'fO-(")tO - 'shäp this.

July 7, 2006 3:14 PM

"Trademarks are not verbs.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.” [via]

Adobe Adobe® has a strict policy on how they want your buddies to use their trademark, even as slang. Proprietary Eponyms are increasingly common, with “google, ('gü-g&l) tr. v.” entering the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Is photoshop next?
posted by yeti (65 comments total)

They have to make at least a slight attempt to defend their trademarks, otherwise they won't hold up in court when people actually do violate them.
posted by tumult at 3:17 PM on July 7, 2006

Adobe was saber rattling over this two years ago, weren't they? Is it summer reruns over there at digg?
posted by mathowie at 3:19 PM on July 7, 2006

Old old old.
posted by muddgirl at 3:21 PM on July 7, 2006

I seem to recall Xerox had this same problem (with photocopying -> xeroxing) 30 years ago, but I can't find an article to back that up.
posted by dw at 3:22 PM on July 7, 2006

Hormel, Google, Adobe: You make me laugh.
posted by Floach at 3:24 PM on July 7, 2006

I seem to recall Xerox had this same problem (with photocopying -> xeroxing) 30 years ago, but I can't find an article to back that up.

I do remember an old magazine with an add from Xerox tut tutting the use of the word "Xerox" as anything other then a brand name. The copy said:

you can't xerox a xerox on a Xerox
^{_{but you can copy a copy on a Xerox©™ copier}}

posted by delmoi at 3:29 PM on July 7, 2006

I Hormeled when I read yeti's Metafiltering.
posted by jimmythefish at 3:29 PM on July 7, 2006

Apologies if this is old. A couple recent news articles mention Adobe's stance, but I didn't find discussions about this before.

anyway, noob mistake.
posted by yeti at 3:30 PM on July 7, 2006

TIVO is getting pissy about people always 'TIVOING' things.
posted by UseyurBrain at 3:31 PM on July 7, 2006

I don't know whether this is really a problem. On the one hand, the brand name becomes the generic term and loses some of its prestige. But on the other, the brand must be successful for this to occur in the first place, and it increases brand awareness as everyone turns to the named product instead of competitors. If you look at the times when it has happened before (Bic, Hoover, Xerox, Tanoy...) it is easy to conclude that it is detrimental; most of these brands lost prestige. However, I don't see why they can't use some smart marketing to turn the tide in their favour and establish Photoshop as the only image editing brand worth caring about.
posted by Acey at 3:32 PM on July 7, 2006

In fact, I think Google might be one to buck the trend. Time will tell.
posted by Acey at 3:33 PM on July 7, 2006

Rollerblading, escalator, hoovering, scotch tape, Lego, xeroxing, band-aid, linoleum, aspirin, kleenex, etc etc. The list is huge, and I don't think Adobe can't stop "photoshopping".

Google might be ok - while the brand is now used as a verb, it is never used to refer to competiting brands, the way that escalator or "legos" is. I guess it's used as a vaguer "web search" sense though, so perhaps there is brand danger there.
posted by -harlequin- at 3:34 PM on July 7, 2006

oops. 'I don't think Adobe can stop "photoshopping"'.
posted by -harlequin- at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2006

And, harlequin, I don't think any of those brands becoming common nouns diminished their monopoly or name-recognition.
posted by bukharin at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2006

Fuck 'em. If you don't want your product to become so successful, widespread and popular that it's turning into common household terminology, stop selling it.
posted by SenshiNeko at 3:39 PM on July 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

I hoover my penthouse and photoshop my online likeness with total disregard for the consequences, having flickred my image I google it over and over again. In my defence I dance like a fitting epileptic, in the worst state of drunkenness using ill-formed roller skates on a tiny ice rink installed on the roof of a poorly maintained third world bus driving in a reckless manner during the cold of the night that seems to have no end, along loose rocky mountain paths that dream of being thought of as roads whilst doing so. Consequences? Pah!
posted by econous at 3:43 PM on July 7, 2006

Maybe Adobe should spend less time obsessing about its product being used as a verb and more time improving said product.
posted by blucevalo at 3:44 PM on July 7, 2006

Have you guys seen the most recent Fark Image Enhanced Using Adobe Photoshop Software contest? It was great! Someone enhanced the an image of a monkey and put a hat on his butt using Adobe Photoshop software.

It was very characterized by or causing great merriment!
posted by parallax7d at 3:46 PM on July 7, 2006

I seem to recall Xerox had this same problem (with photocopying -> xeroxing) 30 years ago, but I can't find an article to back that up.

