Juan Carlos to Hugo Chavez - unintended consequences
On November 10th, I wrote about
Spain's King Juan Carlos telling Venezuela's Chavez to �shut up�.
Well, it turns out that quite the cottage industry has grown up out of those wonderful words. From the
UK Guardian:
King's outburst generates �1m-worth of ringtones
When the Spanish king Juan Carlos turned to Hugo Chavez and said to him, a touch irritably, "Why don't you shut up?", little did he know that his breach of diplomatic protocol would become a smash hit across the country.
Were the king to claim image rights over his less-than-diplomatic outburst, he could find himself a nice little earner, as those five famous words have become a multi-million euro business, selling ringtones, mugs, T-shirts and websites.
According to David Bravo, a lawyer specialising in IT law and intellectual property, "the use of the sentence 'why don't you shut up?' in ringtones ... is a violation of his image rights".
An estimated 500,000 people have already downloaded the ringtone, generating around �1.5m (�1m), but many companies have circumvented any potential problems over rights by using an actor's voice instead of the king's.
Over 700 videos have appeared on YouTube, with parodies ranging from a Benny Hill sketch to a Nike advert featuring the Brazilian star Ronaldinho, which ends: "Juan do it. Just shut up."
Meanwhile, the Pe�a brothers, who run a small T-shirt company, have found themselves overwhelmed with orders for their design inspired by the king. They normally expect to sell 800 T-shirts in a year, but in the week of the king's outburst their orders reached over 1,000.
Heh... I'd get a Tee Shirt
Posted by DaveH at November 18, 2007 9:00 PM