The B&R Trademark

April 20th rolled around, and as the yearly 4/20 celebration commenced, I found myself with an abundance of idle time. My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to Google “Bud and Roach,” eager to see if any remnants of our first radio run still existed within the infinite depths of the internet. As I scoured the search results, something caught my eye – a movie titled “The Highdeas of Bud and Roach,” starring people we had never even heard of. I felt a surge of indignation course through me. I immediately called Alonzo to tell him about these imposters. “Who the fuck do these people think they are?” We were personally insulted by the lack of due diligence on the part of this film producer, who could have easily Googled “Bud and Roach” and discovered that we had owned the trademark since 2013. Wasting no time, I reached out to the film’s creators, informing them of their error and including an email tracer that would show me when and where the email was read. As I tracked the email bouncing back and forth between different states, I realized that they weren’t going to take it down willingly. Left with no other choice, I contacted YouTube with a copy of our trademark and had the movie removed. The takedown was met with harassment from both the filmmaker and the people featured in the film. Despite the negative backlash, I knew that this was a legal issue, and with the amount of money that Alonzo and I had invested in our trademark, we had every right to exercise our legal authority. As the harassment continued to build online, I came to realize that there was no room for emotion in business. As upset as everyone was that we had the movie taken down, the fault should be placed on the producer of the film, who had done no due diligence and led his team down a path of failure. In the midst of this conflict, I found an unexpected silver lining. The controversy surrounding the movie had inadvertently reignited the fire for Bud and Roach Show, and we’d soon get back on the horse.