New Music Video To Protest Trademark Bullies Launches Grammatical B

Nov. 28, 2010 - PRLog -- A new music video is setting breakneck time records for viral success, industry experts say, as a song originally created to protest Intel Corporation’s attacks on free speech has sparked an explosive popularity of California rapunker Grammatical B among millions of Internet users.

The video, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW9uDmdnbZw, received more unique visitors in its first 24 hours of posting than any other video of its genre to date, according to analyst estimates.  

In the process, “Don’t Ask Don’t Intel,” has launched artist Grammatical B into an instant underground phenomenon among diehard music aficionados. Within 24 hours of release, the video had gained traction on all major video-hosting networks, reportedly sending Intel Corporation spin doctors into emergency room mode.

“I can’t say it’s a model for how musicians can use new media to circumvent established channels to popularity, because a model is something that can be replicated,” said a veteran music industry insider, “I don’t think this can be replicated. You need a lot of stars to line up, including a crazy lawsuit like they have. But even if you could replicate this, it has permanently raised the bar for viral marketing.”

“We're obviously pleased with the results,” said the video’s co-director John Dickie, an up-and-coming British cineast whose “Barrios Beats and Blood” documentary screened in October at the prestigious Morelia International Film Festival.

Grammatical B, a San Diego-based artist, released his first CD this month, The Birthinating.

Jeffrey Wright, president of Americas News Intel Publishing LLC, says he came up with the plan to create the video after receiving call from a small business owner in the Washington DC area who was being sued by Intel Corporation because he uses ‘intel’ in his company name. Like Americas News Intel Publishing, victim of a similar lawsuit brought by the chip-maker, the DC publishing company was employing intel in its everyday sense of intelligence, news and information. Intel Corporation dropped its suit against ANIP in late November. (http://intel4intelligence.blogspot.com)

“You can’t trademark English-language words if they’re being used in their literal sense. Legally they belong to the public domain. Pick up any newspaper any day of the week. The public knows what the word ‘intel’ means. But what Intel Corporation is attempting to do is to bury small companies in litigation they simply can’t afford and in that way secure the word for their private branding purposes. This guy [from Washington DC] called me and described how he had already spent thousands of dollars and didn’t think his company would survive. He said, ‘They don’t even seem to care about the bad publicity.’ And it hit me. There hasn’t been any bad publicity because there hasn’t been any publicity. Intel can abuse the court system to raise our legal costs -- the least we can do is use technology to raise the bad publicity costs for them.  Not out of malice -- the public simply has a right and a need to know this kind of thing is going on day in and day out in the court systems. It’s not just Intel Corporation, either. A lot of large companies are do it and the U.S. Senate has even commissioned the U.S. Commerce Department to produce a study on ‘trademark bullies.’”

“Hopefully,” Wright added, “greater public awareness will discourage Intel Corporation and other companies from pursuing these kind of abusive tactics. It can cost thousands of dollars for a defendant just to formally respond to a federal trademark suit. For most companies, the cost is untenable, and they either go bankrupt or capitulate to the bullying ways.”

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Americas News Intel Publishing LLC publishes the Mexico Watch Intelligence Service, a news and information suite on Mexican business, politics, and the economy