That depends who you listen to. There are apparently a number of people who are saying they have received cease and desist letters from ReactWorld.
From their point of view, they should have gotten better legal advice. From what I’ve read, they received their trademark and immediately began acting on it by posting about their plans and sending C&D letters.
This was a mistake. Apparently when a trademark is issued there is a thirty day challenge period when people can argue that it was wrongfully issued. It’s much harder to challenge the trademark after the thirty day period has passed.
Most companies get a trademark and then keep it very quiet for the next thirty days in order to avoid calling attention to their new trademark while it’s vulnerable to being challenged. The Fine Bros didn’t do this and now people are lining up to challenge their trademark.
I watched the original video and saw that yes, they did show the formats they were talking about, and that was way before I saw the “damage control” video.
Ha. They took the videos down.
Disclaimer: this is not to be construed as an official statement from the USPTO.
The word “react” by itself has not been trademarked by Fine Brothers Properties. They did file an application to register the word as a trademark, along with six others which contain the word. Of those, “elders react”, “teens react”, and “kids react” have been approved as of this post.
Actually, the rescinded the whole ordeal, renounced their trademarks, and reversed all content ID claims:
Complete with an apology! Sometimes good things happen.
The ongoing conversation on the live stream link I posted is hilarious.
Wow!
I am stunned, amazed and truly heartened by this development.
I feel like the world is a slightly better place than I might have thought!
People on reddit seem to think it is not sincere, it’s only b/c they losing subscribers and not because they actually admit they were wrong. I’m not sure what to think… I hope it is sincere.
Hey, I just watched the best X-Files episode in more than 13 years and I’ve had a good day overall; I’m inclined to believe them for now.
I’d like to believe them but it’s being handled too “neatly” for me to buy it 100%.
The first two statements they made were in videos, which, are now taken down. This “retraction” is not even connected to their YouTube channel directly. They are simply trying to move on and pretend it didn’t happen, hoping people will forget when next weeks internet with hunt rolls around… (by saying with hunt I am not saying they didn’t deserve the reaction)
This has always been one of my favorite parody’s about them and I’ve watched it every so often for the last two years. Well, never before has it been so true as it is now.
^ That totally fucking rocked!
Non-zero-based Y-scales make me react … poorly.
I’d be kinda disappointed if it was the subscribers, as it wasn’t really that many (as people have mentioned). I’m more inclined to think other Youtubers talked them out of it - Catie Wayne could make them do anything. 
Sure, the raw numbers are insignificant, but the trend is what mattered. It wasn’t slowing down. And the amount of negative press they were getting for it wasn’t letting up.
And no one believes them now that they know the other stuff they did, like getting Senior react taken off YouTube (despite predating them) or how they attacked Ellen and Jimmy Kimmel. None of that was related to this trademark stuff.
People who do that are very clearly all about the brand, and would have been perfectly fine with this had it not blown up in their face.
I’m still not sure I can watch their shows anymore, since the whole point was that slightly happy feeling I got when watching, which has been replaced with anger.
No official statement here, either.
FWIW, their trademark applications have yet to be killed.
I think most of us would like to do anything to Catie Wayne.
PR experts … what should The Fine Bros be doing right about now?
Thank you for explaining it to me. I really have no idea how the whole thing works.