I don’t know what the deal is with this Black Label Chris Troy ad in the April 09 issue of Transworld. Estes spotted it and sent in a blurry photo. I’m not sure how to respond to this. Surely someone in the marketing department should have googled “Skate and Annoy.” We’ve been mentioned in Thrasher as recently as the March 2009 issue, as early as 1988, and even made it into the 25 Year anniversary book. We’re certainly not famous, but come on… See the whole advert after the jump.
30 comments
Seth
Is your logo or name trademarked? This clearly violates the ‘reasonable person test’.
Estes' Ghost
To the web in 3 mins……Kilwag, your fast.
endzone_bob
Black Label + TWS = weaksauce
kvon
If you don’t take action will they eventually have some sort of trademark squatters rights? Maybe they had no idea but if there is any shred of cool in the BL company they will C and D. I would think that Black Label would know better. hmmm. Please keep us all posted. Is there anything your readers can do to help?
Kilwag
I need to find out who distributes Black Label, they don’t have a direct way to contact them, other than a mailing address for sponsor me videos. I guess thats a place to start.
I’m just going send a polite note. Say “hey – We’re already here, what’s up?” I need to hold the advert in my hands first, I can’t believe I’m going to buy Transworld..
Big companies have a short attention span anyway, they’ve probably moved on already anyway.
Kilwag
Actually, I suppose it’s no different than if someone had a n advert that said “Thrasher” in it.
heath
You’ve coined a phrase. You have two options:
1. Get litigious
2. Be happy
Skateboarding is Not a Crime. Skate and Destroy. Live to Skate. Skate to live. Skate and Annoy…
Personally, I would make some kick-arse stickers and capitalize like NHS, Thrasher, and the guy that said “Don’t worry be happy.”
You made a mark on the skate world, my friend!
heath
… and you could get really snarky and rip off the font too…
ssk
Lucero owns that.
http://who.securepaynet.net/WhoIs.aspx?domain=blacklabelskates.com&prog_id=domains
Estes' Ghost
I know a couple dudes that work there………….shocker huh?
ffej
I think its kinda cool. an homage? I’d be interested to see if this drives up hits to your site 🙂
Kilwag
If only they added a “dot com” to the end.
cold ones
Whatever dude. They snaked me first….
Jason Adams
Kyle Leeper
Chet Childress
kvon
Isn’t BL the same as Emergency/Red Cross/Red Kross if so this is not the first time they have had trademarks oopsies. Maybe someone in their marketing department is an SNA fan? Maybe the glass is half full (of beer).
Glenn
The Red Cross do guard their trademark(?) very closely. Video game developers using it on health packs have been forced to pay royalties for example but it has to be in context, they haven’t copyrighted the logo it’s too simple, just in the context of medicine I guess.
Dunno about this Black Label/Skate and Annoy thing though?, surely the most likely outcome will be for a few magazine readers to be reminded of the site’s existence and visit again.
duders
what heath said. get too uppity about this shit and you end up being the guy who trademarked “three-peat” or a superbowl celebration dance.
Gene
From what I have seen and understand, Lucero/BL marketing pay a lot of “homage” to prior work in both the music and skate worlds. If you look at skate mags from the 80s, you will find at least one current BL slogan previously used by another prominent company in an ad. Steve Olson even says in an interview I read/saw somewhere that Lucero copies a lot of his art. I don’t know to what extent they have asked to cease and desist by the various parties involved, but the Red Cross did. I suppose without proof of the above instances of “homage”, this post is just trash talk…
brad
Teen Babes From Monsanto!
Solboy
The whole Black Label flame logo / iconography is directly ripped off from Stiff Little Fingers 1979 Inflammable Material album cover. Has anyone seen the new BL t -shirts with the six logos on? It’s practically the SLF cover! The second track on the lp is called State of Emergency…hence the Emergency label perhaps?… Also The Black Label banded logo looks very like the Carling Black Label lager packaging, a dodgy oldschool English brew. Punk rock homage or co-incidence? Everyone is plagarising someone else’s work.
chomp
Wow solboy, I checked them out back to back and its hilariously close.
Kilwag
Well, that’s just a generic industrial graphic for flammable material. The band Naked Raygun (admitted huge fans of SLF, even covered Suspect Device live with Jake Burns…) also use a variant for their Flammable Solid single, actually just using a generic industrial sticker for the same.
They made a shirt too, and we made a skateboard. At the time I was worried that people would think we were ripping off Black Label, and some people actually did, so I went to the trouble of explaining it.
Most everything graphic at Cold War Skateboards is an homage. But I can at least claim to have invented the term “Skate and Annoy” I think, maybe HouseOfNeil did, I can’t remember , but it was one of us.
Ash
1031 Skateboards used Bad Egg (I think it was an egg skating with a mohawk or something) for a Kristian Svitak graphic. So, at least you weren’t ripped off by a Black Label reject.
I hope you did consider that someone thought of the idea independently. But, like you said, it always helps to google something first.
curtis
I like your homage to Bush, even if he did not actually wear it on his sleeve.
TimoT
http://blog.blacklabelskates.com/?p=1552
I think they have write it because he is the “Most Annoying”.
Solboy
With the generic / SLF logo, and Black Label’s punk rock stance, it’s pretty fare to say that they appropriated the idea in homage. Nothing wrong with that. I’m a 43 year old ex punk rock kid, saw SLF a two or three times in 79 and 80, and I’m using a Black Label Emergency DP model at the moment, so it’s all good to me…
Kilwag
I think TimoT nailed it. Chris Troy won the award for “Most annoying” at the Damn Am awards. Now it all makes sense.
porterfield
i can get you some #’s if you want, but i’ll you can do is tell them not to do it anymore
sleezyskates
They also put an ad in Juice that says ‘Fuck the System’ with Chet Childress. Wearing Nikes. yea bro!!
KC
My friend claims Lucero stole his bands name in 1983 when they were called ” Black Label”.
It’s funny because my friend got the name, from the beer we used to drink.
I always liked the phrase “Shut up and Skate”!
talentlessquitter
Johnnie Walker…