‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Owner Hits Former WWE Star With Cease & Desist

‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Owner Hits Former WWE Star With Cease & Desist

Former WWE star Chelsea Green has revealed that the UK-based company behind the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ franchise hit her with a Cease & Desist over the name of her new podcast.

Chelsea Green’s podcast, which was originally titled ’50 Shades Of Green’ has been renamed ‘Green with Envy’, and this is after she was informed by her lawyer that she’d been threatened with legal action.

Chelsea Green opened up about exactly what went down on her latest podcast episode, saying:

“On Tuesday (May 11), I received a surprising email from my lawyer and it read, ‘Chelsea, much to our surprise, we received the attahed cease and desist letter concering your use of 50 Shades of Green trademark concerning your podcast and merchandise. As you know from this letter, the complaining party is the owner of 50 Shades of Grey, the brand. My gut tells me they are not going away and they certainly had deep pockets to fight this’. The real f**king 50 Shades of Grey cares about me and this podcast. ‘Christian Grey, what are you going to do, handcuff me? How about we make up a safe word, Mr Grey. How about cease and f**king desist.”

Green explained that she didn’t originally think the company behind ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ would care about the name of her podcast, adding:

“A lot of people were wondering about the name I chose. When I was picking the name, trust me, we went through many different options. We probably went through 20 different options. We did our research on the trademarks and went through Apple podcasts and Spotify to see what our competition looked like for names and we finally ended up on 50 Shades of Green for a few reasons. Hot Mess was extremely oversaturated in the podcast world, as well as trademarks, so that was tough. We moved onto different options with Green in it. The reason we chose 50 Shades of Green wasn’t because there was no podcast with the name. It was the opposite, it’s because there were two or three, which meant if they are coexisting then, in theory, we should be able to coexist with them. The name also wasn’t oversaturated. There were a few podcasts with the name, but nothing to do with wrestling and nobody had the trademarks. We thought it was great. What we didn’t consider was that a massive movie and book franchise would care about a tiny podcast hosted by a wrestler.”

The former WWE star then proceeded to read out the email that her lawyer was sent, saying:

“Dear Mr Dockins, I represent 50 Shades LTD, a company in the United Kingdom, who is the owner of the well known trademark 50 Shades of Grey, which originates from the entertainment properties, books and movies, from the same name. Due to the overlap of goods and services and the similarities in the wording of the mark, a likelihood of confusion is inevitable. My client must insist that Ms Green abandon the subject application and cease all use of the mark.”

Quote via Fightful

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3 years ago by Wrestle Talk

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