The American Idol People Bullied A Local County Fair Out Of Its 'Yolo Idol' Event For Some Reason

from the idol-hands dept

Fri, Oct 12th 2018 1:36pm — Timothy Geigner

American Idol, the famous singing competition franchise that has been around for roughly ever, has mostly stayed out of our headlines for years, save for some hiccups centering around how technology has messed up their voting processes. That is set to change, as FremantleMedia, the company that owns the trademark rights for the franchise, has decided to lawyer up against the trademark threat presented by a local county festival holding a singing competition.

Here’s hoping that the residents of Yolo County can help the event come up with a new name for the popular talent contest after a “Cease and Desist” order was received from the attorneys for American Idol.

On Sept. 17, according to Marty DeAnda, Yolo County Fair Entertainment Director, was reached by Michael J. Salvatore of the law firm Holmes Weinberg PC and FremantleMedia, which owns the trademark rights to American Idol and “those marks in connection with entertainment services and related products and services.”

The article goes on to note that the folks behind the festival contacted the lawyers and explained they hadn't intended on this infringement, with an agreement to change the name of the Yolo Idol competition. It all ends up sounding perfectly amicable... except that this is pure bullying on the part of Fremantle. And entirely unnecessary bullying at that. As with many of the trademark issues we discuss here, it bears pointing out that the county's use of the word "idol" doesn't magically confuse the public into thinking that American Idol was branching off into county festivals. On top of that, there is both the lack of real commerce in question here, not to mention the lack of harm as evidenced by the length of time in which Yolo County put on its competition under that name without Fremantle even catching wind of it.

The “Yolo Idol” name only recently came to FremantleMedia’s attention, even though the Yolo Idol contest has been around for more than 14 years, drawing hundreds of participants and audience members every summer.

DeAnda and outgoing Yolo County Fair Director Rita Moore understand the necessity of complying with the order (and have done so) and that American Idol is a registered trademark. However, they want the Yolo talent competition to continue, albeit with a new name.

“I called their lawyer directly” said DeAnda. “I professionally and politely explained to him that the Yolo County Fair derived zero revenue from the event and in fact The Yolo County Fair invests a great deal of money to produce the event.”

Customer confusion, actual use in commerce, and why after all these years this is suddenly infringement are all open questions that will remain unresolved as Yolo County is capitulating. And, while it's understandable that the county doesn't want to go through the time and expense to push back against Fremantle for all of this, that reality obviously still sucks. It would be much better if bullies like Fremantle would receive the pushback they deserve.

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Filed Under: american idol, trademark, yolo, yolo county, yolo county fair, yolo idol
Companies: fremantlemedia

19 Comments

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Glenn, 12 Oct 2018 @ 1:54pm

Maybe some Japanese talent agencies will collectively sue Fremantle for diluting their concept?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2018 @ 2:33pm

"AMERICAN IDOL" is trademarked for a number of different music related products and services but "entertainment" is not among them.

"AMERICAN IDOLS" is trademarked for:

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Entertainment in the nature of a musical group

There are several trademarks for "IDOL" but those who own "AMERICAN IDOL" do not own any of them. There is no reason that Yolo Idol should need to change their name.
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anonny, 12 Oct 2018 @ 2:57pm

Japan better watch out then... Estimate for when they go after the Idolm@ster franchise?
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DaveInCanada (profile), 12 Oct 2018 @ 3:03pm

Lawyers
“I called their lawyer directly” said DeAnda. “I professionally and politely explained to him
..
So the small town hick lawyer acted better than the Hollywood version did. Weird.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2018 @ 3:18pm

Perhaps the Australian City of Fremantle could sue them for confusing people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremantle
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Oct 2018 @ 3:23pm

Re: Lawyers
Not so weird. It is dependent upon who is paying the various parties.

Those from Hollywood are paid by people who fear, to an unreasonable degree, any encroachment on their IP. Those from small towns are concerned with the rights of their clients, and while little things called fair use or we are not commercial and have been doing this for 14 years without harm to you, is important to them, it is apocryphal to the other.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2018 @ 3:46pm

Marketing opportunity
If I'm a representative for The Voice I'm calling them right now offering marketing materials to call it Yolo Voice.
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Lazy Bones, 12 Oct 2018 @ 5:27pm

Substitute the word Idle for Idol
See Subject heading
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John Smith, 12 Oct 2018 @ 6:48pm

The reason might be that companies who don't protect their rademarks can have that used against them in the future unda failure-to-mitigate doctrine.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2018 @ 7:13pm

Re:
No judge is going to hold it against a trademark holder if they don't pursue someone who isn't infringing on their mark.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2018 @ 8:22pm

Re:
What the fuck is a rademark?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2018 @ 3:01am

Re: Re:
Perhaps they meant ragemark, as that is what the company is doing, going into a rage over use of a common word.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2018 @ 9:45am

This is crappy but..
Yolo County should really consider changing its name.
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John Smith, 13 Oct 2018 @ 10:36am

Re: Re:
I've seen references to the need to defend one's mark or lose the right to defend it, since not defending it "waters it down" or something like that.

Even if it's not absolute, a trademark holder might fear this, or might simply notwant others copying the use.

It's about the only rational eason I could think for such a case.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2018 @ 2:44pm

Does Pop Idol have a copyright on fake scripted shows?

their "winners" are chosen before the series even begins filming. Public voting by premium rate phone number is utterly ignored and they just make up shit.

As long as they admit they for example got 3million voting calls, they can say 2,999,999 for contestant A and 1 for contestant B, or 1,000,000 each for A B and C, and no-one can tell.
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Coyne Tibbets (profile), 13 Oct 2018 @ 5:45pm

Re: This is crappy but..
From Wikipedia:

Due to the acronym YOLO meaning "you only live once," Yolo County and the unincorporated community of Yolo have unusual place names.

So they should not change their name.They should file for a top-level domain name. And sue Fremantlemedia for any use of those four words in any movie titles.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2018 @ 7:24pm

Re: Re: Re:
You are correct, that is a thing. However, many lawyers and mark holders misinterpret it to mean that they must pursue anything that might possibly, in any way, no matter how remote, be infringing.

However, as one judge put it:

The owner of a mark is not required to constantly monitor every nook and cranny of the entire nation and to fire both barrels of his shotgun instantly upon spotting a possible infringer.

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2018 @ 5:12pm

In related news, a well known silicon valley cell phone manufacturer has filed lawsuits against grocery and produce providers worldwide. In a strongly worded letter, lawyers demand that the infringes stop selling all products that create any confusion with the company's trademark name.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2018 @ 7:20pm

Re: Re: Re:
Wrong again, bobmail.
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