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