Online self publishing company Lulu has filed suit against the NBC/ News Corp joint venture Hulu for trademark infringement, unfair and deceptive trade practices and for federal cyberpiracy.
Lulu alleges that Hulu have intentionally attempted to create confusion in the marketplace in that the name Hulu represents a definitive encroachment on Lulu’s name. Lulu also claims Hulu’s trademark filing of August 22 identifies various products and services, many of which are related to, and even identical to, the services that Lulu provides under its Lulu marks.
Lulu CEO Bob Young said in a statement that the legal action was about defending Lulu’s brand; for everyone else it’s yet another part of the ongoing trainwreck soap opera that Clown Co (Hulu) has been since pretty much day one. The ultimate irony of course is that Hulu, which translates to cease and desist in Swahili, may never get off the ground due to someone taking the meaning of the name seriously.
If they’d listened to me and gone with Hulo it would all be good.
This may be the best story of the year. Possibly the best story ever.
Maybe they misspelled it like I just did my own name.
sigh…
Lulu.com said Wednesday that it has filed suit against Hulu.com for trademark infringement.
Seems like pretty weak sauce to me, and that would be extremely sad if Hulu was looking to pick up the traffic of the maybe 5 people in the world that both:
1. Know Lulu.com exists and want to do business with them.
2. Don’t know enough about Lulu.com to know how to spell it.
However, there are certainly finer legal minds in this world than mine, so we’ll see what happens.
Awesome.
I have never heard of them. But I guess this is a good way for them to get known…..I should try that some day….Who should I sue? Google for listing my site without my permission? hmmmm it just might work….
I think that hulu is a great name, but lulu is not very good at all! That is what I think!
that’s a ridiculous claim…lulu suing hulu for confusion, etc.
only an idiot would get those two names confused.
The train wreck analogy is not accurate, because it assumes moving trains are involved, but Hulu probably won’t even leave the station.
Hulu is about to be voted into “The Top Ten Corporate Blunders of 2007″, right along with NBC’s decision to leave Apple for Amazon.
tofu
fair call, although you can derail a train while shunting it around the station
If you combine the translations from the other languages in the order in which they appear, you get “great old butt handle” as a translation.
Beautiful.
What a ridiculous tech world we live in. We’re talking about a company called lulu and another one called hulu.
bump this story ….
Lulu are also going to announce lawsuits against George Takei and the Alice Springs Aboriginal community.
Lulu is the first site I thought of when I saw the name ‘Hulu’. But can you file a suit if the words ARE different and the companies ARE in differing markets? (albeit online companies).
Its a great way for Lulu to get some exposure, though. You know it’ll make news everywhere.
Erm… yawn?
Ask Kevin Rose about the importance of defending your brand name. He was reluctant to do so, wanting to be cool about Digg fan sites and home grown extensions – all were using *igg in their name. But when he found out he could lose his trademark protection if he didn’t defend it, the cease and desists went out.
Based on that alone lulu will win this “one letter off” brand name case. That is not even considering that hulu wants to sell books – something that lulu is well known for. Case closed.
I would like to see a TechCrunch contest for Clown Co. new, NEW name now that they are going to lose the use of hulu.
I’m lovin it!
Sorry.Not an interesting story.
Sadly poor old Rupert is once again well behind the game but is surrounded by idiots clinging to big salaries who are telling him he’s on top of the online revolution.
When he gathered his ‘great and good’ online gurus about him in Carmel earlier this summer he ended the shindig with a warning ‘you are all too old,’ he said. ‘Think young and sort this mess out.’
Unfortunately someone then left the puppy doo doo called Hulu in the corner and added to the ‘mess’. It is just another example of some pretty disjointed thinking – not helped by a bunch of old model ‘big and proprietory is best’ dinosaur partners,
I can’t name names, of course, but given the raw material poor old Rupe is dealing with and prepared to listen to across the News Corp stable he is doomed. He will continue to throw money at the problem and that will hold the fort. But he needs to abandon the siege mentality and let some of the ‘indians’ through the gates to show him how it should be done.
For those of you who didn’t read the press release there was mentioned of another one of lulu’s sites (http://www.lulu.tv/) which of all things distributes video. So going after hulu isn’t as far fetched as it seems.
Hilarious, thought the name was a joke when I heard it!!! Another example of an incumbent trying to play the disruptor at their game & failing? The jury’s still out on whether the old media companies can catch up with the upstarts such as YouTube
You have to admit that there is some merit behind this whole hulu project not because they are offering something new but because of their network of distribution they will have with all their partners. In saying that I bet Google has a belly ache from all the laughing about this simple setback for the YouTube killer.
Curiously enough, Lulu actually had a another recent Press release (aug 22) stating they were bidding on the rights to rename a HUMAN BEING. That’s not a joke. They take their branding seriously. The current name of the future “Mr. Lulu.com” is…..
Hulu, Clown Co., Schmo Co… as soon as their video content is available, I’m on their site regularly watching my shows. It’s funny how many people are jumping on the “let’s bash Hulu” bandwagon. It might help boost your online blog ego a bit piling on like this, but like the name or not, they’re going to be a major player in online video.
Just take a look at the content lineup they own… are people really going to boycott their site because a few internet geeks made fun of their name and scoffed at their “old school” thinking? Don’t hold your breath.
@TheDude
Every Clown Co. misstep, domain name change, uber-marketing-double-speak press release dilutes what’s in the publics Zeitgeist. At the rate they are going the general populous will think the can download The Office at fox.com.
