While we were all sipping on eggnog and getting ready for New Year’s Eve, Sony was busy filing a trademark on a term that is very well known to fans of YouTube. Apparently, Sony is attempting to trademark the term “Let’s Play.” The trademark filing, discovered by NeoGAF user Seraphis Cain, was made by Sony on Dec. 29.
Now before we begin firing up the torches, grabbing the pitchforks, and start another “Candy” drama saga, let’s actually look at what ‘goods and services’ the trademark would be used for shall we?:
Electronic transmission and streaming of video games via global and local computer networks; streaming of audio, visual, and audiovisual material via global and local computer networks
We don’t know Sony’s intentions so that could mean a lot of different things. Yes, maybe Sony does want to try to claim the term “Let’s Play” for itself. A more likely scenario however, as another NeoGAF user Radio pointed out, is that Sony isn’t trying to claim a term that is used ubiquitously by many gamers, YouTubers, and streamers, but instead, it could be trying to use the term for a specific product, and then protect that term/product combination from the likes of say Microsoft.
In otherwords, Sony may want to create or rebrand a streaming service that it owns using the term “Let’s Play”, and is trademarking it in order to block Microsoft (or some other kind of competition) from doing so. This is all hypothetical though. The trademark filing could very well fail, or not actually be something that materializes in the way that we are thinking.
Personal take: Sony probably isn’t so confident to think that they could actually rip a term away from the gaming community and call it their own. It’s more likely them trying to take advantage of the popularity and name recognition of Let’s Plays, to brand something of their own with it. Maybe we’ll hear about it again and know for sure later on in the near future.
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