Reddit Beats Lawsuit By WallStreetBets Founder

A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit in which the founder of WallStreetBets, which helped ignite investors' fascination with "meme" stocks, accused Reddit of wrongly banning him from moderating the community and usurping his trademark rights. From a report: Jaime Rogozinski, who founded WallStreetBets in 2012, said Reddit ousted him in April 2020 as a pretext to keep him from controlling a "a famous brand that helped Reddit rise to a $10 billion valuation" by late 2021. Rogozinski had applied to trademark "WallStreetBets" in March 2020, when the community reached 1 million subscribers. It now has 14 million.

In a 15-page decision, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in San Francisco rejected Rogozinski's claim that he owns the WallStreetBets trademark because the market associated it with him and he made the brand famous. She also dismissed Rogozinski's state law claims related to his ouster, saying either that they were preempted by a federal law that provides "broad immunity" to websites publishing mainly outside content, or that he lacked standing to sue.

Re:

[Revek]

There aren't many right-wing nutjob hellholes on Reddit
Have you been there?

Re:

[irving47]

Well, I have, and I know there are multliple subs that will ban you based on where you have posted in the past.... IF they are conservative. Somehow, I've not heard of anyone being banned by one of the few conservative-leaning subs based only on their posts to subs those mods found questionable, if they even looked.

Re:

[Mirnotoriety]

> Well, I have, and I know there are multliple subs that will ban you based on where you have posted in the past.... IF they are conservative ..

You've got that ass-backward. You will be banned on leftist subs, if they see you have ever posted in a conservative sub.

You fuck ONE sheep...

[sudonim2]

Yeah, lots of people don't want someone who frequents Nazi forums from joining their board. Because they're Nazis.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

They're mostly contained to /r/conservative and /r/politicalcompassmemes

Re:

[Powercntrl]

The one time I browsed through WSB it just seemed like a "jerk" sub to me. For those who are unfamiliar with the term as it relates to Reddit, a "jerk" sub is predominately satirical. Think jokes and memes related stock trading, rather than a sincere discussion about "greater fool" style investing.

Basically, picture high school kids who got access to their rich dad's Robinhood account and thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. That's WSB in a nutshell.

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[alvinrod]

I don't think it's as satirical as you might believe. When you can make $50,000 in an afternoon without yourself doing a bit more work that afternoon, I think it starts polluting the ego and manifests in that kind of behavior. There's always a bit of a circle-jerk pattern of behavior in any group, but it gets magnified there.

But if all you have to do all day is pass the time making memes while hoping your horse comes in, what's to be expected? Add in some survivorship bias and you have a community that's

Re:

[msauve]

>When you can make or lose $50,000 in an afternoon

FTFY

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[pete6677]

"any sub that allows posters who believe in private property is a right-wing nutjob hellhole" - you.

Re:

[Fuck_this_place]

You must be a standard dumbfuck con then I guess.You certainly like to invent shit from thin air like they do.

Re:

[pete6677]

Thanks for confirming. Maybe some day you'll have enough money to buy some stock shares of your own.

Re:

[Fuck_this_place]

Confirmation isn't a word you understand the meaning of. If it was, you wouldn't be conservative anymore. Enjoy your stocks alpha br0. lol.

Read that TOS carefully

[Powercntrl]

There's probably something specifically in Reddit's TOS saying you agree to this sort of thing (that they can boot you from a community you've created and continue running it without you) by using their service. People have tried to make a similar argument against record labels and it's always the same: you understood the deal going in to it. They give you the exposure that could possibly lead to fame, but in exchange you're giving up control over what you're creating.

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[timeOday]

I'm not surprised reddit could kick him off their platform, but I would have guessed he had a chance at taking the WallStreetBets trademark with him.

Reddit's intellectual property

[Petr Blazek]

I'd think this is covered by this provision in their TOS:
"You may not enter into any form of agreement on behalf of reddit, or the subreddit which you moderate, without our written approval."
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/us... [reddit.com]

Trademarking the name of a subreddit means either that (i) the name was either that guy's intellectual property (which contradicts the TOS), or (ii) that he was acting on behalf of the owner (i.e., reddit).

I don't see any other option.

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[timeOday]

He lost the case so I can't argue that my preconception was right. But https://www.reddit.com/r/McDon... [reddit.com] does exist. So, a trademark can be the name of a reddit.

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[Baron_Yam]

I suspect there's a matter of timing to consider - if you're trying to trademark something after the Reddit forum takes off, you probably can't. On the other hand, someone creating a subreddit doesn't mean Reddit suddenly owns the name regardless of pre-existing legal claims.

You can't contract illegal acts, so a contract clause that says, "I own anything you mention on my site" isn't valid for things that already have owners.

Re:

[Petr Blazek]

yes,
this aspect was missing in my "analysis" above, sorry

Re:

[sudonim2]

Fair use of trademarks is allowed. Naming a subreddit after a common restaurant clearly falls under fair use.

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[timeOday]

Heh, remember when we were in here debating whether a trademark holder should be able to wrestle a domain name from whoever registered it first?

In 1994, a reporter named Joshua Quittner bought mcdonalds.com for a story he was writing for Wired about the value of domain names. But nobody at McDonald's seemed to have any interest in being online.

"Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?" a media relations rep reportedly asked Quittner.

https://gizmodo.com/5-domain-n... [gizmodo.com]

Re: Read that TOS carefully

[sonoronos]

According to the the justia record for the wallstreetbets trademark, (https://trademarks.justia.com/888/45/wallstreetbets-88845638.html ), james filed for a trademark on 2020-03-24, but it was opposed.

What is interesting to me is that this lawsuit seems to actually be about the litigation that followed the opposition to Jamesâ(TM)s Trademark application, which he applied for 8 years after the subreddit was started.

Whatâ(TM)s the lesson here? I would say this: file for the trademark immediately, no

Re:

[Petr Blazek]

The key provision of their TOS:
"Moderating a subreddit is an unofficial, voluntary position. We reserve the right to revoke that position for any user at any time."
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/us... [reddit.com]

Don't build your home on someone else's playground

[Fly Swatter]

And creating a subforum on someone else's forum is not founding anything. What is ridiculous is that we need lawyers for this crap.