So, bad news, the bill package containing KOSA, the act that would basically mandate invasive age verification across the internet, is gearing up to be discussed on December 1st 2025, giving all indications of trying to shove it out while everyone's distracted by the holidays.
Not only is KOSA in it, albeit maybe watered down, but it's packaged with a bunch of other censorship bills including the arguably even more dangerous App Store Accountability Act.
Now, I've talked about this before, so I'll be brief, but long story short the bill is so badly written that it basically requires age verification for any website where you can download a program.
This would fuck over everything from Github to The Internet Archive to Mario Fangames Galaxy, to even any site that lets users submit stuff for upload, it is an existential threat to the open internet, I cannot emphasize that enough.
Now is the time to find your House member and call them ASAP to kill this bill, especially if they're on the Energy and Commerce Committee that will be debating this, ideally right before the Thanksgiving holidays and right after, so they know you're paying attention.
If they're Dems tell them it'll be used to censor queer kids, if they're Repubs tell them it'll be used to censor small businesses and innovation, either way tell them about how age verification has been a disaster in Britain and has already lead to major leaks of information where it's been implemented, and especially how KOSA and the ASAA would harm your favorite sites, to give it that personal touch.
We've beat this shit before, and we can beat it again, we just gotta get at it!
Also, the poster above is available under a CC-By 4.0 License as long as I, Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as the creator.
The character, by the by, is an existing one called Sister Marian, and if you want to read where she comes from...
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Photos by Xer S. Rowan, Creative Commons Attribution license
I'm a disabled hobby photographer taking photos for the love of photography and sharing them under a free-to-use-as-long-as-I-am-properly-credited license. For more information about me, this project, and the license I use, visit linktr.ee/DoingItForTheExposure.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
To my surprise, my life's work has turned out to be a long series of attempts to get people to engage with the abstract, distant issues of tech policy before it's too late. This is hard, because people naturally devote their attention to things that are concrete and immediate (for very good reasons!).
For nearly 25 years, I've worked with my comrades at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to raise the salience of these abstract, technical ideas. I've come up with metaphors, parables, framing devices, narratives, and then…a dirty little word: enshittification. It turned out that this word, and the minor license to vulgarity it confers, was the secret to unleashing a tide of interest in these issues, to my immense surprise and gratification.
But I don't confine my efforts to coming up with words to engage people on these matters. For several years now, I have been developing myself as a collagist, combining public domain images with Creative Commons-licensed materials to create several collages every week that aim to illustrate these abstract, technical issues in an engaging, visual way:
This got a lot easier with the 2025 publication of my international bestseller Enshittification, and not just because a lot of people read that book. It was also because the US edition, from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux had a gorgeous cover:
That cover featured a (literally and figuratively) iconic variation of the "pile of poo" emoji, with angry eyebrows and a grawlix-scrawled black censor's bar over its mouth. It was designed by the brilliant Devin Washburn of No Ideas studio:
https://www.noideas.website/
Devin's poop emoji became my go-to visual shorthand for illustrating stories about enshittification, an instantly recognizable way to identify my subject matter:
I liked it so much I ordered a couple hundred enamel pins and a couple thousand vinyl stickers featuring the design, and handed them out for free to people I met on my 33-city book tour. Everywhere I went – and every time a video went out showing me wearing the pin – I was inundated with requests to buy this stuff. But my pins and stickers weren't merch (stuff you could buy) – they were swag (stuff I gave away). I had no interest in getting into the merch business!
But you folks kept asking, and also, I really loved that design, so I offered Devin a cash buyout for the rights to his enshittification poop emoji and then I released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license that lets you use it any way you want, including for commercial products, provided you attribute it and link back to the original:
With all proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the most profound and powerful disenshittifying force on the planet Earth!
But because this is CC licensed, you can make your own merch and swag! I made this great print-on-demand lawn flag my for front garden so I could let my enshittification flag fly:
My goal here is to create a free, open, remixable visual language for talking about platform decay, not owned by me or anyone, a part of the commons. Use it to illustrate anything you want, especially if you want to analogize enshittification to other phenomena, like politics or other non-digital phenomena. Semantic drift is good, actually!
You can get the high-rez of Devin's enshittification poop emoji from the internet's three most important repositories of Creative Commons licensed work.
I've supported Creative Commons literally since the very beginning. I worked with Larry Lessig, Aaron Swartz, Matt Haughey and Lisa Rein on the launch of the original licenses in 2002/3, and my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was the first book released under a CC license:
https://craphound.com/down/download/
Creative Commons is one of the most amazing feats of stunt-lawyering ever attempted, and it has been an unmitigated success, with tens of billions of works licensed CC, including all of Wikipedia. Like EFF, CC is a charitable nonprofit that depends on individual donors to keep its work going. The org turned 25 this year (along with my career as a novelist), and they've launched a giant fundraiser to carry their work forward.