I had no luck googling it, either.
posted by Mr. Six at 3:47 PM on July 7, 2006

The legal slang term is "genericide" - which is when a trademark becomes so popular in common use that the term no longer exclusively describes the specific product.

There is a list of genericized trademarks at Wikipedia: from allen wrenches to zippers
posted by thewittyname at 3:49 PM on July 7, 2006

blucevalo, as a graphic design student, I've got to ask if you know of any better product. Do you?
posted by Richard Daly at 3:49 PM on July 7, 2006

What tumult said - they're legally obliged to defend their trademark every so often.

But, really, what are Adobe going to do if I use the word 'photoshopping'? Sellotape Sticky-backed plastic me to a hoover vacuum cleaner and rub me down with vaseline petroleum jelly?
posted by jack_mo at 3:52 PM on July 7, 2006

As if Procter and Gamble wouldn't kill to have facial tissue commonly referred to as "Puffs"
posted by Hicksu at 3:54 PM on July 7, 2006

So. Where can I find an illegal torrent of Adobe® Photoshop®?
posted by thanatogenous at 3:55 PM on July 7, 2006

That's it. From now on, I'm referring to digitally manipulated photos as being "Gimped."

Frankly, I don't see how using photoshop as a verb is a dilution of trademark. It would be if they had any competition, perhaps, but the fact is, 99.N% of the time, when you say something was photoshopped, it really was manipulated in Photoshop©®™ (all rights reserved, offer may not be valid in Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands). That being the case, I'd think Adobe would be downright pleased that photoshop has become a verb.

We have sort of a counter-example with podcasting. Although it doesn't name the product, it obviously plays on the iPod. Microsoft and others who want to talk about podcasting without calling it podcasting tie themselves in knots coming up with generified circumlocutions. Apple, on the other hand, rushed to add podcasting features to iTunes, knowing that it would help cement the link between the product and the medium.
posted by adamrice at 4:01 PM on July 7, 2006

I could really use a Kleenex about now.
posted by mathowie at 4:03 PM on July 7, 2006

Poor Bayer - they lost out on both Aspirin and Heroin brand morphine alternative.
posted by Guy Smiley at 4:03 PM on July 7, 2006

bukharin : "I don't think any of those brands becoming common nouns diminished their monopoly or name-recognition."

I dunno. I never knew rollerblade was a brand, nor escalator, nor linoleum, nor aspirin, so it must have done a little damage to their name-recognition.
posted by bugbread at 4:15 PM on July 7, 2006

How many of these are really completely generic? For instance, no one actually sells their "kleenex". They all still sell "facial tissues". Same thing for 90% of the Wikipedia list. No one touches the actual brand name.

But there are a few, like aspirin, that really are generic. What's the difference?
posted by smackfu at 4:18 PM on July 7, 2006

Are these some type of sumrapan?
posted by Captaintripps at 4:21 PM on July 7, 2006

Aspirin® is a registered trademark of Bayer AG
posted by wfc123 at 4:28 PM on July 7, 2006

Depends on where you're at. From Wikipedia:

On March 6, 1899 Bayer registered it as a trademark. However, the German company lost the right to use the trademark in many countries as the Allies seized and resold its foreign assets after World War I. The right to use "Aspirin" in the United States (along with all other Bayer trademarks) was purchased from the U.S. government by BJ Drug, Inc. in 1918. Even before the patent for the drug expired in 1917, Bayer had been unable to stop competitors from copying the formula and using the name elsewhere, and so, with a flooded market, the public was unable to recognize "Aspirin" as coming from only one manufacturer. Sterling was subsequently unable to prevent "Aspirin" from being ruled a genericized trademark in a U.S. federal court in 1921. Sterling was ultimately acquired by Bayer in 1994, but this did not restore the U.S. trademark. Other countries (such as Canada and many countries in Europe) still consider "Aspirin" a protected trademark.

posted by MikeKD at 4:34 PM on July 7, 2006

In the seventies, Lego actually had a notice inside the box that "Lego" was the name of the company; the toys were "Lego Bricks" and this was how we were to refer to them.

Xerox did indeed, a few decades back, go on a campaign to expunge the verb "xerox" from the English lexicon. I specifically recall that, at that time, whenever anyone mentioned making a copy of a document, they'd say "I'm going to xerox this." or "This needs to be xeroxed." Apparently, the word was becoming so common that they were in danger of losing their trademark. But a few years later, everyone was saying "photocopy" instead. Apparently, Big Broth- er, Xerox's efforts were successful.
posted by Clay201 at 4:38 PM on July 7, 2006

Good luck, Adobe. Hey there are some windmills up near Livermore they can go after next!
posted by fenriq at 4:40 PM on July 7, 2006

Language Log on this stuff:

Trademark grammar ("The bottom line: it is raving, wild-eyed lunacy to say that no trademarks are correctly used as nouns or that they always have to be attributive modifiers. No company respects these principles; no company could.")

