Hot on the heels of Tottenham Hotspur taking a .44 Magnum as used by Dirty Harry to kill a wasp by telling Wessex League outfit Fleet Spurs to stop using their cockerel badge, comes the news that Elvis Presley’s intellectual property rights have been bought by an American company, Authentic Brands Group.
No biggie there, you might think. The buyout gives Authentic Brands control of Elvis Presley Enterprises, and the rights to Elvis’s image, name and likeness.
But these guys buy this sort of thing because it is worth big bucks – in Elvis’s case, around $32m a year.
And they protect these rights as voraciously as a peckish wolf standing over a moose carcass in the depths of winter.
If you catch yourself looking in a mirror with a curled lip and grunting in a low voice register; “Uh-huh-huh,” – and let’s admit it, we’ve all done that – expect a visit from a crack team of flying lawyers waving writs.
FSOM isn’t quite sure how far they will go to protect Elvis’s image, but if you want to avoid a hefty law suit it might be an idea not to gorge yourself to morbid obesity on deep-fried crispy bacon and peanut butter sandwiches, take so many prescription drugs that you rattle when you walk, and then keel over off the toilet with your pyjama trousers around your ankles.
Not that FSOM is planning to do this, if Authentic Brands’ lawyers are reading this. At least not the keeling over off the bog bit. Or the prescription drugs.
Authentic Brands also own the intellectual property rights to Marilyn Monroe, so just pause if you were thinking of slipping into a slinky white dress tonight and standing over an air-conditioning shaft (and let’s admit it, we’ve all done that. Haven’t we?).
But Authentic Brands have also tied up Muhammed Ali’s intellectual property rights tighter than a gimp in a gimp-box, which is a bit of a worry.
It could deny sports writer everywhere from using some of the most iconic quotes from the most famous sportsman ever to draw breath.
From now on, we will have to think that Ali “Floats Like a Butter Knife, Stings Like a Bean” (although the real famous line was thought up by Ali’s trainer, Bundini Brown, so let’s hope he’s getting a cut).
Unless we are prepared to stump up some spondulicks, no longer can we talk about possibly the greatest boxing match in history, where he and Joe Frazier fought themselves to a standstill even if calling it “The Thriller in Vanilla” makes it sound like a spat in Sprinkles ice cream parlour.
Likewise when Ali tugged the world heavyweight title from George Foreman’s grasp in Zaire, it will now be known as “The Fumble in the Jungle”, which is what FSOM would have liked with Mylene Klass when she was in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.
Where will this madness end?
Michael Buffer has already copyrighted his boxing catchphrase, so from now on, FSOM will resort to the motto adopted by pensioners in the Post Office queue; “Let’s get ready to grumble.”
Is Diego Maradona about to copyright his goal against England in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico? If so, will we be talking about “The Hand of Dog”?
Some American sports teams could be in serious trouble if they push the envelope too far in protecting their image rights.
After all, we wouldn’t want to see the Indianapolis Clots winning NFL’s Superbowl would we, and a re-run of baseball’s World Series could see the St Louis Cardigans take on the Boston Rod Sex?
But it’s not copyright protection but a wish to protect the sensitivities of you, dear reader, which prevents FSOM from using the correct word to describe recent performances from England’s football and cricket teams.
Instead, we’ll just describe them as a large freshwater fish, which has Common, Mirror and Leather verities and prefers to live in the muddy bottoms of lakes.
Mention of England’s first Ashes Test defeat provided FSOM with a flashback from the 1970s.
It wasn’t so much his memories of sitting in a Ford Cortina in his flared jeans listening to disco music on his eight-track, but of English batsmen being scared out of their jock-straps by a pair of Aussie quicks steaming in like Mike Gatting to Happy Hour at the pie factory.
Back then it was Thomson and Lillee who scared the bejasus out of English batters, now it’s Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris.
Being scared of Johnson and Harris compared with Lillee and Thomson is like admitting you’d find Ant and Dec more scary than the Kray Twins, but they’ve got England rattled and more importantly in Aussie eyes, they have triggered the return of their favourite sporting figure of fun – the Whinging Pom.
Having won the last three Ashes series England have – quite rightly – given it the Big One over the Aussies.
But if the Law of the School Playground has taught us anything, it’s that if you dish it out, you have to be prepared to take it, and England were plainly rattled by some of the things the Australians said both on and off the pitch.
Even the normally dignified and calm skipper Michael Clarke joined in the lip-fest, telling Jimmy Anderson to get ready to have his arm broken.
Being slapped with losing 20% of his match fee isn’t going to act as a deterrent to Clarke and his team. In fact, just the opposite.
Knowing they can rattle the English batsmen means the Aussies will be in their ears quicker than a cotton bud chasing a lump of earwax.
And the more England moan about it, the louder the Aussies will get as the Whinging Pom regains his place among the other Antipodean demon figures – the Bludger, the One-Pot Screamer and Tall Poppies.
On that note, FSOM would like to sign off with a hearty farewell, but as he can’t afford to be up before the beak for infringing copyright, he’ll just say; “Elvis has left the construction.”
