Playing the word association game with “Mardi Gras” might yield a variety of results such as carnival, party, parades, beads, King Cake, and a host of things that I probably can’t write on this blog. It might also conjure up another word: IP.
Intellectual property issues are rampant during Mardi Gras. Take, for example, the 2011 trademark infringement dispute between the Rex Organization and the Micro-Krewe of ‘tit RƏx (pronounced “tee Rex”). Rex is the Mardi Gras parade. It rolls on Fat Tuesday. The King of Rex is the King of Mardi Gras. Rex is king. All hail Rex.
‘Tit RƏx is the antithesis of Rex. It’s a parade of shoebox floats pulled by the makers of the floats more than a week before Mardi Gras day. The parade was named as an abbreviation of the French word petit and a humorous play on the giant dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, more commonly called, T-Rex.
(Photo credit for ‘tit RƏx to Chris Graner at Nola.com; Photo credit for Rex to David Grunfeld at Nola.com)
Despite the vast differences between the two parades, in 2011, the big Rex informed the little Rex that the little Rex was infringing on the trademark the big Rex had in the name “Rex.” Daddy Rex threatened to sue baby Rex if the fledgling parade didn’t change its name. To satisfy the demand, ‘tit Rex became ‘tit RƏx. All of this happened, allegedly, quite amicably and the organizers of ‘tit RƏx said they understood that the Rex Organization had to protect its trademark. One of the more humorous aspects of the story is that every year a newspaper article about ‘tit RƏx runs in a New Orleans paper and the “e” is not turned upside down into a schwa (Ə). Instead, the journalist includes a closing paragraph that says something like, “For everyone’s peace of mind, please imagine that the letter ‘e’ in this story is upside down when legally necessary.”
There are IP issues surrounding Mardi Gras music. John Lovett (Loyola) has a new book chapter that highlights this. The actual subject of Lovett’s chapter is a comparative analysis of the revindication of movable property, but the story that is at the heart of Lovett’s analysis is all about copyright law and the music of Professor Longhair, a pianist whose name is synonymous with Mardi Gras because of his songs “Tipitina” and ”Go to the Mardi Gras.” In 1971, Professor Longhair recorded four tapes during a recording session in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The tapes were sent to a record company in New York, allegedly as demo tapes. For unknown reasons, the tapes were never returned. After Professor Longhair’s death, the recording studio used the tracks on Professor Longhair’s tapes to produce the Grammy-winning album, House Party New Orleans Style: The Lost Sessions 1971-72, and a few years later tracks were used on the album Professor Longhair: Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge. Unsurprisingly, Professor Longhair’s heirs wanted the proceeds the tapes generated, but as Lovett discusses in his book chapter, copyright protection was unavailable. Instead, the heirs had to use the revinidicatory action to try and gain ownership of the tapes, thus giving rise to Lovett’s comparative analysis of the revindication of movables.
Last year’s case Nola Spice Designs, L.L.C. v. Haydel Enterprises, Inc., 783 F.3d 527 (5th Cir. 2015) brought up IP issues of a unique variety. There is a thing in New Orleans called a “bead dog.” The basic procedure for making one is to break up a pair of beads into a group of four beads and three groups of two beads. Connect the three groups of two beads over the longer chain of four beads and, voila you have a bead dog. Kids make them regularly. My daughter made one for every child in her class last week.
(Bead Dogs made by my daughter while trying to catch shoes at the Muses parade.)
In 2009, Haydel’s Bakery, a very popular bakery in New Orleans that makes one of the best King Cakes in the city, commissioned for a mascot to be made. The mascot that was designed was a bead dog. Haydel’s had the phrase “Mardi Gras Bead Dog” trademarked and received a copyright for the Bead Dog work.
In 2012, the jewelry and accessory store Nola Spice Designs was created. Nola Spice sells, among other things, jewelry made out of Mardi Gras beads in the shape of, you guessed it, a bead dog, and advertises those pieces of jewelry as “bead dogs.”
You can all guess what happened at this point. Haydel’s sued Nola Spice for trademark and copyright infringement. Given that you can currently buy “Bead Dogs” jewelry on Etsy from Nola Spice Designs, you can guess the outcome of the litigation, but read the entire opinion if you want to see a very in depth discussion of the bead dog tradition, photos included.
IP issues involve Mardi Gras clothing. In 2010, the U.S. Copyright Office recognized the Mardi Gras Indian costume made by Howard Miller as a sculpture/3d artwork, thus giving the costume copyright protection which had the benefit of, in some situations, requiring photographers to pay to sell photographs of the costumes.
IP affects even the most sacred of Mardi Gras things—liquor. In 2013, having settled its dispute with ‘tit RƏx, the Rex Organization sued King Rex Spirits for trademark infringement when King Rex Spirits produced vodka in Mardi Gras-themed bottles. Though you can still buy Nola Spice Bead Dogs, you cannot buy King Rex vodka in stores anymore, so you can all guess the outcome of this lawsuit, too.
Mardi Gras and intellectual property. They go together like red beans goes on rice, plastic babies go in King Cakes, and Professor Longhair goes with the piano.