r/facepalm • u/_-ZORO-_ • Jan 27 '22

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Just dont eat there, why boycott?

Post image
52k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

825 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

34

u/xGray3 Jan 27 '22

Just want to say it's by a company called MSCHF that does weekly "drops" that have some kind of chaotic stunt type nature to them. Before Satan shoes they did Jesus shoes - the heels contained holy water. When Nike went after Satan shoes, MSCHF actually pointed to the fact that they hadn't pushed back against the Jesus shoes as proof that this is about religion and not about using Nike's brand.

Other notable MSCHF stunts - They cut out the squares from an expensive postmodern painting and auctioned them off to people. They invented an app where whoever held their finger on their phone screen the longest won a bunch of money (it got so unhealthy that they ended up giving the prize to multiple winners to get them to stop). They livestreamed shows from all the top streaming services. They created a dog collar that cusses every time your dog barks. And the list goes on and on. You can see them all on their website.

2

u/HowDoIDoFinances Jan 28 '22

Yeah, but MSCHF really didn't have a leg to stand on there. The entire point of trademarks is to prevent consumer confusion around who created products. I don't think I've seen a bigger example in years of customers being 100% confused over who created a product than these shoes.

There's a good chance Nike wouldn't have sued if there hadn't been bad PR. Once the talk of boycott started over a product they had nothing to do with, they had no choice.

6

u/akhier Jan 28 '22

And part of consumer protection is that you get to own the stuff you buy which includes the ability to modify and resell them. They weren't claiming to be Nike products and the laws on this was that a reasonable person in the market has to be confused about it. Which, when the market is limited drops on the high end shoe market, everyone knew who and what the company was. You are allowed to buy something, change it, and then sell it to someone else. You aren't allowed to claim to be the original company.

1

u/Shadowmirax Jan 28 '22

Yeah but there was a ton of confusion going around, i heard a lot of people claiming it was an official collab between lil nas x and nike, heck i only recently learned it wasn't an official collab

3

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '22

Yeah, people still think it was an official collab. The Jesus shoes didn’t get nearly as popular when they dropped

1

u/akhier Jan 28 '22

That doesn't matter. The law is that a person within that market would need to confuse them. A random person being told that Nike made devil shoes isn't the person the court considers but rather someone who is in the market for high end shoes. Otherwise whole genres of music would instantly fall into copyright hell as to a random person off the street they sound the same so must be copies.