Less than a month into its run, Chelsea Green was forced to change the name of her 50 Shades of Green podcast.
Though Green filed for the trademarks and produced three episodes under the name, she received a cease and desist on May 11.
On the latest episode of her podcast, now titled Green with Envy, Green revealed it was the company behind 50 Shades of Grey who sent the letter.
"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 fucking 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 fucking desist,'" she mimicked.
Green went on to discuss why she initially picked the 50 Shades of Green name, nothing thinking 50 Shades of Grey would care.
"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," she said.
She thought the podcast fell under parody law, but because she wasn't spoofing the books or movies and she was talking about things other than sex, it did not meet the criteria.
Green then read a piece of the letter to sent her and her lawyer Michael Dockins.
"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," she read.
Green closed by saying she wasn't willing to fight a "bajillion dollar company" and simply decided to change the name of the podcast.
As of this writing, Green has not filed a trademark on Green With Envy.
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