Trademarks as Adjectives? ("But of course companies do in fact routinely use their marks as nouns, and indeed, sometimes as verbs. Scott Paper Company ran an ad for Viva paper towels some years ago that showed people using the product to clean various objects and persons against a jingle that ran, 'Viva the this, Viva the that, Viva the Chris, Viva the cat�' and so on.")

But a few years later, everyone was saying "photocopy" instead.

I still say "xerox." I'm stickin' it to the Man!
posted by languagehat at 4:53 PM on July 7, 2006

BEHOLD ! Look, you heathen, behold the show of somebody refusing success !

NO ! Not a thousand lawyers, not a thousand MBA, not a thousand CEOs could reach this peak of asstardness !

WHO?! in his right mind would refuse such a symbol of popularity for a trademark as being incorporated (without paying) into everyday common language !

Ask Dupont why didn't they trademark Nylon. Certainly the marketeers hyperbole "choosing to allow the word to enter the American vocabulary as a synonym" is a fruit of today in which brand is more relevant than product. Yet Adobe would be absolutely nowhere in the photography business if their product wasn't among the best if not the best...so why whine and bitch about a trademark being used as a verb ? I guess there must be a reason in lawyers paralell, surreal universe.
posted by elpapacito at 4:53 PM on July 7, 2006

I love the way they expect people to speak with little ®s in stuff. If they even wanted us to say "I used Photoshop to edit this" I'd give them, like, one point out of five thousand. But "The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software." How does one even pronounce that?

And even when one uses them, one can still get it wrong: "INCORRECT: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped."

Even leaving aside the fact that the usage they dislike is a tribute to the best and therefore most widely stolen bitmap image editor. Goodness knows what they'd make of Photoshoplifting.
posted by imperium at 4:54 PM on July 7, 2006

i violate these when i get the chance because the ads in the professional journals (i can't remember which ones, though) are so silly about it...i remember seeing one from clorox about not using their brand in place of 'bleach'

BEST PRACTICE: "I photoshopped this image in GIMP."

and it's annoying enough to have a jingle stuck in your head, but one as ridiculous as 'i am stuck on band-aid brand 'cause band-aid's stuck on me' makes me want to kill someone...
posted by troybob at 5:08 PM on July 7, 2006

CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.”

edited, sure.
enhanced? that's a tad presumptious.
posted by juv3nal at 5:09 PM on July 7, 2006

Watch me tardoshop their logo.
posted by zadcat at 5:12 PM on July 7, 2006

there is a long and frustrating history of individuals/corps trying to control how language changes
posted by edgeways at 5:14 PM on July 7, 2006

Someone should really MetaTalk this thread.
posted by yhbc at 5:23 PM on July 7, 2006

That's it. From now on, I'm referring to digitally manipulated photos as being "Gimped."

The GIMP is great. Highly recommended.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:29 PM on July 7, 2006

As the great philosopher Calvin once opined:

"Verbing weirds language"

(The one with the stuffed tiger, who did you think?)
posted by lumpenprole at 5:49 PM on July 7, 2006

I'm not sure that any of the images I've ever photoshopped were enhanced.
posted by hoborg at 6:15 PM on July 7, 2006

I'm not sure that any of the images I've ever photoshopped were enhanced.

More specifically can one really say that the adding of a set of balls to every chin except your own in a highschool yearbook photo is an enhancement at all? Because otherwise I really have no use for Adobe's image editing and photo enhancement chinsack adding software.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:36 PM on July 7, 2006

anyway, noob mistake.

No, it's cool. As can be seen from the torrent of "FUCK YOU, ADOBE!!" posts in this thread, lots of people don't realize companies fight these battles not because they actually care, but because they're legally required to.

Does anyone honestly think that Adobe wants to prevent "photoshop" from becoming the default verb to describe digital photo editing? Of course not. It cements their product as the gold standard.
posted by cribcage at 6:39 PM on July 7, 2006

Fuck 'em. If you don't want your product to become so successful, widespread and popular that it's turning into common household terminology, stop selling it.

Bears repeating. Hey idiot marketers and trademark lawyers? kill yourselves already These kinds of hysterics just leave incredibly sour tastes in the mouths of your customers. Don't do it. We'll just laugh at you - and if you actually attempt to enforce it for whatever hair-brained reason, it'll just harm your brand. Deal with it already.

