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The guys discuss the fallout from alocal San Diego blogger who accused San Diego Magazine of stealing her business name. They then answer the question, "I'm a sole proprietor. What is some good tax advice to reduce my year end profit?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right, welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, a business owner, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: And, this time, we have a nice local episode in San Diego. MATT: Well… NASIR: What? MATT: Local for me; not for you. NASIR: Yeah. Well, the topic’s local, that’s what I mean. MATT: Oh, okay. NASIR: It’s about this issue that’s going online with San Diego Magazine, but I’ll let Matt introduce it. He said he has some “hot takes” on it. I’m not sure what a hot take is, but I do have some takes as well. MATT: So, San Diego Magazine, they published their September issue. On the front, it says, “Hidden San Diego.” It’s all these secret things to do and see and I kind of want to see where some of these things are, but I’ll have to buy the issue, I guess. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know if I’m going to protest what they’ve done. But, apparently, what is this? A blog, I think, is what it is. I should probably know this. NASIR: Yeah, it’s a blog. Or it’s a website. MATT: I guess I didn’t go to the website which I probably should have. NASIR: Yeah, you probably should have. MATT: So, there’s a woman, they called her a blogger so I figured she just had a website/blog, but it’s also called Hidden San Diego. So, now, this issue came out and she is very upset because she’s claiming that the magazine essentially stole her idea. She’s been doing this for four years, according to her. Now, she’s basically had her idea stolen and all her hard work. So, this happens, she posts something on Facebook. There’s actually a pretty big backlash against San Diego Magazine. I guess she had a lot of people on her side. And then, San Diego Magazine posts a response about a story they allegedly stole which, I guess, it’s not even really a story they stole. I think it’s more of an idea. We’ll have to link the response so people can read it. But the response is pretty poor in my opinion. It’s really belittling the blogger and this is where I’m torn, I guess. The facts are, I think, in favor of San Diego Magazine, if everything is true, based on what they say; they just did it in the worst, you know, one of the worst ways possible. Like, they could have handled this with a lot more tact and come off a lot more professionally. NASIR: I’m looking at hiddensandiego.net. So, it looks like this is a well-developed site. I mean, there’s a lot of content. It’s not necessarily the best designed site, but it seems like a lot of people do read it and, let’s see, it is a blog, I guess, and it looks like the last post was on October 26, 2014 – a couple of months still. But she’s already talking about how San Diego Magazine, they actually filed a trademark for “Hidden San Diego.” That’s pretty much the issue. MATT: That was probably, like, the most important part of it. Sorry. NASIR: That’s okay. MATT: I thought I’d mentioned that for some reason. NASIR: This is a trademark dispute. And so, what San Diego Magazine did, I think, as far as we know, all they did right now was file a trademark and they have one issue about hidden spots in San Diego. The response, like Matt said, it’s not really well-written which is unusual for a publication of this kind and it does seem kind of petty. But, nonetheless, they do make some arguments that are pretty compelling from a legal perspective. First of all, this blogger did not trademark the term “Hidden San Diego” as far as I know, as far as from what she’s published online. Second is “Secret San Diego,” first of all, it’s not necessarily original an idea. I mean,