College Dropout Burgers is a one-of-a-kind restaurant in Melbourne created by Mark Elkhouri as an homage to his all-time hero, Kanye West. Recently, Elkhouri has been dealing with beef both inside and outside of the restaurant. He was ecstatic when he noticed that Kanye, commonly known as ‘Ye,’ had followed his Instagram page and had been viewing stories. However, his excitement was short-lived as Ye’s intentions were not to praise but rather to protect.
Ye sought legal action quickly for copyright protection, and likely also filed under misleading and deceptive conduct as the references to Ye may have provoked customers to believe that the restaurant was commercially associated with him. Ye’s claims were based on Elkhouri using his teddy bear artwork on store signage, a large mural of Ye in the restaurant, and burger names based on his song titles such as “Gold Digger,” “Good Morning,” and “Heartless.”
(Source: https://twitter.com/modernnotoriety/status/1476620978398666764)
It was certainly not a ‘Good Morning’ for Elkhouri when he received the cease-and-desist letter from Ye’s legal team for using these images and references to Ye and his 2004 album College Dropout.
Was Kanye West successful in his copyright infringement claims?
Generally, there is no copyright protection for song or album names because short names and titles do not attract such protection, and most are not sufficiently original or independent to the artist. In Ye’s case, a copyright claim was likely attached to the teddy bear artwork and the mural. This was successful as Elkhouri was ordered to paint over the mural and remove the crowned teddy bear logo. Ye was also successful in his cease-and-desist letter in demanding a change to the names of the menu items.
The burger restaurant had to completely re-launch after Ye threatened the owners with legal action. Elkhouri complied and removed all references to Ye following the instructions and concerns given by his legal team. However, the restaurant name “College Dropout Burgers” is there to stay.There is no legal method for Ye to stop Elkhouri from keeping the restaurant name as Ye owns 14 Australian trademarks but none of them are for the College Dropout album name.
What started as a restaurant to celebrate Ye turned into an unfortunate and unwanted legal battle against him, making him look quite ‘Heartless’. Elkhouri was disappointed but noted that at the end of the day, he had to respect it and continues to support Kanye by playing his music at College Dropout Burgers along with preaching nothing but positive sentiments about his idol.
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