How the Cookie Crumbles: The #UtahCookieWars

How the Cookie Crumbles: The #UtahCookieWars

Besides offering delicious cookies that can be delivered straight to your door, Crumbl Cookie is bringing some interesting legal content to the news by filing trade dress infringement lawsuits against two other cookie companies. Crumbl claims that two smaller Utah business, Dirty Dough and Crave Cookies, are using packaging, logos, and designs that are confusingly similar to that of Crumbl, which could constitute infringement under the Lanham Act. In reference to Dirty Dough in particular, Jason McGowan, co-founder and CEO of Crumbl Cookies, posted on LinkedIn on August 29, 2022, alleging that “Dirty Dough has stolen trade secrets from Crumbl’s internal database,” including recipes, building schematics, statistics, training videos, and more. As redress, Crumbl is seeking monetary and injunctive relief in the District of Utah.

Adding another dimension to Crumbl’s allegations, Dirty Dough’s founder was a former Crumbl employee, and the owner of Crave Cookies had previously had their application to become a Crumbl franchisee rejected. Both individuals, Crumbl alleged, took Crumbl’s packaging, marketing, advertising, and presentation in an attempt to profit off of Crumbl’s trade dress and brand identity.

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The Stakes in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, the first non-software fair use case the court has heard since 1994. This has copyright lawyers aflutter, as fair use law has been in increasing disarray for the last 20 years or so, and there is hope that finally the Supreme Court will give lower courts much-needed guidance. Unfortunately, I think the probability is higher of a mush-filled disaster of an opinion, like the one in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands (2017), that not only gives no guidance, but eliminates the few stable boundaries we have.

That’s because fair use doctrine is a poor fit for the way modern courts operate, and there is probably little the Court can do to fix that, but a lot it can do to make the problem worse. But before I get there, I want to lay out in this post what’s at stake in AWF.

The case involves a licensing deal between celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith and Vanity Fair magazine.

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How to Have Restrictive Contracts and Still Be “The Good Guys”

Cover of Adventure Zone graphic novelJustin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy have built a podcast empire on being wholesome good guys. They come off to their fans as three brothers who are down-to-Earth, goofy, and will never do anything to hurt people. This has connected with podcast listeners worldwide, helping them build a massive fan base.

But at some point, businesspeople and celebrities make mistakes. For the McElroys, this mistake has come in the form of them trying to find ways to make money off the success of their podcasts. Prior to 2018, the McElroys had sold merch for their podcasts, gone on tours to do live recordings of podcasts, and had a brief TV adaptation of the podcast “My Brother, My Brother and Me” on the failed streaming platform Seeso, which was owned by NBCUniversal.

Then came the graphic novel adaptation of “The Adventure Zone,” which shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller’s list. The graphic novel, while illustrated by Casey Pietsch, features a gallery of fan art at the back of every volume. Given the relationship the McElroys have with their fans, it seems reasonable they would pay tribute to the fans and the artwork they create by including a gallery of artwork tied to the events of that volume.

This fan art gallery has become the center of a bit of controversy in recent weeks.

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