wrestling / News

Chelsea Green on Receiving C&D Order From 50 Shades of Grey Owners for Podcast Name

May 18, 2021 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris

As previously reported, former WWE Superstar Chelsea Green renamed her new podcast, which she called 50 Shades of Green, after she received a cease and desist order due to its similarity to Fifty Shades of Grey. She later renamed it to Green With Envy. Green addressed the cease and desist order on yesterday’s episode of her podcast.

While Green initially believed that her podcast would fall under parody law, since it wasn’t a direct spoof of the movies or books, it apparently did not meet that legal criteria. Below are some highlights (via Fightful).

Chelsea Green on getting a cease and desist order: “On Tuesday [May 11], I received a surprising email from my lawyer and it read, ‘Chelsea, much to our surprise, we received the attached cease and desist letter concerning 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 ****ing 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 ****ing desist.'”

Green on initially picking 50 Shades of Green: “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.”

On a piece of the C&D letter sent to her lawyer: “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.”

article topics :

Chelsea Green, WWE, Jeffrey Harris