Adidas withdraws strip lawsuit against multi-million dollar Black Lives Matter foundation Whence the change of heart? A comment.
Reminds me of Adidas: This “Official 3 Stripe Streak Garden Flag” costs 25 dollars in the blacklivesmatter.com online shop.Black Lives Matter
Earlier in the week, news of an Adidas lawsuit made the rounds. Strip war again. This time the lawyers were targeting a Black Lives Matter movement. Or rather: The three yellow stripes of a large, financially strong foundation called the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which uses them on merchandise items and in their logo.
Memories of the lawsuit against H&M, which the sporting goods manufacturer led for many years and finally lost, came up immediately. Adidas also lost out in a recent dispute with fashion brand Thom Browne.
In addition, the billion-dollar loss due to the separation from Kanye West and the end of the Yeezy cooperation became public. One could describe the image of the sports brand as slightly cracked, although one cannot accuse the people of Herzogenaurach of anything concrete in the cases mentioned.
Nevertheless, Adidas withdrew the lawsuit against the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation on Wednesday. The Dax group was concerned that it could be misunderstood as general criticism of the global BLM anti-racism movement. Officially, a spokeswoman told the Berliner Zeitung on Wednesday that they were in the process of “withdrawing the opposition to the ‘Black Lives Matter Foundation’ trademark application.”
But who understands a trademark lawsuit as ideological criticism? The Internet? social media? The people? The ones who comment always and everywhere, but in the end only read the headlines at most?
What is the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation?
Hardly anyone in this country knows about the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Because of her name, for many people she is associated per se with the Black Lives Matter activists of the first hour, who formed from a hashtag and work against social discrimination against blacks in the USA. However, various organizations operate under the BLM concept, including commercially oriented companies, which have a fundamental protest idea in common with those activists. But nothing more.
The foundation that Adidas is complaining about is not a small group of committed citizens, but a large company that has itself been criticized for financial inconsistencies. According to the New York Times, for example, around 90 million donations were collected in 2020. A large part of it was spent immediately, without precise information on what. Adidas was now targeting the remaining millions.
Lawsuit against Black Live Matters Foundation: Adidas is actually right
But now Adidas is waiving its right to sue. Public pressure could become too great, and the wave of outrage could damage the brand’s image. Because the original BLM intention, the fight against racism, resonates all too clearly in the name of the defendant foundation.
Actually, Adidas is right: The stripes on some T-shirts, shirts and hoodies in the Foundation’s online shop are strongly reminiscent of the sports brand’s typical design. The “three stripes” in product names is also misleading.
But the moral pressure of a gray mass consisting of anonymous user names is stronger than the paragraphs of trademark law. The rebellion in the apparent interests of the underprivileged in the comment columns is striking and easy to understand; the applause is inevitable. And the algorithms of the internet increase the indignation, so that fashion brands like Adidas can be pilloried within a very short time. What was the original reason for this, no one knows exactly anymore. Even who these critical voices are in detail remains mostly open.
The battle for the stripe monopoly is part of day-to-day business at Adidas. According to the “Tagesschau”, more than 90 lawsuits have been filed in this regard since 2008. Adidas filed another lawsuit with the US Patent and Trademark Office on Monday. Specifically, it was about the stripe design that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation uses on clothing and accessories. This got in the way of the Adidas Foundation too much in terms of product groups.