As my contribution to the fundraiser, I've provided them with 375 signed, numbered copies of Canny Valley, my (otherwise) not-for-sale, extremely limited edition book of my collages, with an intro by Bruce Sterling. The book was designed by type legend John D Berry and printed at Pasadena's Typeworks, a century-old, family-owned print shop, on 100lb Mohawk paper, with a PVC binding that will last for generations:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/10/canny-valley/
CC tells me there's still some copies of Canny Valley left in the fundraiser. If you're intrigued by my collaging and want to own this very strange and beautiful little artifact, here's where to go:
A library of Solarpunk art and story seeds helping you imagine a better climate future!
A friend of mine launched this website yesterday, it's meant to promote human-made Solarpunk illustrations, so that we'll see less blurry, wobbly, weird fucking skyscrapers covered in vague green blobs attached to Solarpunk-related articles etc.
All the images available are under some version of the Creative Commons license! You can use them for zines, blog posts, papers, social media banners and so on, as long as you give credit and don't restrict others' access to them either.
If you yourself have an illustration you think would be a good fit, you can submit it here :D
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
WotC is trying to pull off a licensing clawback just two years after the OGL Debacle, and I figured out how to punch back.
I drafted a legal argument against Wizards of the Coast - and you can too!
WotC is trying to pull off a licensing clawback just two years after the OGL Debacle, and I figured out how to punch back.
If you've played Dungeons & Dragons for any length of time, you've probably heard of the legendary "Deck of Many Things" – one of the game's most iconic magical items. It’s a lot of fun, and it has always been something associated with brand-name Dungeons and Dragons.
This article is about the legal usage of “Deck of Many Things,” and about how Wizards of the Coast seems to be trying to take it back in 2025 after giving it to the community in 2023. And it’s about how you can hit them where it hurts.
The History of the Deck
The "Deck of Many Things" has been a staple of D&D since the earliest days of the game. It's been included in every edition and is as much a part of D&D lore as dragons themselves. For years, this term was effectively the property of TSR and then Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro.
But something important happened in January 2023. After the massive backlash to their proposed OGL changes, Wizards of the Coast – through Executive Producer Kyle Brink – announced that they would be releasing the Systems Reference Document version 5.1 under a Creative Commons license:
Kyle’s announcement goes on to say: “This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don't control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It's open and irrevocable in a way that doesn't require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there's no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There's no going back.”
This was huge news! For those who don't know, releasing something under Creative Commons essentially means giving it to the public with very minimal restrictions. In this case, they used the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows anyone to share, copy, redistribute, adapt, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially – as long as appropriate credit is given.
The SRD 5.1 document, which spans hundreds of pages, explicitly includes "Deck of Many Things" on page 216, along with a full description of what it is and how it works. By releasing this under CC 4.0, Wizards effectively released this term into the public domain, allowing anyone to use it in their own works.
The gaming community praised this move as a step toward rebuilding trust after the OGL debacle. It seemed like Wizards had learned their lesson and was committed to supporting the community that had grown around their game.
The Betrayal
Fast forward to April 2025. WotC announced that they were revising their SRD 5.1 with a new and improved SRD versioned 5.2. For 5.2 they listed a bunch of milquetoast fantasy terms that I’m sure they’re very proud of, and kind of squeeze in a couple of footnotes. Those footnotes say that they’re going to be clawing back the term “Deck of Many Things,” as well as “Orb of Dragonkind.”
Well lo and behold, on the USPTO’s trademark search database, Deck of Many Things is in fact a pending word mark, with the latest application updated in April of 2025.
The serial number is 97260475, and you can look it up yourself on the USPTO website. This is what it looks like:
So here’s the problem. This application effectively attempts to claim exclusive rights to a term that Wizards had already released under Creative Commons just two years earlier.
Why They Can’t Do This
So why can't Wizards of the Coast trademark "Deck of Many Things" now? Let me break it down:
The Creative Commons 4.0 license they chose is explicitly IRREVOCABLE. Here's what the license actually says in Section 2(a)(1):
"The Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material."
That means once Kyle Brink proudly published the SRD 5.1 under this license on that fateful day in January of 2023, they could never take any of it back. The license explicitly prohibits imposing "additional or different terms or conditions" on the licensed material.
Attempting to register a trademark on material you've already licensed to the public represents an attempt to impose additional restrictions on that material, a violation of a term of the Creative Commons 4.0 license. Specifically it is a violation of Section 2(a)(5):
“No downstream restrictions. You may not offer or impose any additional or different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological Measures to, the Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the Licensed Rights by any recipient of the Licensed Material.”
