U.K. Restaurant Food Fusion Tried to Steal Fear Factory’s Logo

Trademark law is tricky and the lines between inspiration and plagiarism are often blurry. I’ve seen the Iron Maiden font used countless places (here’s one example right in my neighborhood), there are myriad logo designs that make use of Metallica’s hallmark pointy “M” and “A,” spoofs on Black Sabbath’s design to connote stoner good times abound… shit, this site even used the Pantera font in its header for its first couple of years in existence, and in most (or all) of those instances no kind of legal action is ever brought forward.

This is a pretty clear-cut case, though: Food Fusion, a restaurant in Bradford, England, had been using Fear Factory’s “Obsolete” logo as their own until very recently, when the band was finally able to get the restaurant to stop after two cease-and-desist letters over the course of a year. The restaurant issued a statement Friday apologizing to the band and blaming a design company they’d hired for the mishap (still… why’d it take them an entire year to pull it down?) while promising a new logo is on the way.

Let this serve as a lesson to all aspiring bands/brands/businesses out there: don’t rip off other peoples’ shit! Metal already has enough of a plagiarism problem.

1 year and 2 cease and desist letters to finally realize they can’t use the “Obsolete” logo. pic.twitter.com/IdUK6wkHRv

— Dino Cazares (@DinoCazares) May 25, 2018

[via Metal Injection]