Yes, Clown Co. has wildly popular shows ( The Office, Heros, etc ) but if no one can intuitively guess where to get them, they are all worthless.
Ask some non-geeks around you where they think they can download the latest episode of The Office, if they wanted to: theoffice.com? nbc.com? iTunes?
P.S. I notice that when entering “the office” into a Google search, the words “Clown Co” are being displayed at an ever increasing page rank – so funny.
Todd. So to a certain extent, you’re judging Hulu by the fact that the masses don’t know where to find downloads of their favorite shows… today? Hulu just got a name and isn’t launching Beta until October, (my guess is it might be later). Are you doubting the collective abilities, resources, and budgets of News Corp. and NBC Universal to get the word out to the masses about where to go to get ALL of this content in a one stop shop?
Make no mistake, hulu’s obstacle will not be having content people want, it will not be getting the mass eyeballs to watch this content, it will be effectively monetizing this content. It’s funny to me that the YouTube giant they are trying to slay still can’t do that…
In this way I think Hulu has an advantage over YouTube. They have the opportunity to build a viable money making platform from day one instead of losing millions per month like YouTube and having to come up with ways to “change the deal” with users by adding advertising strategies that weren’t there before. If Hulu can strike an acceptable deal with consumers relating to the amount of advertising they will put up with… they might actually become the YouTube killer they set out to be.
Wow! A well written response. I sincerely respect what you have to say, but strongly disagree with all of it. Hulu will lose its name in court to lulu. Then they will have to pick another.
Anyone tech savvy enough to know how to download The Office would just TiVo it instead for free.
I’ll make you a prediction, all NBC properties will be back on iTunes by this time next year, for the standard $1.99, hulu will be in the TechCrunch Dead Pool and YouTube will remain the most popular web video site on earth.
Note that I said “If Hulu can… they might…” I am in no way making a prediction on their long term success, but I maintain that they have an opportunity and the content, money, power to give it a strong shot.
Even if Hulu takes a bath in bandwidth costs for awhile whithout producing a revenue stream from the beginning, they have deep enough pockets to ride it out longer than a year. I predict they won’t be dead this time next year but will only be just ramping up, whether it’s under the Hulu name or something equally ridiculous.
They’re the Quetchup of social media sites!
Defending their brand…LoL
More like PR …. who is LuLu never heard until now.
With all the web 2.0 companies making simple names like these, I foresaw something like this coming.
This is classic.
@Todd & TheDude – the Internets just gained an IQ point. good discussion, sans flaming.
couple questions..Why not just upgrade the offerings at NBC.com to include ad-supported free video and higher-quality paid downloads? they currently offer only a smattering of recent episodes for free. maybe it’s because of the old thinking that your web presence must be a “shop front” of sorts to drive customers to your brick and mortar business?
If you or I were to start an online video-content business today, how many three-letter domain names would we find available, far less one that is practically synonymous with TV?
If I were running that ship, I would reassign everyone involved with the hulu decision for myopic thinking, and hire someone from the Coca-Cola school of brand management in addition to someone like maybe an Arrington (forgive the blatant blogger worship that follows) who, having chronicled the coming, shortcomings and deadpooling of many a company fighting for commercial presence on the web, can help chart a course for a re-imagined NBC.com whose purpose would not be intrinsically linked to broadcast NBC, or Universal Studios or Universal Music, or DRM or limited thinking. Even itunes is limited in scope and thinking…..where is the interactive “web 2.0″ (sorry for using a now cliched term) element… NBC.com is the way to go.
Warren, all good ideas, but you may be giving Clown Co. too much credit. The meta question is: Why jerk the paying end user around in the first place?
Everything was fine at iTunes, people were downloading The Office, enjoying it, paying for it legally. Everyone was making money…
…but GREED has raised its ugly head, and someone at NBC who should have thought of the loyal fans first, green lighted this foolishness. The Office is the number one selling DVD on Amazon, it was like number one or two on iTunes, NBC earns the highest advertising rates for The Office, but that wasn’t enough apparently.
Lulu apparently is the G rated word for d*#k in Hindi…..
I think Hulu will really benefit sites like videohybrid.com, alluc and tvlinks.co.uk when they can link to “legal” content and not have to go and scour sites like veoh and daily motion for every popular episode……
Todd since when is greed bad? If everything was done for charity this’ll be a whole different world my friend……I don’t know much about what happened, but making a statement like they should put fans first is actually funny…..I mean what corporate does that? so why single out NBC.com…..
@TekWek,
It always saddens me when I have to explain things like this, but as a public service…
As a human beings we are separated from lower forms of life, like a worm or a skunk, only by our behavior. A vulture will peck the eyes out of another vulture to get more of the carcass. That’s OK, they are vultures, that’s what they do. But as a higher order of life, pecking someone’s eyes to get a few ounces more of the rotting meat ( or charging $4.99 for a DRM laden digital copy of an episode of The Office even though production costs haven’t increased ) is aberrant behavior. It is “greedy” and “shameful”.
Please consult that little voice in your head which you have apparently learned to ignore for more information about why being greedy is wrong.
Also, see Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos for examples of how you can make a billion dollars without being greedy.
Michael – please “hulu” your one-sided Hulu coverage.
Todd very noble indeed and it’s nice to see there are people out there who think like this…..I should have explained I wasn’t referring to you or anyone specifically but speaking in more general corporate terms and how most of these places are full of hawks and vultures and how saying stuff like let’s put fans first will actually be laughable…….
btw most of the companies are run by managers who just follow the herd so it’ll be hard to find Jeff Bezos at these places