The Return of the 'Coke' Festival Blog

Jason Bagley has returned, as we thought he might, with a new blatantly ‘unofficial blog’ that mocks Coca Cola for their previous legal proceedings. There still appears to be some discussion amongst the online community about whether he will pull this one off or whether Coke will be back for a second round.

Jason’s newly revamped blog went live less than a week after he took the last one down. He has reposted his last post from the ‘MyCokeFest’ blog and restored the original fan base.  With a new domain www.musicfestivals.co.za/mycokefest/ and blog name ‘The unofficial Coke Fest Blog’  it is evident that Jason is wary of provoking Coca Cola. 

However some of the comments on his blog suggest that Jason should remove all references to Coke and not earn advertising revenue from it in order to avoid offending Coca Cola again.

 “I’d maybe look at making it “CZ Fest” or something just to remove all chance of getting another slap on the wrist.”-Rich
“Why don’t you remove the advertising from your site at the same time? Then you can really prove to the public that you are being the sincere blogger than you are trying to portray.”-JT

Others think that ‘Coke’ is not a word that can be owned by Coca Cola because it is also the abbreviation of the word Cocaine.

The trademark name ‘Coke’ represents the goodwill and reputation built up by the Coca Cola Company. Previous court cases, like The Coca Cola company vs Masud Osman resulted in Coca-Colas’ trademark claim being enforced when it comes to the use of “Coke” in domain names.

Section 69 of the UK International Property rights legislation which came into force on the 1st of October 2008 even includes trademarked names such as ‘Coke-Cola Limited’, which are sufficiently similar to the registered company names to be marked as offensive.

Coca Cola has taken on battles similar to the My Coke Fest fiasco in the past. The cease-and-desist letter they sent to Maxistore.net regarding their vintagecocacola.com fan site in 2000 is one such example. It was apparent even then that Coca Cola was willing to endure negative press in order to protect their trademark rights.

I contacted New Media lawyer Paul Jacobson to get some professional insight.  He believes that-with regards to the original site-Coca Cola was well within its rights in asking Jason to take the blog down. Coca Cola had registered “My Coke Fest” as a trademark brand a month before Jason registered the domain. This unlawful ‘passing off’ is what the attorneys complained about in their letter.

Paul did point out that Coca Cola missed out on a potential gold mine by not negotiating a deal with Jason. He said “unfortunately Coke's attorneys were oblivious to this potential and rather than dealing with the matter as a Social Media opportunity they approached it as a typical legal matter.”

He states that there were “opportunities lost due to traditional thinking and legal protectionism.”

With regards to the new site Paul believes Jason may still be on shaky ground.  He suggests that “the more he clarifies that his [Jason’s] site is not an official Coke site the better it is for him.” Although he doesn’t believe that simply mentioning a brand would cause any problem, he thinks the lawyers may be inclined to disagree.

In the end Coca Cola’s trademark stipulates that:

“Nothing contained on the Site should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any Trademark displayed on the Site without the written permission of The Coca-Cola Company”.

Since Jason has used the word 'unofficial' in the title he may be in the clear this time around, and as Paul Jacobson says “Coke would be foolish to object to every use of its name.”