Ice Cube Sues Financial App Robinhood for Trademark Infringement
by Joe Dworetzky
O’Shea Jackson, the rapper, film star and entrepreneur better known as Ice Cube, filed suit Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco against the Menlo Park-based securities trading platform Robinhood Markets, Inc. and its affiliate, Robinhood Financial LLC.
Jackson claims that on March 8 Robinhood posted a photograph of him in its Robinhood Snacks newsletter that implied that the popular rapper endorsed Robinhood’s business. The photograph was not removed after a cease and desist letter was allegedly sent to Robinhood on March 10. A visit to the website on Thursday morning found that the photograph was still accessible.
In an invective-filled complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Jackson says that “Robinhood is an unscrupulous and predatory conglomerate that professes to be a financial services company for the everyday person. In truth, Robinhood is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is the archetypal example of an amoral corporation that places profits over people.”
Jackson alleges that he has “spent years meticulously building the value of his image and overall brand by carefully scrutinizing the products and services he is asked to endorse.”
The complaint goes on to say that “Robinhood is the antithesis of everything that Ice Cube stands for. It represents corporate greed on a massive scale.”
The complaint sums up stating, “Defendants deliberately and shamelessly misappropriated Ice Cube’s image and likeness to promote Robinhood’s horrible products and services – the last things in the world to which Ice Cube would ever attach his image and likeness.”
ICE CUBE is a registered trademark first filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2007. Jackson claims that Robinhood’s use of Ice Cube’s image and likeness violates trademark law because it is likely “to cause confusion, mistake, or deception of consumers as to Ice Cube’s endorsement.”
Jackson also asserts claims under California laws that protect against unauthorized use of a person’s likeness. No specific amount of damages is demanded, but Jackson seeks an injunction, monetary damages, punitive damages and reimbursement of Jackson’s attorney fees.
Jackson was born in South Central Los Angeles and first attracted wide attention as a member of the group N.W.A, responsible for a number of compositions on its first album “Straight Outta Compton.” He has released many albums and appeared in dozens of movies, television, and documentary productions.
The complaint states that “Ice Cube has devoted his life to the cause of social justice and civil rights, standing up for the disenfranchised in American society.” In 2020, Ice Cube’s social activism culminated in the publishing of A Contract with Black America, a covenant to right the centuries of wrongs that have been inflicted on Black Americans.
He currently promotes his own line of cannabis products, marketed under the name “Fryday.”
Robinhood is a securities trading and investment platform that uses the tagline “We’re on a mission to democratize finance for all.” Robinhood was started in 2013 by two former Stanford undergraduates, Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev, who decided to build “a financial product that would enable everyone — not just the wealthy — access to financial markets,” according to the website.
Robinhood grew quickly, offering commission-free trading on a platform optimized for mobile use.
Jackson’s photograph appeared on “Robinhood Snacks,” a newsletter available to Robinhood account holders and available generally on the company’s website.
Robinhood attracted a tsunami of attention in 2021 after a large group of self-organized retail investors trading on the Robinhood platform began to bid up the price of the video game seller GameStop that had been heavily shorted by hedge funds. The situation turned into one of the big stories of the new year as the army of small buyers drove GameStop’s price to record highs, in the process squeezing the hedge fund traders and forcing them to cover billions
of dollars of short positions, generating massive trading losses.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE
Copyright © 2021 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.
You Might Also Like
