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And Finally Business News Legal
Reelz TV sues Instagram over its Reels
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 13 August 2020
So, remember how last week Facebook rolled out its TikTok-esque music-centric video-sharing Reels feature on the Instagram platform? Well, I wonder what the US cable TV channel Reelz thinks about the social media giant expanding its video services under that brand name.
“Unless stopped, Facebook and Instagram’s pervasive use of ‘Reels’ will completely swamp the distinctive brand identity that plaintiffs have built up for their own, pre-existing ‘Reelz’ media services”. That’s what.
“Defendants’ use of ‘Reels’ usurps the goodwill embodied in the ‘Reelz’ trademarks and is likely to confuse consumers. Indeed, at least one major publication has already mistakenly referred to ‘Reelz’ and included a link to the Reelz [TV] Facebook page, in an announcement meant to refer to defendants’ infringing use of ‘Reels'”.
Oops. That major publication, by the way, was Forbes. But anyway, yes, Reelz is suing Facebook and its Instagram Reels set-up for trademark infringement. So that’s fun isn’t it? Let’s all make annoying ten second videos about it and share them with all our friends on Reelz. Sorry, I mean Reels. See, easy mistake to make!
