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Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Aug 14th 2012 5:43am




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

Companies:
lsu, ncaa


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

from the intellectual-property-gone-mad dept

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?

20 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 14th, 2012 @ 6:32am

    Apparently Honey Badger don't care because he smokes dope all day.

     

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    Brig C. McCoy, Aug 14th, 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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    •  
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      DH's Love Child (profile), Aug 14th, 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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  •  
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    Nick Dynice (profile), Aug 14th, 2012 @ 7:10am

    I think we have a new critter in our midst: the memetroll.

     

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    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 14th, 2012 @ 7:11am

    Childish

    america inc. sure has a warped sense of reality.

    Grow up people.

     

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    TasMot (profile), Aug 14th, 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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    •  
      identicon
      PRMan, Aug 14th, 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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      •  
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        TasMot (profile), Aug 14th, 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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        •  
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          btr1701 (profile), Aug 15th, 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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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 14th, 2012 @ 7:25am

    Tyrann Mathieu ate my balls.

     

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  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 14th, 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), Aug 14th, 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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  •  
    icon
    John Fenderson (profile), Aug 14th, 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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    •  
      identicon
      Anonymous Coward, Aug 17th, 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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  •  
    identicon
    Manok, Aug 14th, 2012 @ 10:24am

    Wow, John Malkovich !

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]


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