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Michael Jackson Estate goes after popcorn website

this one settled during a mediation talk. Waiting to see if any details will be available.
 
I see the popcorn site is still up and running so at the very least the MJ Estate haven't been able to negotiate an immediate halt to the use of the site.
Perhaps they will allow the site to run until the domain name expires on 30th November 2019?? I think that would be unusual though.

I guess it's possible they have been unable to asert their right successfully in the 'popcorn category' and so GGB will carry on.

To be honest I always thought MJ Estate or Sony already owned 'KingOfPop.com' - GGB muct have been quite excited when they realised they could buy it and run it for their business, capitalising on MJ's nickname. It's quite a coup.

I see the MJ Estate do own quite a few similar domains including:

kingofpop.net
kingofpop.club
kingofpop.biz
kingofpop.online
AND OTHERS


But strangely they only seem to buy them for a couple of years at a time. I wonder why they don't just pay for 10years. It's not as if they won't need to protect them later.




Anyway, back to the issue - the civil case.

I find it laughable that GGB would try to argue that KoP is "ubiquitous" and that "it would be undesirable to have an association with Michael Jackson given that his reputation prior to his death was not always viewed as terribly good or wholesome". "ubiquitous" hasn't been true since the 80s, but While there may have been some truth in that statement about MJ's undesirability before June 2009, there was certainly much less truth in it when they registered the name in 2012! That's roughly around the time one of the world's biggest drinks manufacturers (Pepsi) printed MJ's image on 1billion bottles/cans, together with the name 'King Of Pop'! They also featured MJ footage in TV adverts around the world. Note that Pepsi did not actually print MJ's name on their products, only his sillhouette, "King Of Pop" and "BAD25". I guess Pepsi and MJ Estate realised those things were enough. MJ's image is tied closely enough to the phrase "King Of Pop" that there is no need to print his name. That's good evidence right there that GGB are grasping at straws.

A quick poll would also prove GGB wrong that "King Of Pop" is ubiquitous. I guarantee if I walked down ANY street in the USA (in fact many countries) today and asked "who is referred to as the King Of Pop?" over 98% of the replies will be "Michael Jackson" followed by a "hee hee" or "Shamone" for good measure, possibly followed by them grabbing their crotch (as is the way when a casual person refers to MJ). I'm not even talking about a single generation here. You could ask anybody from 80 to 8 (even younger) and the same answer would be received. It would be the same for Elvis...."who is 'The King'?" Everyone replies "Elvis".

It's a no brainer.
 
^^An association before death would have been undesirable since his image was not wholesome? Should have been used as evidence in IRS case.
 
MJTruth said:
I see the popcorn site is still up and running so at the very least the MJ Estate haven't been able to negotiate an immediate halt to the use of the site.
Click to expand...

they settled on thurday/friday and they have a month - until April 10 - to do the settlement terms. So we will know in a month if they will stop using the website and king of pop name.

there are a lot of settlement possibilities such as estate might agree them use the name in exchange for some licensing fees etc. We will see.
 
Thanks ivy. It will be interesting to see what happens.
 
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Damn. Still operating.


EDIT 16th May 2017.
Still operating.
I guess the MJ Estate haven't been able to stop them using the domain 'kingofpop.com'


EDIT 25th May 2018.
The website appears to be offline for a while, though the domain is still registered with gourmet gift baskets. renewal is in november 2019.
 
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