Another mothership??

Just a little post today, because I am being steamrolled by the beginnings of what I think will be a nasty chest cold, augmented by a headache that makes my whole body hurt.

I wanted to ask your opinion of something, though. Lurker Julianne (*waves*) sent me a note saying that she noticed a blog launched last month with the rather familiar title of Postcards From The Mothership.

Hmmmm.

It’s on a blogspot address, and has an unrelated URL. To be honest, I’m not terribly threatened, but I have to admit feeling a little territorial. I don’t imagine there is anything I could, or even want, to do about it. I suppose since I came up with the title, it’s conceivable that someone else could come up with it as well, but I can’t help but feel like someone filched my idea. (It’s certainly not as bad as bitacle.org or any of those splogs, at least.)

What do you think? Would it irritate you to find another blog with your title, or am I just cranky because I’m not feeling well? And how much can anyone ‘own’ anything on the blogosphere? You can own your domain, and slap a creative commons license on your content, but does that cover something like a blog title? Interesting questions….

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

17 thoughts on “Another mothership??”

  1. I’m onside.. that would bug the crap out of me enough to have to self-talk my way out of hunting the person down… and well… going PMS on their ass. On the upside, a quick Google and you appear to be the only game in town as far as the first couple of pages anyway.
    Nothing beats an original. Remember “New Coke”?

  2. I guess I never thought of that. That someone else could be using the same blog name. I just googled “Party of 3” and found a MySpace blog for a teen punk/pop band called Party of 3 in Mesquite Texas. I’m not much bothered.
    But in your case it’s different. It sounds like they’re copying the name on purpose — I mean Party of 3 is a not-exactly-common, but not-unheard-of phrase, but Postcards from the Mothership is very original (I started reading your blog when I saw the title in a friend’s blogroll — the title was quirky and it interested me enough to click and read.) I think in your place I would be more than a little miffed. Cranky? No. Righteously indigant? Definitely.

  3. It would definitely bother me. BUT…did you konw that there is not even a copyright law of sorts for titles of books? You can write a book and title it “Gone With the Wind” if you want…nothing precents you from doing that. I only learned that when my Dad was publishing his books. Interesating enough.
    Now where is the link to this other much less valuable and important mothership??

  4. Andrea, I haven’t. I have no idea what I’d say. That’s why I posted about it yesterday, to get opinions on whether and if so what to say.
    Thoughts?
    P.S. Flipped open my glossy Ottawa Magazine on the weekend, and look whose name is on the very first article!!

  5. Dani – she seems like a fine upstanding citizen. I would like to think that if you asked her nicely and explained the potential confusion among blog-readers she’d consider a change. How about we think of some suggestions? I think even if she renamed it “Phone Calls from the Mothership” or “Typed Communications from the Mothership” or even “Post-it notes stuck all over my Mothership” it would be an improvement, don’t you think? 😉
    p.s I haven’t seen a hard copy of the magazine yet! Are you referring to my toilet article or the profile? I have two in there this month …

  6. Yah, I guess I’ll send her a polite e-mail pointing out the potential confusion.
    It was the profile I noticed, but I’m definitely intrigued enough about the ‘toilet’ article to put on a DVD for Tristan and pull the magazine out of the ‘to read, in your spare (snort) time’ pile…

  7. nice site and all but seeing how much of your heart and soul went into your blog and its name, I would make sure that it is known that you were first and maybe an e-mail to her would be in order just to discuss diplomatically on how to resolve any future issues of confusion :))

  8. It would bother me, but since my blog name technically came from a song lyric, I guess anyone could come up with it. The lyric is ‘the clumsy way we used to kiss’ by a band called Art Brut (they are amazing)… I guess anyone could come up with it.

  9. I’d be irritated. In fact I was even irritated when I discovered that through an error on my part blogger was able to recycle mombie.blogspot.com. Luckily no-one else is claiming to be a smartmouth mombie.
    And I was dismayed to discover that Imperfect Parent has a new column called Mominatrix, a handle I hadn’t figured out how to use yet (but I do sense a hilarious short story brewing in the recesses of my brain on that one). And I had no claim on that one.
    I think you are justified in feeling territorial, and I think an email is a good idea.
    And to keep it weird, she was tagged for a meme by someone named Dani and she mentions it in her top post today.

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