More on the Burning Brand

Can Burning Man survive being in the public domain? The event's original hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, weighs in, with a quote from yours truly.

My long Newsweek interview on the topic, previous blogging on this fresh lawsuit over ownership of the Burning Man brand here, and my book This Is Burning Man , which explains everything you would, and wouldn't, want to know about Burning Man.

Comments

taktix | January 25, 2007, 7:11pm | #

Definately in the hippie spirit:

Burning Man tickets went on sale this month...

...suing his two partners over the rights to the Burning Man name and logo.

...Burning Man trademark's value...

...Law wants to collect on the creative capital he put into Burning Man...

...the Burning Man blogosphere...

Chris Peterson | January 25, 2007, 7:56pm | #

See JWZ's (a founding Netscape engineer and SF nightclub owner) "Burning Hypocrisy" for a look at Burning Man Inc. waaay back in 2002:

http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/burningman.html

After you've paid your $200 to $300 to enter the park, money is prohibited throughout Burning Man. They like to think of it as a "gift economy". However, the Burning Man Corporation runs a cafe at "center camp" where you can buy drinks and snacks with good old US Currency. This is the only place that is allowed. Why? Because they need to "recoup their costs" on the construction of the tent, and on all that coffee.

The Burning Man organization presents itself as this spontaneous community effort, with everybody sharing and nobody in charge, and yet, their legal attitude is, "if you take a photo on the playa, we own it, and get to tell you when and where and how it can be published. Even if you take that photo of yourself, inside your tent, surrounded by your own stuff."

The best part: they also demand a whopping ten percent of any profit you make on your photos! Plus, they also demand that you send them a copy of all photos you take, and they claim the right to use them however they like, without paying you. They get complete editorial control over your work; the contract even says the project will contain no images of nudity, sexual activity, the use of drugs because of course there is no nudity at Burning Man! That there is no sex and drugs goes without saying.

Isaac Bartram | January 25, 2007, 10:18pm | #

As I wrote in another forum:

"Come on now, Burning Man validates my whole existence as a Baby Boomer.

"How else do you recognize the singular most self-important, self-entitled generation in all of history but by fawning over everything they did."

Brian24 | January 26, 2007, 1:13am | #

I've never found Burning Man to be particularly hippieish, or particularly Baby Boomerish (I would guess a plurality of Burners are in the 25-35 range).

Of course, Burning Man is many things to many people. My favorite event this year was the "Fight Club." Yes, you could have an actual, violent, fight with anyone you wanted. Complete with very loud metal music. Hippie? Not really.

Godfrey | January 26, 2007, 4:11am | #

Funny!

But not as funny as THIS.

Godfrey | January 26, 2007, 4:18am | #

Er...that last post was meant for the Drug Propaganda Thursday thread...

Warren | January 26, 2007, 12:44pm | #

Nothing ruins a good thing like success.

Warren

At this point, they should just sell the thing to Disney and be done with it.

Eric the .5b | January 26, 2007, 3:49pm | #

Burning Man has always struck me as being Gen X-centric and dominated by geeks pretending to be hippies for the duration, not Boomer-anything.

Lamar | January 29, 2007, 10:15am | #

Cool, I'd love to go to Burning Man. Is there a time machine that can take me to 5 minutes ago?