Links Corbett Harper Speedoboys

[StephenStardust]

Corbett Harper became an Internet sensation when the Huffington Post and other blog sites called him the "Speedo Student" and chronicled his XXXtracurricular activities at the University of Hawaii. Dink Flamingo gave his dreams a venue to become reality in SPEEDOBOYS

Speedoboys was the film that resulted from the notoriety I earned with my classroom speedo solo video. Dink Flamingo of Dirty Bird Pictures noticed the online controversy over that video and invited me to make a series of films with his studio. We shot what was to be the first of these in April [2010] in San Diego. The idea was to continue my personal theme of speedos in a way that would transition from the solo videos I was known for to full professional sex scenes. The film included four scenes shot with Active Duty.com models Kaden and Shawn, two of which I bottomed in. My personal favorite was the third scene, which was a duo jerk-off scene between me and Shawn that included plenty of speedo teasing. Speedoboys was released at the end of May and reached number 2 on the JRL chart the next month.


Unfortunately, Speedoboys is no longer being distributed because we were confronted with a legal challenge from Speedo several months after its release.

Corbett Harper, Former ‘Speedo Student’

This is hardly the first time Speedo has pursued such a course. Unlike some other swimwear companies, they put a great deal of effort into marketing their products exclusively as athletic apparel, not as style accessories for gay men. They have a track record of seeking out any use of the word “speedo” in connection with gay sex and suppressing it by legal threats, while quietly allowing more innocuous uses of the word to continue. Their efforts have been successful so far only because their targets are individual bloggers and small producers, who do not have the resources to fight the corporation. If the issue were to go to court, it would readily be seen that the word “speedo” was in use before Speedo attempted to trademark it, and that in any case the word is now a part of the general lexicon and thus not eligible for trademark protection. Aside from the fact that Speedo has no real legal grounds for their efforts, this attitude is simply bad business. Chi Chi LaRue pointed out to me once that Calvin Klein has made a fortune from never complaining about the use of his underwear in porn films, since that is effectively free promotion for the brand. Instead of being similarly sensible, Speedo is thus pursuing a deliberate policy of trying to alienate a large percentage of its customers.​

More: Q&A: Corbett Harper, Former ‘Speedo Student’, Moves on from XXX Classroom Controversy

 

[bar4doug]

Corbett Harper became an Internet sensation when the Huffington Post and other blog sites called him the "Speedo Student" and chronicled his XXXtracurricular activities at the University of Hawaii. Dink Flamingo gave his dreams a venue to become reality in SPEEDOBOYS

Speedoboys was the film that resulted from the notoriety I earned with my classroom speedo solo video. Dink Flamingo of Dirty Bird Pictures noticed the online controversy over that video and invited me to make a series of films with his studio. We shot what was to be the first of these in April [2010] in San Diego. The idea was to continue my personal theme of speedos in a way that would transition from the solo videos I was known for to full professional sex scenes. The film included four scenes shot with Active Duty.com models Kaden and Shawn, two of which I bottomed in. My personal favorite was the third scene, which was a duo jerk-off scene between me and Shawn that included plenty of speedo teasing. Speedoboys was released at the end of May and reached number 2 on the JRL chart the next month.


Unfortunately, Speedoboys is no longer being distributed because we were confronted with a legal challenge from Speedo several months after its release.

Corbett Harper, Former ‘Speedo Student’​

​

This is hardly the first time Speedo has pursued such a course. Unlike some other swimwear companies, they put a great deal of effort into marketing their products exclusively as athletic apparel, not as style accessories for gay men. They have a track record of seeking out any use of the word “speedo” in connection with gay sex and suppressing it by legal threats, while quietly allowing more innocuous uses of the word to continue. Their efforts have been successful so far only because their targets are individual bloggers and small producers, who do not have the resources to fight the corporation. If the issue were to go to court, it would readily be seen that the word “speedo” was in use before Speedo attempted to trademark it, and that in any case the word is now a part of the general lexicon and thus not eligible for trademark protection. Aside from the fact that Speedo has no real legal grounds for their efforts, this attitude is simply bad business. Chi Chi LaRue pointed out to me once that Calvin Klein has made a fortune from never complaining about the use of his underwear in porn films, since that is effectively free promotion for the brand. Instead of being similarly sensible, Speedo is thus pursuing a deliberate policy of trying to alienate a large percentage of its customers.​

More: Q&A: Corbett Harper, Former ‘Speedo Student’, Moves on from XXX Classroom Controversy

Doesn't surprise me.

You can't advertise your copier as a xerox-machine, even though most people used to call office copiers by that name. Xerox is trademarked.

You can't advertise an event occurring the same time as the SuperBowl as a "SuperBowl Party", or call your box-pool "SuperBowl Box Pool". The NFL has trademarked the term "SuperBowl". This is why everyone uses "The Big Game" instead...

Fuck, even Apple Computer wanted to sue Apple Records for copyright / trademark infringement, since both entities had the same corporate name. Nobody could mistake a Beatles record for a Macbook.

Speedo invented the swim brief. Like the office copier, the name Xerox-Machine became synonymous with Copier. Speedo is trademarked. They are protecting their trademark. They want to control how their trademark is used. I am not sure that I agree with the above post, that Speedo has no legal grounds to control their trademark. There is precedence elsewhere saying otherwise...