from the doublespeak dept
Let me do a bit of throat-clearing at the top of this post. As a reminder, the general purpose of trademark laws around the world is to serve as a source-identifier for the public in those markets. In other words, allowing someone to trademark a unique identifier as to a source of a good or service allows the public to be confident that it knows who and from where a good or service is coming from. If you see a Pepsi logo on a can of soda, it’s a Pepsi. If you see something with the State Farm logo on it, it’s for State Farm’s insurance, and not some other company looking to fool you.
Why was that throat-clearing important to this post? Because the Russian government appears to be comtemplating engaging in something like doublespeak as to trademark’s raison d’etre by allowing its state run media organization to cannibalize the trademarks of the once great liberal Russian radio station, Ekho Moskvy.
Russia’s state-run news agency Rossiya Segodnya has applied to trademark the brand of Ekho Moskvy, the liberal radio station that was banned following the invasion of Ukraine, according to Russia’s Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent).
Sputnik Radio, one of several Rossiya Segodnya products, took over Ekho Moskvy’s FM frequencies after it was taken off the air in early March 2022 for spreading “false information” about the Russian military.
Big time scare quotes around the “false information” bit. The station was shut down as part of Putin’s crackdown on any opposing voices as he launched his war of aggression against Ukraine. So now a formal process has begun to look into transferring those trademarks over to Sputnik Radio, a process I absolutely believe will conclude with those transfers having been completed? Why?
Because the theme of Russia for a long time, and over these past couple of years in particular, is an Orwellian theme. The government is looking to take marks that meant something specific in the case of Ekho Moskvy — a liberal viewpoint, dissent, a challenge to the conservative Russian government — and flip them on their head. A form of doublespeak, as I said, where the station that was critical of Putin’s regime suddenly becomes a mouthpiece of the government, under the very branding and logos from before that flip.
Ekho Moskvy’s former editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov compared Rossiya Segodnya’s takeover bid to “rewriting history textbooks.”
“The Ekho Moskvy radio station doesn’t exist on the air and on paper, but Ekho Moskvy is something serious, respectable and honest in people’s minds,” Venediktov told the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. “Ekho Moskvy is part of the history of modern Russia… [Authorities] deprive people of symbols, hope and memory. And the deprivation of memory is one of the main actions taking place now,” he said.
Readers of 1984 will find that this sounds quite familiar. As Orwell wrote: “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” That is what is happening here, perhaps in some small way, but happening nonetheless.
It’s the complete negation of the purpose of the trademarks to begin with, but fits perfectly into the purposes of Putin’s government.
Filed Under: rossiya segodnya, russia, trademark
Companies: ekho moskvy
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