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Glee forced to change its name. A case of greed?
Foxywarrior
Posts: 375 Forum Member
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www.thewrap.com/glee-fox-united-kingdom-trademark-breach-the-glee-club
A chain of comedy clubs has taken television giants Fox to court claiming the series Glee infringes the copyright of its name 'The Glee Club' as they were formed long before the TV series. The ruling, that was lost by Fox, means they may have to re-brand if it continues to be shown in the UK.
How ridiculous. All I see is greed and a money making opportunity by the comedy club (that has already been awarded £100,000). Glee is a popular American term for a singing, dancing and acting college group and there is no way Fox could have known the Glee comedy clubs existed before Fox made the series or indeed imported it to the UK.
Fox are likely to appeal, will be interested to see if they win.
A chain of comedy clubs has taken television giants Fox to court claiming the series Glee infringes the copyright of its name 'The Glee Club' as they were formed long before the TV series. The ruling, that was lost by Fox, means they may have to re-brand if it continues to be shown in the UK.
How ridiculous. All I see is greed and a money making opportunity by the comedy club (that has already been awarded £100,000). Glee is a popular American term for a singing, dancing and acting college group and there is no way Fox could have known the Glee comedy clubs existed before Fox made the series or indeed imported it to the UK.
Fox are likely to appeal, will be interested to see if they win.
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and it DOESN'T infringe either
Of course this is not just about a word, but about the brand.
Exactly. There are plenty of Glee clubs that were around long before the series existed and none of those have sued.
OMG I forgot about that. Funny how the dvds say Top Cat....... Brilliant cartoon
My friend's name is Starbuck and I keep telling him he should open a café and see what they do.
Glee and Glee Clubs date back to the 1700s here in **ENGLAND**, it's not an American thing.
Even in the US, they started in the 1800s so the idea this place has any copyright on it is absolutely hilarious.
Seriously don't know how on earth they won. Absolutely shocking ruling.
As someone pointed out, Glee club has been used since the 18th century in Britain and has been reclaimed in America. Its just a word.
I've seen far worse decisions than this one (ie. YouView vs Total for the trademark 'YourView' in completely different fields of business, despite Harrods not being sued at all for using the term YourView).
The makers of Glee argued that requesting them to change the name of the show was disproportionate and would be costly and complex.
The judge said such an order was not unfair.
He said Twentieth Century Fox could tell viewers that the newly-titled programme had previously been called "Glee". - Daily Telegraph
So the judge is effectively saying that it could be renamed The Show Formerly Known As Glee.
It does seem to be a rather ridiculous suit that smacks of a publicity stunt. The owner of the club said attendance was dropping and tried to put the blame on the show - does he really think people are that stupid that they'd arrive at a comedy club and expect to see the cast of Glee on stage ?
But then I suppose if he does have a trademark on the club then it probably came down to a strict point of law rather than any form of common sense.
Well... if a US company produced a show about a supermarket and called it Tesco, that would clearly be a breach of Tesco's trademark. But producing a show about a glee club and calling it Glee - not The Glee Club - doesn't appear to be the same kind of breach, so it's hard to see why the judge ruled in The Glee Club's favour.
I'm not disagreeing - even though i've never seen the show I do think it's an absurd decision. The only thing that could explain it is if the judge was, let's say, "of a certain age", so looked at it, as i said, from a strict point of law because he'd never heard of the television show.
Trademarks are also something you can't not protect, as you'll lose it.
He is apparently a QC who specialises in IP and patents law and in technology, so it's likely he is well-informed about such matters. Possibly this is a case where English Law is "of a certain age" and needs the court of appeal to bring it into the 21st century?
The little ones have been around far longer than Fox has and that will be to their advantage. Fox should have made sure that the name wasn't taken before they created it, what with The Glee Club being around for a lot longer than Glee has. How could Fox not have known that the clubs existed? They could have done some research to be on the safe side. Microsoft got ordered to change their online cloud service from Sky Drive to One Drive.
A trademark for 'Glee Club' should have never been given. If it does exist it should be rescinded. It's ridiculous thing to be able to trademark, it's a completely generic term. It's no different to 'football club', 'rugby club', 'afterschool club', etc. and there is HUNDREDS of years of prior art to support this.
There have been Glee Clubs since the 1700s. It's a generic term. Neither side (should) own a trademark.