My Attempt to Challenge the Trademark
When I discovered this trademark application, thanks to Dark Kelsey, I decided to take action. The USPTO has a process called a "Letter of Protest" that allows anyone to submit evidence showing why a trademark shouldn't be granted.
I drafted a carefully formatted Letter of Protest following all the USPTO guidelines. My evidence was straightforward:
The official announcement of SRD 5.1 being published under Creative Commons
A copy of page 216 through 218 from SRD 5.1 showing "Deck of Many Things"
The full text of the Creative Commons 4.0 license highlighting its irrevocability, etc.
I TRIED to submit this through the USPTO's electronic filing system, confident that the evidence was clear and compelling.
The Setback
Unfortunately, when I tried to submit the Letter of Protest, I received this error message:
"This form cannot be submitted because it has been more than 30 days from the date the application published in the Official Gazette."
I had missed the narrow window to submit a Letter of Protest. The USPTO only allows these submissions either before publication or within 30 days after publication in their Official Gazette. By the time I discovered the application, this deadline had already passed.
This was frustrating, but it doesn't mean the fight is over.
The Path Forward
If the USPTO does grant this trademark – which they shouldn't if they're properly interpreting the prior Creative Commons licensing– there's still another option: filing a Petition for Cancellation with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).
A cancellation petition allows anyone who believes they would be damaged by a trademark registration to challenge it even after it's been granted. The filing fee is $600, and the process typically takes about three years.
For this specific case, the grounds would be:
The mark doesn't function as a trademark because it was published under an irrevocable Creative Commons license
The applicant's actions in seeking the trademark contradict their prior grant of rights
The process is more involved than a Letter of Protest, but it's completely doable even without an attorney. The TTAB provides clear guidelines, and everything can be filed electronically through their online system.
Conclusion
What Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are trying to do here is repugnant but not surprising. They're attempting to double back on a license they've already granted – something they've developed a pattern of doing every couple of years now.
First it was the OGL controversy, where they tried to revoke a 23-year-old license. The community pushed back and won. Now they're pursuing trademark terms they explicitly released under Creative Commons, trying to AMEND a creative commons license that they just published (5.2 amending 5.1), perhaps hoping no one would notice or care.
This is more than just a legal technicality – it's about trust. When a company publicly garners praise for licensing away intellectual property, only to sneakily try to reclaim it later, they're betraying the very community that supports them.
The irony here is that Wizards didn't even need to do this. They could have trademarked specific implementations or product lines featuring the Deck of Many Things without trying to claim ownership of the term itself after releasing it to the public.
So why am I telling you all this? Because you don't need to be a lawyer to challenge corporate overreach. The systems exist for regular people to participate in these processes. Whether it's a Letter of Protest or a Cancellation Petition, the tools are there for you to use.
If you care about not getting bamboozled by incompetent, dishonest corporations, consider getting involved. Watch for these kinds of trademark applications, be ready to file your own challenges, and spread the word when companies try to walk back their commitments.
Simon Says: An Addendum
After publishing this article, I received some valuable feedback here from Simon, an academic lawyer in the UK who teaches trademark law. Simon pointed out an even more straightforward legal issue with Hasbro's trademark application that deserves attention, one that transcends the Creative Commons argument.
The fundamental problem? "Deck of Many Things" likely isn't even eligible for trademark protection in the first place.
Under trademark law (both in the US under the Lanham Act and similarly in the UK), a valid trademark must be distinctive – it must have the capacity to identify goods as coming from a specific source and not another. But here's the kicker: "Deck of Many Things" products have been created by numerous publishers over the years, not just Wizards of the Coast.
This widespread use means the term has essentially become descriptive or potentially generic within the gaming industry. It no longer primarily signals "this is a WotC product" but rather "this is a type of magical card deck with random effects" – a concept that's been implemented by countless game creators.
Think about it – when you hear "Deck of Many Things," do you automatically associate it exclusively with Wizards of the Coast? Or do you think of the general concept that's been part of gaming culture for decades?
This distinctiveness requirement exists for a good reason. Trademark law isn't supposed to give companies monopolies over common terminology in an industry. It's meant to prevent consumer confusion about who made a product, not to let corporations fence off widely-used concepts.
So beyond the Creative Commons issue, there's this even more basic problem: Hasbro is trying to trademark something that likely fails the fundamental "distinctive" requirement of trademark law.
This remains an example of a corporation trying to claim exclusive ownership over community cultural elements that have been widely used and understood for decades. Whether through Creative Commons “revisions” or by ignoring basic trademark principles, the effect is the same – an attempt to monopolize what should remain in the public sphere.
