FUBU told BUFU by Court
Posted May 25, 2006 07:21 PM
FUBU was a major client of the firm I worked for after law school. I've read so many depositions and watched countless interviews that I know everything there is to know about the history of that company.
Hilfiger was also a major client. My first post ever cited the "parody" case where Tommy Holedigger pet perfume successfully defended a claim of trademark infringement. I worked on that case and expected as much.
Given that background, I was surprised when I saw that a decision came out against GTFM, LLC (that's the Licensor for the FUBU marks) who tried to sue Universal Studios (the production company for the movie How High) for the use of BUFU logo in the film:
The characters poke fun at the FUBU name that plaintiffs use in their advertising-as an acronym for the motto, “For Us, By Us”-by using the made-up name “BUFU”-as an acronym for the phrase, “By Us, Fuck You”-in reference to one of the main characters' fictional “fashion line” of clothing. In addition to being a satirical play on words, “BUFU”-a transparent transportation of the letters in FUBU-is intended to be a parody of the persona that FUBU symbolizes in plaintiffs' advertising.United States District Court,S.D. New York. GTFM, LLC, FUBU Records, LLC, and GTFM, Inc., Plaintiffs, v. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS, INC., and Universal Music Group, Inc., Defendants. No. 02 CV. 0506(RO). May 16, 2006. Ira N. Glauber-Jaffe & Asher LLP, for Plaintiffs. Floyd A. Mandell, Kristin J. Achterhof-KattenMuchin Zavis Rosenman, for Defendants.
Thankfully, however, it wasn't my old employers who were slammed by the Judge on this one.
Update: The Editor of Blawg Review writes:
The New York Post article gets an essential point of the parody wrong.BUFU in the movie How High is an acronym for BUY us, fuck you!
An essential element of the humor of the parody is the commercialism of the FUBU logo. It's the play on the word "buy" that sets up the "fuck" if you get the parody.
Here's the transcript of the relevant scene from the movie:
What the hell are you wearing?
- BUFU! - BUFU?
"Buy us, fuck you!"
Get out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
"Buy us, fuck you."
Peter Lattman, at the WSJ Law Blog has it wrong, too.Is it clear from the reasons for judgment if Judge Richard Owen "gets" the parody, or is everybody involved in the case so taken by the f-word in the parody logo that they failed to get the joke?
It appears to me from looking at the script and the opinion that everyone missed the BUY=commercialism part of the joke, but not sure that would justify me calling the opinion FUBAR.
Good catch by Ed. though. Maybe, Universal's lawyers can fill us in.