35 crypto companies got together to make a change dot org petition called “Bitcoin Deserves an Emoji”.

F that

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    201·
    4 months ago

    I wouldn’t think Bitcoin has, or can, be trademarked or copyrighted, as it is an open-source protocol/technology where even the creator is unknown?

    It’s still the name of a specific product/service. The issue is partly trademark/copyright, but also partly a matter of neutrality. The Unicode Consortium want to ensure that they’re not directly or indirectly endorsing any specific products. If they added a Bitcoin logo, then you’d see every other crypto lining up to get their logos permanently installed on every person’s devices, too. Free advertising for life on 99.99% of phones would be hard to pass up.

    • ricecakeEnglish
      231·
      4 months ago

      I mean, we have a symbol for effectively any currency that anyone can or wants to fill out the paperwork for and can demonstrate the basics of “this is a meaningful symbol with more than transient relevance”.

      They added ₿ in 2016.

      https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/category/Sc

      • Scrollone@feddit.itEnglish
        12·
        4 months ago

        So, if there’s already a symbol in Unicode, the petition doesn’t make any sense. They should ask Google and Apple to display the symbol in the emoji list, with a control character to force it as emoji.

        • ricecakeEnglish
          4·
          4 months ago

          Totally. It’s double weird, because it’s not a petitionable issue, it’s a form where you make your case and a committee decides, and they already have the symbol and they just seem to want it to be usable like 💲, which isn’t a thing.

    • beeb@lemm.eeEnglish
      71·
      4 months ago

      Surely the Tokyo tower is a specific product then? 🗼It costs money to visit, aren’t the other towers jealous?

      • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
        12·
        4 months ago

        https://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#Faulty_Comparison

        The Tokyo Tower🗼(a specific building) does not justify adding the Eiffel Tower.

        Many historical emoji violate current factors for inclusion. Once an emoji is encoded it cannot be removed from the Unicode Standard.

        It was added when Unicode Consortium had different guidelines. They don’t accept specific buildings anymore.

        Under automatically declined:

        Specific buildings, structures, landmarks, or other locations, whether fictional, historic, or modern.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      34·
      4 months ago

      It’s a specific type of thing, but it’s not a brand. Nobody owns the trademark for Bitcoin. Anyone can buy, sell, or mine Bitcoin. It’s no more a specific product than dollars are a specific product.

      If they added a Bitcoin logo, then you’d see every other crypto lining up to get their logos permanently installed on every person’s devices, too.

      Is there a problem with that? This isn’t “advertising”, these are unicode symbols. There are unicode symbols for all kinds of things. Every currency has unicode symbols, why not cryptocurrencies?