Have you heard all the hoopla about the Dervais family and their attempt to trademark the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading”? These are the folks from Path To Freedom whom I’ve long admired for their interesting lifestyle. In the midst of Pasadena, California, they have turned their ordinary city lot into a productive mini-farm. I posted about them a couple of years ago on my other blog, The Well-Groomed Hippie.
Unfortunately they have made the ill-conceived decision to trademark terms which should belong to the movement as a whole and have even sent letters to bloggers, libraries, etc. informing them that they may not use those terms unless they give the Dervais family credit. Crunchy Chicken has blogged about this and is following the subject closely.
As news about this spread across the blogosphere, people have gotten pretty fired up about the issue. There is now a Facebook group, Take Back Urban Home-steading(s), which is helping to spread the news. Today has been declared a day of action and the goal is to blanket the web with the terms “urban homesteading” and “urban homesteader”. In addition, there is a petition circulating which seeks to cancel the trademarks.
I’m deeply saddened that the Dervais family would allow greed to cast a negative light on what should be a positive movement. I do hope they will reconsider. Crunchy Chicken is collecting posts on this subject which you can read here. Stay tuned for more information.
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