Over the years, plenty of folks accused Kanye West of ripping them off. You can likely chalk it up to the cost of doing business in popular culture and being a highly porous sponge pulling influence from a wide swath of the arts and leave it at that.
However, Kanye has a new beef, and it’s not from the usual sources. As reported in Bloomberg last week, Walmart filed a complaint with the US Patent and Trademark Office claiming that West had ripped off their logo.
Walmart’s sun-like symbol, in use for the retailer since 2007, features six unbroken rays, while Kanye’s new Yeezy logo features eight rays consisting of three dots. Because of this, Walmart claims that Kanye’s new logo will sew confusion amongst folks and “lead to consumer deception.” To which I would add, do you even know how much a pair of Yeezy flip flops runs for?
So, did Kanye rip off the biggest retailer in the US? I’m inclined to say not really? Or maybe I should say, yes, and everyone should rip off ideas from a global chain that can barely be bothered to pay their employees a living wage? Or perhaps Kurt Vonnegut’s estate should throw their hat into the lawsuit ring as these assholes have a lot of explaining to do for his asshole scribble.
Regardless, probably not much to see here, other than one ginormous entity beefing with another that hasn’t made a good record since 2010. Also, I highly doubt the retail giant has anything like the Yeezy Foam Runner up its sleeve.