I was not going to post about this but I feel I need to. If you haven't heard of #cockygate here is a rundown.
An indie author, Faleena Hopkins, has published many books (19 if I read Amazon correctly) in a series. Which was originally named "The Cocker Brothers of Georgia" and "The Cocker Brothers of Atlanta". As you can see below. You can find the original
here. Every book TITLE has the word "cocky" in it, not the series name. These are the 1st eight books in the series.
Ms. Hopkins has had the
"Cocker Brothers" series out to read since June 16th 2016 when she released
"Cocky Roomie". The last one in the
"Cocker Brothers" is book 19,
"Cocky Mother's Day: A Holiday Novella". That was released on May 12th, 2018. If you compare the covers from the above photo to the following, you will see that the title hasn't changed on the cover just the listing.
On April 17th 2018 the Trademark office granted Ms.Hopkins a trademark for the single word
"cocky", in a romance title, romance series and the stylized or font of the word as well. As it has been mentioned on Twitter the font is owned by
Set Sail Studios. In the purchase contract (as far as I understand) states you can not trademark it.
Why is this all important?
Trademarking a single word that is a descriptive word will set a precedence for all future trademarks. Lets say I trademark the word "and" in the any genre of books, that would mean no one could use it. Soon, there would be no words left to title a book. It would not have been a big deal if Ms.Hopkins only trademarked
"The Cocker Brothers" as a whole. A three word series title probably would not have stirred up so much trouble.
If the trademark does hold soon movies and songs and even names would be up for trade marks. Someone posted on Twitter (I'm paraphrasing) "If the word Star had been trademarked then we wouldn't have
"Star Wars" Add to the,
"Stargate", "Stargate SG1", excreta.
The precedence would begin to eliminate every word that is in the dictionary. The word "cocky" has been around since 1800 circa. No one can forbid someone else from using a word that has been used for centuries. Now if it's a completely made-up word then MAYBE. I repeat MAYBE.
Next...
A few authors received cease and desist letter though e-mail. Jamila Jasper (Twitter
@JamilaJasper ) shared hers on Twitter. Here's what it looked like.
If you read it you can see there is no way any lawyer would suggest or allow their client to send something like this out. My favorite part is "win all the monies" Do you know how much it would cost to re-brand, re-cover and order all new swag? It's a lot. Just think, one book cover could cost $200-$2000 depending on the quality. Indie authors don't make tons of money. Many have full time jobs and families to care for and writing is a hobby.
On May 7th
Tara Crescent received a notice from Amazon telling her that her "Cocky" books were being pulled due to the trademark that Ms.Hopkins was given.
RWA (Romance Writers of America) got involved and Amazon decided to wait until the trademark issue was resolved to pull books. Tara's books were back up in a few days.
Meanwhile, Kevin Kneupper (Twitter
@kneupperwriter) a retired lawyer now author came out of retirement. He filed a Petition of Cancellation for the "cocky" trademarks on May 7th 2018. You can read the entire petition thanks to Kevin.
READ PETITION NOW
Shortly after that Ms.Hokpins decided it would be a good idea to Facebook live a 1:42:00 video. In it she plays the victim. You can watch it here,
The Rant. Shortly after she pulled it from Facebook, then proceeded to have
youtube to remove all copies of it. Did she not understand that once you post something on the internet it is there forever? If you watch it be prepared for long dramatic pauses throughout.
After the rant many authors posted their own thoughts on youtube. Here are a few I personal watched. YES, there are many links here.
Bianca Sommerland:
Cocky Copyright by Faleena Hopkins
Cocky Continued
Trademark Trolls and the Cocky Rebellion (And yes, I'll comment on the rant)
#COCKYGATE NEW LOW-Faleena Hopkins
Jessica Fry
Elizabeth York
Sasha White
Some of those links are on topics I'll get to next.
Ms.Hopkins reasons for filing the trademarks were"to protect her brand & so her readers don't continue to buy books with similar titles" (paraphrased that).
Now in the last 14 days Ms. Hopkins filed a
SLAPP temporary restraining order(TRO) on Kevin Kneupper to get him to stop the trademark challenge, Tara Crescent to take down her books to re-title them and Jennifer Watson on infringement of trademark "cocky" having to do with the
"Cocktale Anthology"
Kevin Kneupper's part was dismissed and allowed to continue with the trademark challenge. Watson and Crescent still have a long road ahead. Though the TRO has been denied. You can read the court record of the hearing on June 1st 2018 thanks to Courtney Milan who paid for it.
Court Doc.
After reading through the court record I looked around to see what else Ms.Hopkins has not put "cocky" in her series title. This is something that she said was easy to change yet she hasn't done it herself.
LOOK!
"The Cocker Brothers"
My take on all this as an unpublished author that plans to help-publish is this is a cry for attention. The majority of readers had no clue who she was when this all started. I read all kinds of romance and I never even came across her name. So, it's a publicity stunt or not. I'd say probably. Once #cockygate quieted down she took people to court. Yep, once again I think she needed more attention, or at least she thought she did.
This has been a rough post for me. Too much information to fact check, which I did.
I would like to state that in no way shape or form is the title of my post about a prowess male or even female. All pictures were published publicly and I claim no rights to them. All
"The Cocker Brothers" photos are from Faleena Hokins' own sites.
In no way do I wish to harass or harm anyone with this post.
Thanks for bearing with me in all that I stated. In the next few days I'll be posting all the wonderful authors I have found and met because of #cockygate.
