CockyGate

[CommMayo]

Is anyone following the story of CockyGate? In short, a romance novelist trademarked the word "cocky" and started sending letter to multiple authors and threatening legal action. She even got Amazon in on the act and many other romance authors were bullied into changing already published book titles. In response to the intimidation tactic, one author changed the name of her book, The Cocky Cowboy, to The Cockiest Cowboy to Have Ever Cocked.

From what I've read, while Faleena Hopkins was issued a trademark for the use of Cocky in her Cocky Series, she is completely overstepping when threatening action against any other author who dares to use Cocky in a book title. Amazon has since stopped preventing other Cocky titles from being submitted and sold via their formats. In reaction, a cadre of well known romance authors have put a book together called Cocktales in order to raise funds for authors impacted by this and other types of creative obstructionism and another advocacy fund.

[PlanetHauth]

I'd read a little about this, but didn't realize she took it so far! It's a shame the lengths people will go to just to prove they can.I'm sorry to hear that Amazon is getting in on forcing other authors to change titles, too. That's ridiculous.