Here, let's see a real world demonstration:

CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHa. That's funny. Are you fucking high? Kick down, man. That must be some good shit.

The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software, my fucking ass.
posted by loquacious at 6:45 PM on July 7, 2006

cribcage writes "they're legally required to"

Yeah lack of action would imply lack of interest. While this makes sense if one wants to increase the cost of trademark squatting, it also adversely affects little companies who don't have the financial strenght to fight in court, yet would find trademarking somehow beneficial.

But anyway I guess a judge would reject a complain against an ordinary user using the Photoshop trademark in a way that doesn't actually, but maybe only remotely potentially damage Adobe by subracting or reducing monetary revenue.

Yet question is : if I start writing around that photoshop is the suxor, does that fall under libel/trademark violation/freedom of speech ?
posted by elpapacito at 6:50 PM on July 7, 2006

I said Swiff it! Swiff it good!
posted by schoolgirl report at 6:51 PM on July 7, 2006

Heh. I still have letters from Portakabin (portable building, please) and Rollerblade (inline skate) telling me off.

blucevalo, as a graphic design student, I've got to ask if you know of any better product. Do you?

The lack of a better product doesn't mean that Photoshop couldn't be much, much better. Well, it could certainly load in a few lifetimes fewer. Software is the best example of competition working:

QuarkXpress: Came on by leaps and bounds when it was fighting PageMaker, then did fuck-all for years until InDesign arrived.
Internet Explorer: Stagnated badly after Netscape, would have stayed that way without FireFox
Photoshop: Zoomed ahead seemingly on momentum, but has no real competition and is getting a little bizarre. And takes years to launch.
posted by bonaldi at 7:16 PM on July 7, 2006

There are many non-branding alternatives:
The image was TARTED-UP
The image was RUINED
The image was DISCOLORED
The image was FALSIFIED
The image was COLOR-MATCHED
The image was PASSED THROUGH SOME DUMB-ASS FILTER
The image was SO CRAPPY TO START WITH WE COULDN'T REALLY HURT IT NO MATTER WHAT WE DID....
and of course WE ERASED THE MOLES AND MADE THE BOOBS BIGGER

...and who really cares if it was ABODE PHOTOSLOP or just GIMPY?
posted by hexatron at 8:27 PM on July 7, 2006 [3 favorites]

TIVO is getting pissy about people always 'TIVOING' things.

Ha. I laughed when an NYT computer columnist recently said he was on a mission to make TIVO a generic verb. No one I know in North Carolina likes (or even uses) Tivo; we all use a cable DVR service. DVR is a much better generic term.

Re: Adobe - linking to a legalese document is hardly fair. Of *course* Adobe's lawyers are going to publish a hilariously stupid take on "photoshop" as a verb. What else could they do?
posted by mediareport at 8:49 PM on July 7, 2006

they're legally obliged to defend their trademark every so often

No, they're legally obliged to defend their trademark always. Permitting any infringing use is evidence of dilution.

Note that "defending" is satisfied by the definition "sending a C&D that we know we cannot enforce", so mean lawyer letters are in, but a lawsuit still costs real money and is rarely necessary.

People always overreact to these announcements. Of course they're not going to do anything if you say "photoshopped" on your blog, or MeFi. They do, however, expect the NYT and other respectable publications to comply, and generally they do. They absolutely expect any business partners -- from value-adders to retailers -- to comply. Everyone else? There's no threat -- they're toothless. Laugh it off.

he was on a mission to make TIVO a generic verb

That's nonsense. As long as the trademark holder defends it according to the legal tests enshrined in case law, it will not become generic.
posted by dhartung at 11:49 PM on July 7, 2006

I find the Adobe language misleading at best (but really, I think it's disingenuous). Not only do they use the word Photoshop as a stand-alone noun, they tell us that the word is trademarked. Therefore I find it completely contradictory on their part to effectively tell people that the word Photoshop can only be used when it is within the expression: 'Adobe® Photoshop®'.

They own 'Photoshop'. They use 'Photoshop' as both a noun and an adjective without it being in the expression Adobe® Photoshop®.

Hypocritical imbeciles.
posted by peacay at 12:17 AM on July 8, 2006

"people don't realize companies fight these battles not because they actually care, but because they're legally required to."

I think they do actually care. There seems to be a view being argued that a brand becoming commonplace in the language strengthens the brand and is thus secretly a good thing, but it seems the opposite to me.

For example: Of two mostly identical-looking items, which would people buy:

LAMPSHADE $7.99
IKEA lamp curtain $6.99

Most will go for the brandname they know (Ikea) over the generic, doubly so because the generic costs more for some reason.

