Winter Is Coming

Story.

So a lawyer at HBO actually sat down and wrote a vicious take-down notice targeting a 13-year old autistic girl. Shame on HBO.

In some senses it is perfectly legitimate – HBO owns a trademark on the phrase “Winter is coming” and are legally required to protect their trademark to keep it. Now you could quite reasonably argue that a trademark on such a simple and widely used phrase is something that should never have happened.

But any normal rational person (even a lawyer) should stop and think: “What am I doing here?”. Shouting at a 13-year old for doing nothing more than painting a picture and giving it the wrong title without thinking “No, despite the legality of it, this is just wrong.”?

HBO needs to admit it is in the wrong here.