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I’m not sure how this can be damaging the name of the brand when speedo fetishism is already so well known within the gay community (which probably helps them sell extra products), and when people outside that community are unlikely to see the sites in question.
It is well-known amongst straight women too.
You’d think they’d love the free publicity! Naughtiness and sexiness seem part of the selling point now – unless, of course, they’re just being homophobic.
Ahahah, nudity is “offensive” to them? Stop producing skimpy tight swim-wear if the human body is “offensive”
How about the way Australian lifeguard wear their speedos with all but a centimetre of their butt (pun intended) bare for all the world to admire. I guess their next on the lawsuit list. When you throw three strands of thread together and ask men to wear it around their pelvis, sex or at least sexiness is all your selling – and not cheaply either.
Oops – that’s lifeguards and they’re next.
I think Dave needs to counter-sue Speedo for creating their “fetish” name that allows overweight beings to grease themselves up to slide into their product only to let the world watch them ooze out of them (disgustingly) on a beach or at a pool…spandex was a right not a privlidge……..same goes for a speedo……good luck Dave, hope you win !!!
That’s a really unpleasant thing to say.
Boycott speedos! Swim naked!
They will try an sue cows next for leather fetish!
So, they’re suing over this guy putting up pictures of sexy men wearing their products. And they’re even more annoyed at the pictures of sexy men NOT wearing their products. Seems they can’t have it both ways…
Damn, meant to vote this up but hit the vote down by mistake. Won’t let me change it, at least not on my mobile. Something PN can look into?
Evened the score at least. Try going back the next day,
It’s because their trade mark has not become generic, contrary to this man’s assertion, that they have to challenge him. They probably don’t really care too much about him, he’s no threat to them per se, but if the don’t act every time their rights to exclusivity are infringed, then those rights can easily become diluted. That opens the door for their competitors to take unfair advantage of their reputation and goodwill. They can’t afford not to sue. And, of course, they need to win, so they’ll use all they can. Hence their stance over the use of nudity in association with their brand, whether they actually think that or not, which they probably don’t!
I had a site 6 years ago and speedo was part of the web address, Speedo the company contacted the server owner and threaten to take them to court for hosting the site. Not surprisingly the server owner did not need the hassle and removed my site.
Speedo the company are bullys.
I for one will not buy speedo branded speedos. They are pretty boring anyway, Aussiebums and the like are great “speedos”
Speedos is a generic term in the real world.
What did you expect? If you use a domain name that contains someone else’s trade mark and it resolves to content that relates to their products or services, then you’re asking for trouble. It’s not called intellectual property for nothing and there’s a clue there: it’s property and if it belongs to someone else and you use it, then you’ve stolen it.
Speedo hasn’t got a chance in hell of winning this suit. The word speedo was in use 20 years before they bothered to trademark it and in any case, the court will quickly establish that it has become a generic reference since then. As Ken said, in the real world it means a type of swimsuit, not a particular brand. And that is what will be considered to determine infringement.
But of course, Speedo is very hostile to the gay community, so this is far from surprising.
Trade mark rights arise through use. A registration is not necessary to obtain exclusivity. If they had 20 years’ use before registration, then they have substantial priority.
Can you name one juristiction where speedo has been declared generic?
It’s the infringer, not Speedo, who doesn’t have a defense.
This is one of the most ridiculous [law]suits I’ve ever heard of – anywhere else in the world and the company would be revelling in the free publicity, but some Australians can be surprisingly archaic in their attitudes.
Sounds and reads like Homophobia to me. Is Speedo homophobic????
This is simply Spedo protecting it’s trademark. If you do not defend your trademark or copywrite you actually can use the right to control it.
The other charges are just put in there the same way that a litany of accusations are put in a divorce filing, to give more credence to their claim.
This sort of thing happens quite often and there really is nothing homophobic about it.
In Britain I believe “hoover’ is a very common expression for vacuum-cleaner. The company Hoover has a lot of lawsuits to catch up on. Here we use “kleenex” as a generic term for “tissue” and “aspirin” as a generic term for ASA. A lot more lawsuits pending, I imagine. The law courts would be tied up for centuries.
Hoover does actually try to protect it trademark a lot to try and stop it becoming a generic work. As do Portakabin – they even have people who watch out for the word’s use as a generic term and fire off a letter to things such as magazines or newspapers if they use it as a generic term. Aspirin is a purely generic term anyway and has been since the end of the First World War. Things like yo-yo, tipp-ex and thermos has all lost their protection in the US due to becoming generic, and things like that do tend to make companies paranoid and heavy-handed when it comes to protecting their trademark, as seems to have happened here.
The voice of reason.
The BBC did not trademark the name ‘Top Of The Pops’ and consequently a series of albums appeared throughout the 1970′s and retailing for 50p were called ‘Top Of The Pops’. The LPs which featured cover versions of then current hits by session musicians and featured a sexy girl (if you are into that sort of thing!) on the cover had nothing to do with the TV show. The albums lost popularity in the early 80′s with the arrival of K-Tel albums then the Now That’s What I Call Music albums featuring the original artists rather than bog-standard session musicians. Because the Top Of The Pops name was not copyrighted, the BBC would have found suing difficult.
Everybody has a right to defend their trademark but surely a bit of free publicity would be good. By going ahead with this lawsuit Speedo will only do more damage to themselves than to the defendant. Look at how we all laughed at Kentucky Fried Chicken when they tried to sue a pub (one of my favourite pubs incidently) over the use of the phrase ‘Family Feast’. Maybe we should stop using the word ‘Speedo’ and start calling them ‘Budgie Smugglers’ instead (at risk of being prosecuted by the RSPB!). Anyway, what about that swimwear brand called ‘Bum Chums’ whose products can be foud at http://www.deadgoodundies.com
Intellectual property is a very flimsy concept.
A flimsy concept? Only if you don’t know your law!
Speedo’s are derided and referred to as budgie smugglers in Aussie (for the obvious reason) You’ll rarely see a pair of speedo’s in Australia, from Manly beach all the way up to Mooloolaba, except on the older gent.
Shame.
I agree.
is he making any money from it or benefited in any other way (other of course their own gratification but thats his own prerogative) so i cant see much of a case of breaching copyright as it seems the only thing the thing i can see an issue with being they dont like how their product is being portrayed but even then thats quite shakey, sounds more like bullying tactics by another large company, been seeing a massive increase in that latley which i would say makes homophobia as a motive seem unlikley but not impossible i suppose
Copyright is breached when someone copies something that belongs to someone else whether they make any money from doing so or not. That’s why it’s called copyright.
Dave Evans deserves to be sued. He also steals pics of other photographers (incl. me) and uses them to make money ignoring removal requests.
Sounds like a company and brand that is in danger of dmaging itself.
I have a massive fetish for speedos am I in trouble now??
Maybe the company singled him out because he is one of the few Australians who actually call them Speedo opposed his fellow citizens who I understand actually lampoon them and call them Budgie smugglers!