That "reason" is that Ikea is actually the generic, while "Lampshade" is the trademark of the original innovator and quality brand. But since most customers were unaware that Lampshade was a brand not a noun, the brand becomes worthless, because all it denotes is what kind of product it is, no brand registers in the mind of the buyer.

("Lampshade" wasn't a trademark as far as I know, but since not everyone is unaware that "rollerblades" isn't a description of the item, it seemed that a fictional example would work equally for all :-) OTOH, maybe lampshade was a brand. Who knows :)

The reality is that companies want their brands to go as close to the line (of becoming a widespread term) as possible, but never become so widely used that they become a generic reference for the type of product, as opposed to specifically that company's product. I imagine that factions in Adobe are genuinely concerned, in addition to dotting their legal i's and crossing their t's.

Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do (mostly nag and whine) before you piss people off. I imagine most of what you can do is limited to advertising and requirements for how your product is displayed/whatever by partners/distributers, etc.

What I wonder about is Google's product placement in the movie "Hitch" - they specifically and prominently use google as a verb, and you expect from the logo closeups that it's paid advertising, so it seems Google deliberately tried to get their brand abused.

Could this be used against them in a trademark dispute?
posted by -harlequin- at 12:22 AM on July 8, 2006

sidebar: that photshoplifting link above lead me to istoleyour.com (which has just become one of my new favourite domain names) and a very interesting collection of juxtaposed Polaroid® images. [a few NSFW].
thanks, imperium!

on-topic: I know that Adobe® has to defend its interests, but it still all sounds so petty and lame, you know?
posted by I, Credulous at 3:26 AM on July 8, 2006

Dear Adobe,

Do I give a flying rat's ass how you want me to speak? No, I do not. So, from now on, I shall use the verb "adobe" when I want to describe the act of one party trying to control the language of others for profit. e.g. "Some tissue-making company tried to adobe me when I used the noun kleenex to describe thier product, in spite of it having not been made by Kleenex. I told them to shove off."

love,

eustacescrubb

p.s., when you refer to my username, the correct usage is "Eusatacescrubb the Almighty Most Wonderful Son Of Heaven Who Is Better Than I." This applies only to Adobe, its employees and representatives.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:45 AM on July 8, 2006

That's very funny. You go Adobe.

I photoshop stuff all the time, but I quit using Photoshop quite some time ago. It's bloated and slow. Now I use Paint.net. It be free.
posted by jaded at 5:22 AM on July 8, 2006

1. Attempts to force a change on the English language is doomed to failure. Edmund Spenser tried and failed; George Bernard Shaw tried and failed; Benjamin Franklin tried and failed; Adobe will try and fail. The language evolves the way it wants to evolve. Trying to force a change is like trying to force people not to have sex. They'll do it anyway.

2. Despite history repeatedly showing the truth of point 1, people will try anyway. Edmund Spencer tried; George Bernard Shaw tried; Benjamin Franklin tried; Adobe is trying. People will always have sex, and -- knowing this -- odd people will always try to stop people from having sex.

3. Whether or not it's in the dictionary, "to photoshop" is already a verb. I've heard it used by many people, and not always be specialists/designers. So Adobe has already failed.
posted by grumblebee at 5:39 AM on July 8, 2006

eustacescrubb writes "Eusatacescrubb the Almighty Most Wonderful Son Of Heaven Who Is Better Than I."


Hey you forgot S.O.B. !
posted by elpapacito at 5:58 AM on July 8, 2006

These companies actually take out advertisements in writing magazines telling wanna be authors not to use their trademarks as verbs.

I always thought this was a really dumb move on their part - I mean isn't the point of spending millions of $ on branding supposed to make the name the first thing that comes to your mind when you're looking for a product in that category? So isn't the fact that someone says "Pass me a Kleenex" just helping to perpetuate their brand name, even if what they get handed is a Scott's tissue?
posted by Zinger at 6:27 AM on July 8, 2006

Hey you forgot S.O.B. !

Is that Italian humor? Or needless meanness?
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:41 AM on July 8, 2006

I'm arriving way late to this one, but since it hasn't been pointed out yet:

The only situation where these rules are enforceable is a party other than the trademark owner using it commercially. If you use it non-commercially, it comes under freedom of speech principles.
posted by jam_pony at 2:32 PM on July 8, 2006

Once I Adobied a photo. I was very unhappy with the results. Who wants to look at a photo with dry mud smeared over it?!
Why would anyone associate quality software with dried mud, anyway? I don't get it.
posted by Goofyy at 4:23 AM on July 9, 2006