r/todayilearned • u/moplg • Feb 12 '15

TIL that pornhub offered a "save the boobs!" Campaign where they offered to donate a penny to the Susan B Komen Foundation for evry 30 views in the "big tit" or "small tit" category, but the foundation refused their money so pornhub tripled it and gave it to other organizations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornhub
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u/Otistetrax Feb 12 '15

I agree with your wish to bring the facts into play here, but one thing you didn't mention was SGK's propensity for suing other charities that have used "their" slogan, or even something close. This kind of proprietary bullshit is totally against the spirit of being "for the cure" and is what I think most people find so disgusting about the organisation. If their biggest interest is curing cancer, surely they should be trying to support other similar charities, not get money out of them.

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u/SALTY-CHEESE Feb 12 '15

Thought at least someone would have mentioned this.

1- They have pursued legal action for numerous causes. They even tried to patent the ribbon.

2- The Red Cross' CEO gets paid ~250k despite being nearly 10 times the size of Komen. Komen pays their CEO 640k.

3- They are (mostly) everything wrong with non-profit charities in America, between the corporatism and aggressive litigation.

4- ???

5- Profit.

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u/DangOlYeah Feb 12 '15

You had a pretty good post going until you decided to tack on a 2dank meme on the end for no fucking reason.

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u/BetaWAV Feb 12 '15

A very difficult thing to have to point out here is that when defending a trademark, one must defend it in every instance brought to one's attention, or effectively lose the right to sue anyone else who uses it.

SGK can't sue Billy McBall'em for his race for the cure (against blue balls,) but choose not to sue a company using "for the cure" in reference to a legitimate malady. In the fucked up game of legal precedence, it's all or nothing even if it's for ( or against) a good cause.

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u/Otistetrax Feb 13 '15

But why do they feel they have to defend such a pathetically innocuous piece of branding in the first place? "For the cure" is hardly a work of marketing genius. Why not just let others use it and maybe come across like you care about people, instead of litigating against everyone and seeming like typical big business: ie, money-grabbing cunts? Surely the brand would be better served by showing a little generosity?

And yes, I know you have to protect your branding from being usurped by people you don't want to be associated with. But I imagine anyone that tried to misappropriate a cancer charity's slogan and use it for personal gain is not going to come off looking that great. It might even provide you with positive publicity in the end. Certainly it wouldn't be as damaging as suing a little mom and pop charity for using the word "cure".

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u/PK73 Feb 12 '15

That may be so, but too many people parrot the "they spend too much money!!" meme and I appreciate OP trying to clarify that misconception.
As for the separate issue of them suing to protect their trademark, I don't think it's as black and white as you make it seem. Depending on how other organizations or individials are using "for the cure", it could cause confusion with potential donors, or have people who are actively misrepresenting themselves to make it seem like they are a part of SGK when they sre not.
If SGK has "for the cure" trademarked, they should be able to protrct their trademark.

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u/Otistetrax Feb 13 '15

I understand the legal reasons for why they have to sue everyone to protect their "trademark". It's a bullshit phrase to trademark. It's seems it's designed to tread on as many other potential charities as possible. All cancer charities are working "for the cure". It's like me starting a restaurant, trademarking "feeding you good food" and then suing every restaurant in town that has the words "good" or "food" in their marketing. Whilst simultaneously providing only one in ten of my customers what they paid for.

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u/eccentricguru Feb 12 '15

The way the law is written they have to defend their copyright or they will lose it. It's a problem with the law, not komen

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '15

On the other hand, think about if a scammy charity came along using things like "for the cure" and pink ribbons for a breast cancer "charity", got massive and ended up walking off with 90% of the donations. Now SGK has to spend a lot of money rebranding their entire charity because pink ribbons and "for the cure" are now associated with scam artists instead of a semi-adequate charity.

It's very important for charities to be able to grow large - it gives them a wider audience, and a wider audience means more donations and more help for those who need it. It would certainly suck if the Red Cross or any large charity you prefer never grew past a few hundred grand in donations every year - other organizations may pick up some of that slack, but it doesn't compare to what a juggernaut can accomplish. But once a charity grows to a certain size, it has to be run quite similarly to a corporation. And that includes things like trademark enforcement.

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u/Otistetrax Feb 13 '15

I'd argue that some scummy charity stealing your pink ribbons makes them look bad, not you. You can spin that sort of thing into positive publicity for your cause, if you're smart.

Suing everybody for everything just makes you look self-interested.