In 2016 I wrote and published a book called Fifty Shades of Grammar: Scintillating and Saucy Sentences, Syntax, and Semantics from The Grammar Diva. The book is a collection of fifty of these blog posts — from 2016 back to 2013.
Yes, I did wonder if I was violating any laws by “stealing” the Fifty Shades phrase. So I asked around to see what my writing and publishing friends thought. I remember also running it by a lawyer acquaintance. And, of course, I looked on Amazon to see if anyone else had taken the phrase for a book title. I saw that there were many. So I felt pretty safe calling my book Fifty Shades of Grammar. It went on to win a book award from The Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. And that was that.
Until about a month or two ago. I received an e-mail from Amazon that a third-party had complained that I had committed a trademark violation, and my book would be removed from Amazon until and unless I could provide proof of permission. I did not have any.
But, you ask, are you sure that the e-mail was legitimate? Would Amazon just send an e-mail? I checked the address it was coming from and somehow determined the e-mail was likely legitimate. They even had the name of the complaining party, which was a media law firm in London. (I looked them up.) The e-mail also stated that the trademark violation was for the phrase “fifty shades,” not for the book or film title Fifty Shades of Gray.
I did an amateur trademark search online and found that “Fifty Shades” had been trademarked by a London business selling soaps and other such items, possibly some adult items as well. In the trademark information was a list of those businesses who were not allowed to use the phrase. The list included novels, but there was nothing about nonfiction books.
The next thing I did was search Amazon for those book titles beginning with Fifty Shades. Although my book had been taken down, these books (and this is a very partial list) were still up on Amazon: Fifty Shades of Green: Cooking with Cannabis; Fifty Shades of Bacon; Fifty Shades of Chicken; Fifty Shades of Crimson (which appeared to be a novel); Fifty Shades of the USA, about a women who had cycled through every state; Fifty Shades of Truth; Fifty Shades of Talmud; Fifty Shades of Pink and Blue; Fifty Shades of Greys, about aliens; Fifty Shades of Narcissism; Fifty Shades of Neigh; and many other books and notebooks called Fifty Shades of Green.
So I e-mailed Amazon back. I told them I had no permission, but I had checked around (including with lawyers) when I wrote the book and it seemed to be okay. I also pointed out that there were many other books beginning with that phrase, and they hadn’t been taken down. The next time I checked Amazon all the books had been removed except one: Fifty Shames of Earl Grey. That author had been wise enough to change one letter to avoid a problem, I guess.
I then consulted with a lawyer friend of mine (but not a copyright attorney) who found a case about parody, and thought my book title would fall into that category. I then sent a copyright attorney colleague a copy of that case. She agreed mine would relate to the parody case, and it didn’t look as if Amazon was going to take this too far, but if I needed a litigator to let her know.
Frankly, I wasn’t concerned that my book was off Amazon, since it is not one of my bestsellers. However, that book is listed in all books that came after it in the list of books I have written. I didn’t want that mention of the book to cause them all to be taken down. But no one thought that would happen.
In addition to Amazon, the book is listed with mega-book wholesaler Ingram, so I wondered if I should remove the book from there as well.
I looked on their website and couldn’t figure out how to take the book down. It turned out to be a good thing: That same day I received another e-mail from Amazon (this was probably about a week after the first e-mail) saying that the complaint had been withdrawn. No explanation. Amazon apologized for my inconvenience and said they would immediately put the book back up for sale. I thanked them and asked them to make sure they put all the other Fifty Shades books back too. When I looked, everything was back to normal. Crisis averted.
And why did it take six years for anyone to notice?
Arlene,
You should be aware that sometimes lawyers deliberately delay asserting a copyright infringement so that there may be royalties built up.
I can think of numerous cases of (alleged) plagiarism of songs where the claimant has waited several YEARS to make the claim. By that time the songs have racked up millions in royalties which the claimant then demands.
One case was the 1994 Oasis hit single Shakermaker The opening line was alleged to be a copy of the 1971 song I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. Oasis ended up paying £500,000 for that contra temp.
Maybe you were lucky the book wasn’t one of your best sellers.
Very good point! I guess they were hoping it would be a blockbuster. Not so much!
Thank you for sharing this story. And the good example you demonstrated in looking into the whole kit & caboodle. I will endeavor to put up a good fight the next time I find my self challenged.
Thanks for the comment Donna…and may you have smooth sailing and not have to defend yourself!
Out of pettiness, I suppose?😛
Quite possibly.
Forty-nine shades of silliness – all too common in today’s climate.
Yup!