Drinking Starbucks Coffee

 

My son got married this past weekend. I’ve been to busy to blog about it yet, so I decided to be lazy and reprint a blog post from October 27, 2014 discussing the legal aspects of using trademarks in novels. I chose this post in particular since the issue came up at the author’s fair I attended last month.

I will blog about John and Christina’s wedding next week.

Drinking Starbucks Coffee

I drink a lot of coffee, although not usually from Starbucks. But my characters go there. That’s because it is a nationally-recognized name, and I like to use some recognizable brands to give my stories a sense of authenticity.

But I know writers who are scared of using brand names. They think it will violate copyright or trademark laws, or they don’t want to use the ® symbol because it can interrupt the flow of the story.

I don’t worry about any of that.

You can’t copyright names, so copyright law doesn’t apply. You can trademark names, and Starbucks is a registered trademark. However, trademarks have a specific, limited purpose, so the protection the owner gets is much narrower than with copyrights.

Trademarks protect against consumer confusion over the source of a product or service. Consumers use recognizable names and symbols to tell them that they are getting a certain quality or a product with particular characteristics. When you see the Nike swoosh on a pair of shoes, you expect them to last for a while. When a counterfeiter prints the swoosh on shoddy-quality shoes, people are mislead. That harms both the consumer (who is not getting what he or she expected) and Nike (who could lose sales to the counterfeiter and suffer harm to its reputation when the shoes fall apart).

Your characters can drink 7-Up without worrying about trademark infringement. No one is going to go out and buy counterfeit 7-Up based on your novel, nor will readers assume that the makers of 7-Up are connected with your book. You don’t have to call it lemon-lime soda.

A brand name can lose its trademark protection if consumers use it generically for any brand of the same type of product. After people started referring to all tissues as kleenex and to photocopies made on any brand photocopier as xeroxes, the owners of those trademarks spent a lot of money educating consumers on the proper use of the terms. That’s why brand owners would like you to use the © symbol. But you aren’t required to. If you want to help trademark owners protect their property and you think “the real thing” will add authenticity, just capitalize Coke.

So let your characters drink Starbucks’ coffee if they want to. Or 7-Up. Or Coke. (There seems to be a lot of drinking in this post. Maybe I should send my characters to the bathroom more often.)

Setting is Important

I just finished reading Bummer Camp by Ann Garvin. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it to anyone because the plot was ridiculous. It may have been intended for humor, but I winced much more often than I laughed.

Normally, I would have put it down after a few chapters. So why didn’t I? The story took place in a summer camp in the woods, and I was caught up in the well-executed setting.

The photo shows the outdoor amphitheater at Presbytery Point in Michigan, a Presbyterian camp located on the Upper Peninsula. I spent a number of summers there as a child. Or rather, I spent seven days there each summer, since the individual camps were only a week long. I always looked forward to going but got homesick after being there a couple of days. And yet, the next year I couldn’t wait to return. So the setting of Bummer Camp brought back many pleasant memories.

Setting can be an integral part of a book’s plot, as it was here, but it is the plot that is crucial to the story. Even though I finished the book, I will not read another one by Ann Garvin.

Still, although a good setting is never an excuse for a bad plot, it can cover some sins.

That’s why a good writer doesn’t ignore the setting.

One Wedding Down, the Big One Yet to Go

 

My niece, Rachel, got married on Friday, so that’s one down and one to go. I didn’t have to do anything for Rachel and Göran’s wedding other than show up, so it was the easy one. As the mother of the groom, however, I will be much more involved in John’s wedding.

My brother and his family don’t farm, but when he retired from his last church, he and my sister-in-law bought a farmhouse and the outbuildings that came with it. When Rachel and Göran decided to have an outdoor wedding on the farm, they knew that there was plenty of room in the barn and other buildings if the weather didn’t cooperate. Fortunately, though, it did. The sun beat down and made it rather warm when the service started, but it soon cooled off and the weather turned out to be ideal.

The full Camp contingent, including my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, was in attendance. We had a good visit without the rush that is likely to overwhelm us the next time we meet.

My brother performed the mostly traditional ceremony. Rachel and Göran wrote their own vows, as well, and it was clear that they understand what it takes to make a marriage work.

Although the ceremony and the bride’s dress were on the traditional side, not everything was. My sister-in-law grew up on a farm and is a farm girl through and through. She knows how to drive a tractor and there was one in the yard, so when someone dared her to chauffer the bride and groom around, she did, driving them along the road that leads to the farm. It was one of many wonderful photo ops.

Rachel and Göran are among the few people who actually make a living as performers. In fact, they met playing Mr. and Mrs. Banks in the musical version of Mary Poppins. So instead of the traditional couples’ dance, they performed “Everything” by Michael Buble.

The buffet was set up in the barn and the dancing was there, too, but we ate outside and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

The wedding and reception were delightful, but they are only the beginning.

My wish for the happy bride and groom lasts forever.

May God bless your marriage.