After a great day of golf yesterday – I came back to check my email messages and I find “Infringement of Hasbro, Inc.’s MONOPOLY® Logo.”
Immediately, I laughed and said to myself “yeah right.” First – why in the world would they care about my logo, and second – HOW in the world did they find MY blog??
Now, anyone who knows even the slightest about me knows that my absolute favorite board game of all time is… MONOPOLY!!! So, when I wanted to officially start blogging (somewhere other than MySpace), I decided to create an ‘online brand’ for myself. There are several things that could be used to describe me – Monopoly, entrepreneur, Captain Morgan, Marine, Republican, etc.
I took all of those things into consideration and decided that since my life as an entrepreneur always seems to have me in a world of chaos – I needed to include that word. Okay… so we have part of the brand – what else? I really do love Monopoly so, I wanted to find a way to incorporate that as well. As I thought to myself about what a ‘monopoly’ was I mixed that idea with my conservative Republican nature, and decided that since our (Republican) beliefs are the only ones that should matter – we want to ‘monopolize’ the country. Thus – Monopolized. Put the two together, and you get Monopolized Chaos!
PERFECT! Jim Brown IS – Monopolized Chaos.
So, what’s next? I need a logo – right? Of course I do – I have to also rely on my design background! What would represent my new brand and persona better than the Monopoly logo? After doing a little digging, I figure out what font they used to create the logo, changed the name to Monopolized, and the color to orange (my favorite color – again, has to represent me), added Chaos, and viola!!! We have a logo!
Fast forward nearly six months later and I get the letter below from Hasbro demanding that I immediately cease the use of my ‘infringing’ logo. Are you serious? Again, I ask the question, HOW in the world did they find my blog? But it gets better – read the letter…
Hasbro states that the use of my logo will cause “confusion with respect to Hasbro’s authorization or sponsorship of or association with your activities,” and further the use of the logo will, “dilute the distinctive quality of the MONOPOLY® logo.”
Still laughing.
I guess I should feel honored that Hasbro thinks that my little blog on my portion of the internets (Insert George Bush parody here), will impact so many people that it will cause confusion of their brand.
Wow.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Kenny // Apr 19, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Dude I hope you told them to load the shoe, the Iron, the hat and the dog in the wheel barrel through that into the infamous car and drive the whole rest of the game right up there ass….. HAHAHA funny shit man.
2 Elisabeth // Apr 19, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I am utterly confused and disappointed and am now wondering what will become of that money order I sent to receive my official Jim Brown player piece! Will I never conquer Park Place with anything more than the average, boring battleship? My hopes and (Republican) dreams are now falling by the wayside, “monopolized” by my “chaotic” thoughts of revenge against the idiocracy known as Patterson, Belknap, Webb, and Tyler, LLC.
“Go to jail, Jim Brown, Go directly to jail” the lawyerly slumlords sneer at you, until you slowly uncover your “Get out of jail free” card, take a chance, and win 1st place in a beauty pagent. “My logo is perfect” you tell them, “it just won first prize!”
3 Settle // Apr 19, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Guess you’re up for the lawsuit then????
4 xxMoNoPoLyDudExx // Apr 22, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Wait…so where’s the game? I come here to pwn some n00bs in Monopoly, and get some blog by a goateed Matt Damon look-a-like?
Is Hilary behind this? Damn liberals trying to take away our make believe capitalistic opportunities as well.
5 Jens // Oct 11, 2008 at 2:42 pm
You get even notice here in Germany (where I live) – lol.
It shows the absurdity of the system we all live in now. I like to see that your logo is still there – I love it.
6 T // Oct 12, 2008 at 7:36 am
lawyers are the plague of the modern times
7 Gary // Oct 13, 2008 at 12:36 am
incredible! That shows us only one thing: Even in bad times like the current financial situation, the lawyers try to squeeze out every f!$@?ng penny off the private men. Don’t they have real enemies to pick on? Like the ones that nearly perfectly imitate the board games and get off the hook without any problems?
Man, I hope you can stand against them. Usually I liked Hasbro for their games but they get more unsympathic with this kind of treatment of the private men.
By the way… why do they act like this? Your blog clearly says that you idetify yourself to the game “Monopoly”…
So I think it’s good advertisement for them and they even have not a dime to pay for it!
Sad but true but capitalism seems to have squeezed out every brain’s cell out of these lawyers’ heads…
best wishes from Switzerland!
8 Michael // Oct 13, 2008 at 2:56 am
Hi
As I see the logo in question is still there, so I suppose the problems with Hasbro are past?
Else I’d like to get some updates on the issue, please.
Greetings from Germany, where your website/case is mentioned along with a recent newspaper article about Hasbros flood of lawsuits
Michael
9 JayBee // Oct 13, 2008 at 4:46 am
Whoa, and I thought, the “distinctive semi-circular bump off the middle of the top” is from Sesame Street™…
Are there no laws protecting satire in your country?
Don’t shareholders ever protest against the lawers ruining the image of the company they work for? Have they ever heard of “cost benefit ratio”?
May the Parker brothers rest in peace…
10 Leon // Oct 13, 2008 at 7:03 am
OMG, two weeks ago I received notification from a small German water company (Gerolsteiner) that our private family homepage violates their trademark.
Let’s hope that at least the WIPO shows some common sense and denies the stupid complaint outright.
11 Don Schindler // Oct 13, 2008 at 7:16 am
The confusing thing to me is why you would expect anything else from a company that sells “Monopoly”. Duh.
Of course, they are going to come after you. It’s a Monopoly! They invent it. Jeesh.
Come on, Jim, let’s throw this up against the technorati wall and see if it takes off. Could be a nice distraction from the election? And it’s Monday.
12 that is too sad too be funny // Oct 13, 2008 at 8:09 am
did you write a letter to hasbro?
13 STW // Oct 13, 2008 at 8:32 am
While it may piss you off, and you may be 100% on the right side of this, I’d recommend you just change the logo and move on. You can’t win even if you “win.” I’ve been there and done that and have the tens of thousands of dollars in paid attorney invoices to show for it.
14 jacobshortast // Oct 13, 2008 at 1:00 pm
What a joke. They have a right to protect their brand, sure, but the sad thing is it probably cost Hasbro as much to have this lame letter sent out as it would have cost for them to come up with a new and original idea for a toy or game.
If these huge corporations took 10% from their “legal” budget and incorporated that into their R & D or development budgets they wouldn’t have to go around slapping the hands of people “imitating” their “marks and logos” they would be too busy counting cash with theirs.
Oh, and even more important, they would have fans instead of people, who are apparently all over the world, calling them out as a corporate joke. I ma sure that sells a lot of games.
Good luck dealing with this.
Leave a Comment