During the last few weeks, West’s empire of business relationships across fashion, finance, music and media industries has crumbled with not only Adidas and Gap but also Balenciaga, CAA, UMG/Def Jam, Vogue and JP Morgan Chase all severing ties with the artist.
But the Adidas and Gap deals may be the hardest to unwind given complicated questions surrounding IP ownership and whether a morals clause exists in the contracts, which are private.
In an Oct. 25 statement ending their seven-year partnership with West, Adidas, which said it will take up to a $247 million short-term loss from ending the sale of Yeezy sneakers, claimed that it is “sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways under the partnership.”
But while Adidas can claim it owns West’s designs for Yeezy, likewise the star owns the trademark to the Yeezy name. So in theory, Adidas could move forward by producing Yeezy-like products without calling them Yeezy items, and West can continue using the Yeezy name independently to brand similar, or markedly different, products. Similar considerations apply to the Yeezy Gap line, which the retailer is no longer selling and is a partnership that West previously said he wanted to dissolve.
[Doesn’t sound all that tough to me. It’s the cost of doing business, and of tying your brand to a celebrity known for his public instability. Caveat emptor. — Ed]
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