Chooseco LLC is an American

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

company based in

Waitsfield, Vermont Waitsfield is a New England town, town in Washington County, Vermont, Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,844 as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It was created by a Vermont charter on February 25, 1782, ...

. Founded in 2003 by author R. A. Montgomery and publisher Shannon Gilligan, the company primarily releases reissues of Montgomery's ''

Choose Your Own Adventure ''Choose Your Own Adventure'' is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actio ...

'' series of

gamebook A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

History

Montgomery had approached

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

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.

Lawsuits

In March 2007, Chooseco filed a lawsuit against car manufacturer

DaimlerChrysler The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacture ...

, claiming that the company's advertising campaign for their

Jeep Patriot The Jeep Patriot (MK74) is a front-engine five-door compact crossover SUV manufactured and marketed by Jeep, having debuted with the Jeep Compass in April 2006 at the New York Auto Show for the 2007 model year. Both cars, as well as Dodge Calibe ...

model, bearing the tagline "Choose Your Adventure", infringed on Chooseco's trademarks. The suit was ultimately settled. Chooseco filed a similar trademark lawsuit in January 2019 against movie streaming platform

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

following the release of '' Black Mirror: Bandersnatch'', an

interactive film An interactive film is a video game or other interactive media that has characteristics of a cinematic film. In the video game industry, the term refers to a movie game, a video game that presents its gameplay in a cinematic, scripted manner, ...

produced and released by Netflix that uses the "choose your own adventure" phrase. 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. 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 ''Rogers v. Grimaldi'', 875 F.2d 994 (2d Cir. 1989) is a trademark and intellectual freedom case, known for establishing the "''Rogers'' test" for protecting uses of trademarks that implicate intellectual freedom issues. Factual background Act ...

''), and a request for Chooseco's trademark "Choose Your Own Adventure" to be cancelled on the basis that it had become genericised. Netflix later conceded on the case and settled with Chooseco on undisclosed terms in November 2020.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.cyoa.com/ 2003 establishments in Vermont Choose Your Own Adventure Book publishing companies based in Vermont Waitsfield, Vermont