Don't Say YUUUP! Or You Might Get Sued
from the ownership-society dept
The latest example of ownership society gone mad involves the star of a reality TV series, Storage Wars, suing a rapper, because they both say "YUUUP!" Dave Hester, the reality TV guy, registered YUUUP! as a trademark earlier this year. Trey Songz, the rapper, says he's been using YUUUP! since 2009, but never registered a trademark -- which is perfectly reasonable. It seems worth pointing out here that you don't have to register a trademark. Just using it can give you a common law trademark, which is plenty powerful -- especially in this case, where it seems like Songz would have priority.But, really, that's getting way too far down into the legal weeds. Let's remember what we're talking about here: two people fighting over who can say "YUUUP!" Can we just agree that that's insane, and there should be nothing wrong with multiple people saying YUUUP? I say YUUUP!
Filed Under: dave hester, storage wars, trademark, trey songz, yuuup
