Sent to Thrasher today:
Hi Thrasher.
Your moronic publisher “Tactless Ed” Riggins threatened me with a lawsuit
last year for making a small run of parody “Skoot and Destroy” patches to
promote my dorky scootering website/scooter racing team.
After a few of his nasty emails, I decided it wasn’t worth arguing with an
obstinate idiot and chucked the unsold patches in the trash. I’d only sold
about ten of them, and given a few away to friends, so it was a net loss of
$150. Big deal. If I didn’t have to read another of Ed’s moral high-horse
emails about “integrity” and “ripping off an artist,” it was worth it.
I now see that your creative geniuses have been hard at work for your new
line of T-shirts. (T-shirt 1) (T-shirt 2)
Impressive. Especially since no one’s ever ripped off the Budweiser or Jack
Daniels logo before. Not only has every half-price Cozumel and Daytona Beach
T-shirt shop done it, there have even already been several Budweiser and
Jack Daniels skateboard parodies, not to mention the “Older…Bud Weiser”
Gang Green ads in Thrasher in the 80s.
Awesome. Keep up the good work. How about a “Calvin peeing on a TransWorld
Logo” t-shirt?
Love,
Bryan Bedell
2strokebuzz.com
Hey, as a heads up, Victoria’s secret just lost a trademark infringement suit to a mom and pop porn shop (not an oxymoron these days) that calls itself Victor’s Secret. You should start selling your patches again and tell this kook from Thrasher to go ahead and sue. Precedent is on your side. (A cool dude punk rock skater guy suing someone, now that is funny…)
Disagree……good parodies are not easy. Crappy ones are…and the skoot or die ones were funny. But I’m drunk so what do I know?
Imagine if SNL were sued for all the parodies they do…copyright law protects parodies for a reason, it’s american to be able to laugh at our fellow citizens.
I third the awesome, or would I be ripping off from the first?
I just don’t want to deal with a lawsuit, it’s way more enjoyable to me just to make fun of the situation. The little bit of money I’d make, even if I sold a thousand patches isn’t worth a legal battle. Plus I do have a bit of respect for Stecyk, and Ed was right about one thing: Parodies are easy. I should be able to do better than that.
Awesome! Well written!
Guess I better be careful too…
wouldn’t want them to come after me for my
Scoot Or Die website http://www.scootordie.com.
even though it REALLY is a parody on “Live Free or Die” New Hampshires Moto… Not “Live to Skate. Skate or Die” Thrasher’s Moto.
Hmmmmmmm Maybe Thrasher moto is really a parody on NH’s moto.
I second that awesome. Hey, can I have one of those patches you “threw away”?
what about the Faction song “Skate and Destroy” (ah, San Jose in the early 1980s good times, good times…) I wonder if they ever went after them?
that just means those patches that did get sold are really valuable right? ooh yeah! ebay here I come! just kidding!
Yep, they’re really gone. I kept a few of course, but I’ve given all of those away. Sorry. They were pretty limited from the get-go, where were you people when they went on sale in the first place?
As far as I can tell, The Faction was Steve Caballero’s band, and they were close friends with the Thrasher crew at the time (and probably still). According to Riggins, C.R. Stecyk drew the original S&D logo, and I think, though I’m not sure, that the logo first appeared on the “Skate and Destroy” 7″ that was relased and sold via Thrasher. A friend did a copyright/trademark search just for fun and couldn’t find any record of “S&D” ever being copyrighted or trademarked, though Thrasher has used it for ages for t-shirts, stickers, and their totally substandard Playstation game. If anyone owns the copyright (it doesn’t need to be registered to apply), it’s Stecyk (the artwork) or The Faction (the song, though a song TITLE cannot be copyrighted.) Thrasher has half a case that it’s theirs just from years of use and a good relationship with Stecyk, but that’s probably moot anyway because my parody is probably covered by “fair use” law. That said, I’m no lawyer, thank God, and neither is Riggins, so it wasn’t worth thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend something that would have made me $150 bucks at best, so I chucked most of them and gave the remaining few to friends.
That was the best letter I’ve ever read. No words can describe the feeling I have inside right now. It’s like a huge FUCK YOU, THRASHER YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITES stuck in my chest. I love it! Seriously, stick it to The Man, Bry!!! …And keep on rockin’.