Liverpool FC Also Apparently Attempted To Trademark Widely Used Chant By Football Fans
from the nacho-cheer dept
We were just discussing Liverpool FC, a football club in the UK's famous Premier League, receiving a ton of backlash from the public and other football clubs over its rather audacious attempt to trademark "Liverpool". Now, Liverpool FC claimed that its trademark application was extremely targeted, claiming that it was geared specifically towards the football marketplace. Unfortunately, in the current protectionist trademark era, that doesn't mean much. First, we see trademark holders threaten and sue those across marketplace borders all the time. Second, there are other football clubs in Liverpool, meaning that the trademark application represented a direct threat to their brands.
It turns out this callous attitude towards other football clubs isn't a one-off for Liverpool FC. Recent reporting reveals that the club also has attempted, and then withdrawn, trademark applications for a popular football fan chant that doesn't even originate with Liverpool FC fans.
Liverpool FC made an audacious attempt to trademark the popular terrace chant ‘Allez, Allez, Allez’, it has been revealed. The Reds’ owners FSG made an application to the intellectual property office to trademark the words last November, according to iNews, only to later withdraw it. ‘Allez, Allez, Allez’ has become synonymous with the Anfield faithful having adopted it last year during their run to the 2018 Champions League final.
However, Liverpool were not the first side to adopt the chant, with the song reportedly sung by fans of FC Porto as far back as 2016 and the likes of Genoa, Juventus and Napoli all coming up with their own versions. Fans of Aston Villa, Rangers, Atletico Madrid and even Cardiff City are also said to have appropriated the popular terrace chant.
Making this all the more stupid is that the chant is from a song created by an Italian band in the 80s. So, Liverpool FC fans occasionally use a fan chant appropriated by fans of other clubs, which stems from an Italian band from a few decades ago... and decided to try to trademark it?
So of course there was more fan backlash again, both before and after Liverpool FC had withdrawn its application. The real question is why the club seems to think it needs to lock up language that is generic or common across its geographic area and/or marketplace, to the detriment of everyone else?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: allez allez, fans, football, liverpool, soccer, trademark
Companies: liverpool fc
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The real reason
Because they can? Or, at least, can try.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The real reason
It's worth remembering that Liverpool is owned by a hedge fund manager who also owns the Red Sox. It doesn't surprise me they're trying to aggresively monetize everything with that background.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
When confronted with stupidity at this level.
My brain hurts........
should look good on my CV when applying for a job with these plonkers
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bit to usd
https://www.bitcoinscashout.com/bitcoin-to-usd.php
Bit to usd provides you the best cryptocurrency services across the globe, in a way that is convenient, easy and above all, secure as well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bit to usd
Hmm. Yet more spam creeping in.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This sort of idiotic trademark grabbing nonsense is the natural progression of the English Premier League becoming corporatized, beyond what it was even a decade ago. Trademark everything, wall off as much as possible and drain out as much cash as possible before the whole thing collapses under the slagheap style debt mountains... And hope the local community will foot the bill afterward to save clubs that stopped being part of the community a long, long time ago.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
they should just be thankful they don't have a twelfth man.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Liverpool WILL have to walk alone
Seems to be it would be a supporters group that would have had the potential for a trademark, IF it had been using the song commercially
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Benfica > Liverpool
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So I would recommend to you to use some tools and read articles for example like this one https://clockwise.software/expertise/marketplace/ . There you can learn how to do it in the right way. Because this a trend and you should to follow all the requirements. Because of different ways, you can lose many things. Also, you can follow some youtube channels and get a tutorial from there. But an easy way is to ask some developers company to prepare everything for you!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]