Comic catches brand breaking copyright law again

A comedian is trying to force French Connection to drop a range of T-shirts parodying other brands.

The move is sweet revenge for Dave Griffiths, who had previously been threatened by the clothing giant for infringing their trademarks.

He originally found himself in trouble with the High Street chain after wearing a home-made T-shirt bearing the slogan 'CNUT - French Correction', a parody of the controversial FCUK brand, on stage. An employee was in the audience, and the multinational deployed its full legal powers against him.

Last month, Griffiths fought back when he spotted that French Connection was marketing shirts parodying other brands such as Gap, Lego, Jack Wills and Snickers on its Amazon store. Rival Gap was depicted as 'Crap' for example, and Lego's logo manipulated to read 'Legover'.

The comedian, who has previously chronicled his battles with French Connection in a stand-up show, got in touch with the brands being mocked to alert them that their trademarks were being misused.

'It's amazing that they have the audacity to call Gap "Crap" and then describe what appears to be a blatant breach of trademark as 'tongue in cheek', as they have done on their Amazon store,' he said.

When he wrote to Lego, they replied: 'I absolutely agree with you that this design is simply tasteless and a children's toy brand should never be used in such a context. Especially around Christmas time the Lego Group certainly doesn't want to be associated with such a kind of tasteless humour. This can definitely not be an official Lego product since we have strict rules how to protect our name and trademark.'

And Jack Wills said: 'We are aware of this product and are taking action accordingly.'

The products are still on sale on Amazon, and Griffiths said he believes the items could spark a legal battle between the corporations. Since his complaints, the original brand names have been removed from the descriptions.

This is not the first time the comic has turned the tables on French Connection and reported them for copyright infringement. He has previously grassed them up to companies such as Pepsi, KFC, Durex and IBM since FCUK launched their action against him.

'French Connection must be getting desperate for ideas,' he said today. 'To be ripping off the Snickers logo is particularly strange as they've already had to withdraw T-shirts infringing the Mars logo, who are the parent company of Snickers.'

'French Connection seem to have gone back to their bad old ways of just ripping off other people's work and trademarks just to flog T-shirts. For a company so protective of their own FCUK brand to then copy other brands is incredible. Huge companies can't keep telling us to do as they say, not as they do, and get away with it.'

French Connection - which has not yet responded to Chortle's request for comment – have previously clamped down on other cases they considered a beach of their trademark, including Dublin stores selling FCEK the Irish Connection t-shirts, The Pony Club UK wanting to market PCUK and political youth group Conservative Future, which wanted to use CFUK.

However, Griffiths won his battle with the company and now has a successful business selling King CNUT merchandise.

When asked whether he felt uncomfortable as a comedian trying to quash someone else's right to parody, Griffiths replied: 'Of course I love parodies, but what I do disagree with is a company parodying others people's designs while cracking down on parodying their own brand.

'If they won't allow people to parody them then they can't go around happily parodying others, there's nothing worse than do as we say not as we do. You may say I'm bitter and twisted but bitter and twisted has never been so much fun!'

Last year, Parliament voted in a 'right to parody' law which meant individuals will no longer be breaking copyright law when creating pastiches, although there are still protections for copyright-holders. Its main aim was to encourage 'grass-roots creativity' and protect campaign groups from being sued by wealthy companies.

Griffiths said: 'The protection of the right to parody is all very well but if a major corporation wants to stop you they easily can, particularly if you're a cash-strapped comedian. All they need to do is send you "cease and desist" letter, which means you have to defend it, which means you have to hire a lawyer, which means you have to spend a lot of money, which means that you're more than likely to stop.

'If we don't take a stand against big corporations' double standards then eventually the end result will be that they will be the only ones doing the parodying while everyone else is wrapped up in legal battles. My fight against French Connection has inspired many people to take on huge corporations because they see it is actually possible to beat them.'

Published: 12 Jan 2015