Trademarks. Copyrights. Fair use practices. LLC.

Ugh. Are you asleep yet? Does the mere thought of reading through a legalese-laden page send you off into la-la land? If so, accept my apologies now, but please do your best to stick with me through the entirety of this because this is important stuff.
Summary

Don't' want to read any further? That's fine. Please just read the next line and commit it to memory:

If you are going to put on an event, do NOT plan on using the words "Burning Man" or "Black Rock City" or any imagery of the man in any of your promotional material.

If you want to know why, please reconsider your decision to not read the rest of this message.
Evil Corporations

To begin with, I want to make sure everyone understands who I'm referring to when I use the term "Burning Man LLC" or just "the LLC." (Yes, I know that 85% of you know this bit already, so please talk amongst yourselves while I cover this for the remaining 15%.) The LLC is the legal entity that puts on that little event in the desert that we all know and love. Contrary to what some people think, Burning Man is not thrown together by a loose-knit band of volunteer do-gooders. The year-round planning, preparation and execution of an event of this scale requires the resources and stature of a full-fledged corporation, or in this case, a limited liability corporation (LLC).

Like any other corporation, Burning Man LLC owns several copyrights that restrict the use of certain terms and imagery related to the LLC. At first glance you might think this type of restriction is contrary to the very nature of Burning Man. If you look a little closer, however, you'll quickly see that this is a good thing and you'll understand why the LLC protects its copyrights so stringently.
Keepin' Tabs on the Goods

The most common copyright infringements the LLC watches out for are for the terms "Burning Man" and "Black Rock City" and for imagery of the man. This is why you won't find Hertz offering a "Burning Man Special" on car rentals. This is why you won't find t-shirt vendors set up right outside the entrance to the playa. This is what helps the LLC shut down people selling videos of "Black Rock City Nudists." No one is going to question the benefit that copyright enforcement serves in situations like these. But what about local events? Why does the LLC sometimes hassle people who just want to throw a party for local burners?

Believe me, the LLC has absolutely nothing against local events. In fact, there is strong support for decentralization and fostering events around the world. It is very very important, however, that these be done in an autonomous fashion. That is, although they may be produced by burners and for the benefit of burners, they are NOT associated with the LLC and in no way should they be promoted as such. The LLC does not lend or sell rights to any of its copyrighted material, especially for commercial ventures. Selling t-shirts with the logo of the man is a commercial venture. Charging admission for an event promoted as a Burning Man gathering is also a commercial venture. In addition to the copyright violation, it's not difficult to envision a scenario where the LLC could be exposed to liability issues if there were any legal claims lodged against an event that was promoted as a Burning Man gathering.
Play Hard, Play Fair, Nobody Hurt

So, what can you do and not do if you want to put together an event that is somehow rooted in Burning Man and you want to attract the local burn community?

1. Choose your wording carefully! By now you know to avoid things like "Burning Man" and "Black Rock City" so you're stuck with the remaining 472,000 words in the English language to craft a description of your event. Be unique! Create something new! Remember, the point here is not to somehow weasel around the LLC's copyrights... throwing an "Ignited Human" party may not violate the copyright, but it's rather lame.
2. Perform a reality check. Look at the promotional material you have created and ask this question: Would someone who is not terribly familiar with Burning Man think this is an "official" Burning Man event? If so, go back to step one.
3. When in doubt, contact me BEFORE you send anything to the printers. I can help clarify sticky issues, or if needed, can put you in touch with someone on the LLC media team. Trust me, it is much much much better to resolve these type of things at the very beginning rather than after the posters have been stapled up.

Still reading? Good. Now let's talk about the exceptions to these rules.

By now you may have seen one of the flyers for Seacompression, our local decompression party. Notice that this event is called "Seacompression" and not something like "Seattle Burning Man Decompression Party." In fact, notice that there's no direct text reference to Burning Man anywhere on the flyer.

But wait... the flyer does show the man and that was very clearly one of the prohibited items. How can this be?

This can be because the LLC reserves the right to grant a bit of leeway to events that:

1. happen in close cooperation with a regional contact (hey, that's me)
2. funnel proceeds back to the burn community, either national or local.

In the case of Seacompression, I worked with the planners in the early stages to get things going in the right direction, and they are sending all leftover money to the Black Rock Arts Foundation. And just to make sure everything was OK, we had a member of the LLC media team review and approve the flyer before it went off to the printer. Consider this a prime example of how things are supposed to work.