It has come to our attention that there is active sharing of intentional misinformation regarding many aspects of the Buy Nothing Project. Today, we want to focus on one of them: Our trademarking of the Buy Nothing Project name.
Yes, we currently hold a trademark of our Buy Nothing name in several countries. We are protecting our Buy Nothing name for two main reasons:
We need to protect our name so that everyone who sets up a Buy Nothing community is able to use the Buy Nothing name to signify their participation in this movement.
We need to protect our Buy Nothing name so that we can continue using it as we build new and freely-given support structures and resources to nurture this movement and make it more widely accessible.
Anyone who tells you that we intend to make you stop using the name Buy Nothing to describe your non-commercial gift economy on any platform, offline or online, is misleading you. We are happy to see so many communities embracing our name and identifying themselves as part of the Buy Nothing Project. Every Buy Nothing community is part of a global movement that has been fueled by millions of people who have joined our experiment to Give, Ask, and express Gratitude with their neighbors.
PS: Have you visited our Freesources page recently? We have a lot of freely-given tools you can use to build your own Buy Nothing community right now. Check back often, as we add new Buy Nothing resources as quickly as we can create them.