They say all press is good press, and this following bit of news seems to be just that; perfectly timed news. Many of us have been trolled by the satire site “Wunderground,” falling victim again and again to their hilarious pieces. One of those consistent victims, Steve Aoki, thinks that the site has gone too far in its mockery of his image when an Indiegogo campaign began making the rounds trying to raise money to print a shirt that says “Ask me about my shit DJ impression” and flips to show Aoki’s face. Aoki’s camp argues that Wunderground did not receive the authority to use Aoki’s likeness from either Aoki or Ultra Music, who owns the licensing, and that for them to profit off of the shirts would “subject the individuals in that [fundraising] crowd to liability for conspiring to unlawfully usurp our client’s and Ultra’s intellectual property.”
Wunderground responded just about as you would expect them to: in a satirical rant blasting Aoki and his team, reminiscent of The Oatmeal v. Funnyjunk. The only problem between these two cases is that Aoki’s team has a substantial case against Wunderground since it is, in fact, his image and they cannot profit off of that without his permission, which it seems they don’t have. Now for the reason that it seems like perfectly timed news: the story has started to surface around the time that Aoki’s “Neon Future I” has hit shelves even though the original letter was sent August 5, 2014. While we can ponder conspiracies all we want this seems to be a very real credible threat to the future of Wunderground, and now that we have both sides of the story we can sit back and watch it all unfold.
