I Have No Affiliations, I Am Still InSold (is that the opposite of selling out?)

Just for your reference, I am not affiliated with this book. I have never read this book, and I never even heard of this book until I Googled the name of my blog. I do not know the author, I have never met the author, and I have never ever, ever read a book about law school.

That being said, I need to do some research. The name of the book and my blog are pretty similar. However, Copyright protects independent creation. On the other hand, can a title of a book be trademarked? Additionally, there are special rules for registering a domain name that is designed to profit off of the trademark of another. But I did not do it bad faith. Conversely, Trademark is designed to identify a source. "Law School Rules" is certainly a descriptive mark, so there has to be secondary meaning. But aren't there special rules for titles? There are, but that is for nominative use or parody (think Barbie and Aqua.) And this discussion pretty much brings us back around to Copyright. I think I am safe, unless I copy one of the author's rules. However, if I can use this post as proof that I never read his book, maybe I will be safe.

O.K. You cannot trademark a bookname, unless it has obtained a secondary meaning [I wrote the above before taking my IP final, and I am writing this paragraph (and the last sentence), and the ones that follow nearly a month later]. I mean, we have seen all the DaVinci Code shit that has come out. I saw a list somewhere, don't remember where though, there were diet books and history books, all incorporating "Da Vinci Code" in their titles. [I saw it in the Trib.]

I decided to post this now because I just found out that Anonymous Lawyer is/was only a law student. He got a book deal. Good for him, he lied and misrepresented himself, and got a book deal out of it. Almost like a real lawyer (actually his cover was blown in 2004, I just did not realize it, probably because I was not in Law School then). But, good for him, bloggers are notorious for having their books bomb at the "box office" (what else do you call it? I suppose i should have left off the last three words of that clause, but what fun would that be? If I cannot pose rhetorical questions, then what am I doing here? There are exceptions of course, when Maddox's Book comes out in a couple weeks, it will debut at #1 on the NY Times Bestseller List, of course that was 10 years of hardwork, and not a flash in the pan). I am sure his will do very well, after all, I will check it out of my local library, if they bother to pick it up.

Why all this ranting on books? I do not know, probably because I could never write one. But really, it is because most bloggers are not really writers. It is one thing to hold someone's attention for five minutes and a completely different thing to hold a persons attention for 8 hours. It takes more than a good plot-line. It takes a great understanding of prose and language. I wish I could do it, I really do, but I do not think that I am very good at holding my reader's attention for very long.