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Grumpy Cat Wants $600K From 'Pirating' Coffee Maker (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the someone-hasn't-had-their-coffee-this-morning dept.

Eloking quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Grumpy Cat is not pleased, yet. Her owners have asked a California federal court to issue a $600,000 judgment against a coffee maker which allegedly exploited their copyrights (PDF). In addition, they want damages for trademark and contract breach, and a ban on the company in question from selling any associated Grumpy Cat merchandise. There are dozens of celebrity cats on the internet, but Grumpy Cat probably tops them all. The cat's owners have made millions thanks to their pet's unique facial expression, which turned her into an overnight internet star. Part of this revenue comes from successful merchandise lines, including the Grumpy Cat "Grumppuccino" iced coffee beverage, sold by the California company Grenade Beverage. The company licensed the copyright and trademarks to sell the iced coffee, but is otherwise not affiliated with the cat and its owners. Initially this partnership went well, but after the coffee maker started to sell other "Grumpy Cat" products, things turned bad. TorrentFreak adds: "The cat's owners, incorporated as Grumpy Cat LLC, took the matter to court last year with demands for the coffee maker to stop infringing associated copyrights and trademarks. After Grenade Beverage failed to properly respond to the allegations, Grumpy Cat's owners moved for a default, which a court clerk entered in early June. A few days ago they went ahead and submitted a motion for default judgement."

5 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Seems about right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For once copyright is being used as it was intended. I'm not a fan of copyright in any sense, but when it's used like this, at least I'm not sitting here seething. Pretty damn obvious you can't just slap someone else's stuff on your coffee bags and expect they'll be OK with it.

    1. Re: Seems about right by hawguy · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's their fracking cat.

      This makes me lose a lot of sympathy for the cat, the cat is clearly aligned with Big Oil interests and shouldn't be using wealth gained by its climate destroying drilling practices to stomp on small time coffee makers.

  2. Re:Honestly never heard of this Grumpy Cat by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've heard of Smelly Cat... does that count?

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  3. Re:Paying for pussy by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought it was because of the occupation of Bajour and their alliance with the Dominion.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Re:They want 600k by Rakarra · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you have a problem with the content of the sig?

    "SJW" is a completely useless term (it didn't used to be...). It means absolutely nothing now, as it's been so overused that it means anything at all, anything the speaker doesn't like. Now it's really only an indication that the speaker is a bit of a dullard, or has been entirely disconnected from the Internet since the start of GamerGate.