Honey Badger Don't Care... Unless You're Cheering On A College Player With That Nickname

from the intellectual-property-gone-mad dept

Tue, Aug 14th 2012 5:43am — Mike Masnick

Not too long ago, we wrote about how lots of fans of (then) Kentucky basketball player Anthony Davis were creating and buying bootleg merchandise based on the phrase "fear the brow!" which is associated with him because of his prominent unibrow. Of course, after graduating and turning pro, Davis immediately sought the trademark on the phrase, so that only he could profit from it. But now, Stephan Kinsella points us to another college athlete for whom "bootleg" apparel is apparently an issue. LSU football player Tyrann Mathieu has been nicknamed "Honey Badger" after this famous memetastic YouTube video about how "Honey Badger don't care." Not surprisingly, fans of Mathieu want to support him, and have created various apparel and signs and the like, making use of the Honey Badger name, as well as statements from the video. All of this resulted in LSU warning that Honey Badger Does Care and that its "Compliance Office" was sending out cease & desist letters to any products that have the name or likeness of Mathieu, including the phrase "honey badger" accompanied by Mathieu's uniform number (7), his name, image or anything that associates it with LSU.

Now, much of this is because of completely asinine NCAA rules against selling products that advertise student athletes (even without their knowledge or permission). But, the overall concept seems even more ridiculous when you realize that the whole Honey Badger meme comes from somewhere else entirely. Is it really that wrong that fans of Mathieu want to celebrate a player they like?

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Filed Under: honey badger, ncaa rules, trademark, tyrann mathieu
Companies: lsu, ncaa

20 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 6:32am

Apparently Honey Badger don't care because he smokes dope all day.
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Brig C. McCoy, 14 Aug 2012 @ 6:34am

Wonder how his being kicked off the team affects this
"LSU defensive back and return man Tyrann Mathieu will not return to the Tigers this year, as announced by head coach Les Miles at a press conference in Baton Rouge today. " (From Fri, 10 Aug 2012)

...brig
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Nick Dynice (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 7:10am

I think we have a new critter in our midst: the memetroll.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 7:11am

Childish
america inc. sure has a warped sense of reality.

Grow up people.
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TasMot (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 7:18am

This is just overreach by the NCAA
What the NCAA is really saying is "It's not OK unless you give me money". Would somebody just open a shop and sell T-Shirts with all of the top NCAA playes name and numbers on them. Then, the NCAA would have to stop being so stupid, or suspend all of their top players. So let's be "fans" of one school before a big game and make shirts for all of their top players, which would get them suspended before the game, and the other team is then granted a very easy win just playing all of the second string players.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 7:25am

Tyrann Mathieu ate my balls.
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PRMan, 14 Aug 2012 @ 7:47am

Re: This is just overreach by the NCAA
That wouldn't happen. They would just sue the shop owner into oblivion.
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TasMot (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 8:03am

Re: Re: This is just overreach by the NCAA
On what grounds? There is no trademark, copyright or patent. It is the restatment of facts. What charges could they use to sue? NCAA regulations?
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DH's Love Child (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 8:15am

Re: Wonder how his being kicked off the team affects this
I was just going to comment that they're gonna have real issues with this when "Honey Badger" is playing elsewhere since they kicked him out last week...
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 8:27am

I didn't think my opinion of the NCAA could sink any deeper... until this. The whole concept of "student-athlete" has been perverted by the NCAA into an enormous profit making venture. The colleges make tens of millions of dollars and the athletes get what? An education? Not in many cases. Memphis had a ten year stretch where it didn't graduate a single male basketball player. Football is even worse. Dexter Manley (NFL 1981-1991) graduated from Oklahoma State functionally illiterate. The athletes who bring millions to the universities should be paid. In large part they are not given the promised education, instead steered in to general studies programs or joke majors. They have full time GA writing papers and spoon feeding them test prep material. And after their four year a few move on and play professionally, but the vast majority end up not graduating or with a degree that isn't worth the paper its printed on.
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ethorad (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 8:43am

sue colleges?
If you're not allowed to sell products that advertise student athletes, where does that leave the colleges?

After all I'm sure they advertise their courses including comments on current star student athletes. Come study at LSU with Tyrann Mathieu!
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John Fenderson (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 9:03am

The influence of sports
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Sports ruins everything. Not the actual games themselves but the industry.
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Stuart, 14 Aug 2012 @ 10:05am

Re:
This just about sums it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XEq6XYtMVU
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Manok, 14 Aug 2012 @ 10:24am

Wow, John Malkovich !
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 2:54pm

Re:
you mean honey badger ate my bif hairy balls
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 2:54pm

Re: Re:
big not bif
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 2:55pm

Re:
pro lite
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 6:06pm

Re:
With a feminine-sounding name like Tyrann and a nickname like Honey Badger, I'm not surprised.
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btr1701 (profile), 15 Aug 2012 @ 11:28am

Re: Re: Re: This is just overreach by the NCAA
> On what grounds? There is no trademark, copyright or
> patent. It is the restatment of facts. What charges
> could they use to sue? NCAA regulations?

Just what I was thinking. NCAA regs have no force of law and don't bind anyone other than the colleges that voluntarily agree to abide by them.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2012 @ 5:59am

Re: The influence of sports
" Is it really that wrong that fans of Mathieu want to celebrate a player they like?"

Yes
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