’t trademarked or copyrighted. Nor is “Hash House Harriers,” or “HHH.” We’ve read about cyber-squatters ransoming domain names to corporations and businesses for a quick profit. What’s to stop some shady character from attempting the same with the hash?
Pooper Scooper
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About Flying Booger Hash House Harrier, man about town. 
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