Chooseco

Chooseco LLC is an American publishing company based in Waitsfield, Vermont. Founded in 2003 by author R. A. Montgomery and publisher Shannon Gilligan, the company primarily releases reissues of Montgomery's Choose Your Own Adventure series of gamebooks.[1][2]

Chooseco LLC
TypePrivate
IndustryPublishing
Founded2003 (2003)
Founders
Headquarters
Waitsfield, Vermont
,
U.S.
Key people
Shannon Gilligan (CEO)
ProductsChoose Your Own Adventure
Websitecyoa.com

History

Montgomery had approached Bantam Books in the 1970s with his idea for "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels based upon a concept created by Edward Packard and originally published by Constance Cappel's and R. A. Montgomery's Vermont Crossroads Press as the "Adventures of You" series, starting with Packard's Sugarcane Island in 1976. The initial books were popular, and the series took off with additional authors, with publication between 1978 and 1998, with over two hundred fifty million books sold in thirty-eight languages. In 2003, Montgomery and his wife Shannon Gilligan opted to form Chooseco to republish some of the classic titles of the series, create new titles, and option the franchise for other media.[3]

Lawsuits

In March 2007, Chooseco filed a lawsuit against car manufacturer DaimlerChrysler, claiming that the company's advertising campaign for their Jeep Patriot model, bearing the tagline "Choose Your Adventure", infringed on Chooseco's trademarks.[4] The suit was ultimately settled.[5]

Chooseco filed a similar trademark lawsuit in January 2019 against movie streaming platform Netflix following the release of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, an interactive film produced and released by Netflix that uses the "choose your own adventure" phrase.[5][6] The company has also sent cease and desist notices to developers of indie video games on the itch.io storefront for using the term "choose your own adventure" to describe their game.[7]

Netflix had responded to Chooseco's suit with a number of defenses, including the assertion that the use of the term was artistic expression protected by the First Amendment (see Rogers v. Grimaldi),[8] and a request for Chooseco's trademark "Choose Your Own Adventure" to be cancelled on the basis that it had become genericised.[9] Netflix later conceded on the case and settled with Chooseco on undisclosed terms in November 2020.[10]

References
  1. Lodge, Sally (January 17, 2007). "Chooseco Embarks on Its Own Adventure". Publishers Weekly.
  2. Shafrir, Doree (August 24, 2009). "Why Choosing Your Own Adventure Can Really Pay Off". Jezebel.
  3. D'Ambrosio, Dan (January 15, 2019). "'Choose Your Own Adventure' publisher sues Netflix over 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch'". USA Today. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  4. "Vermont publisher sues over Jeep ads". ABC Money. March 29, 2007.
  5. Gardner, Eriq (January 11, 2019). "Netflix's 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' Leads to "Choose Your Own Adventure" Trademark Lawsuit". The Hollywood Reporter.
  6. Chmielewski, Dawn C. (January 11, 2019). "Netflix's 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' Sued Over Use Of "Choose Your Own Adventure"". Deadline Hollywood.
  7. McAloon, Alissa (December 9, 2019). "Indies hit with takedowns over trademarked 'Choose Your Own Adventure' term". Gamasutra. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  8. Cho, Justin. "Chooseco v. Netflix: Who Will Get to Choose Their Own Adventure?". Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  9. Robertson, Adi (February 28, 2020). "Netflix asks court to cancel the Choose Your Own Adventure trademark". The Verge. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  10. "Netflix Chooses Settlement to End Trademark Lawsuit Over 'Black Mirror'". The Hollywood Reporter. November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
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