When Leicester City was on their improbable Premier League title winning run, striker Jamie Vardy had some old social media posts pop up with one containing the phrase “Chat shit get banged” as he responded to abusive fans when he played non-league football.
Unlike others who have had controversial social media posts come up, Jamie and wife Rebekah saw it as a lucrative opportunity and trademarked the phrase after it developed a life of its own. It made sense considering others were probably going to market the phrase and make money so just go ahead and do it yourself.
So while the Vardys have “Chat shit get banged” trademarked, they learned that for a specific and unusual reason, that doesn’t apply to music. A song from Ed Sheeran and Stormzy contained the phrase and didn’t have to pay the Vardy’s because the phrase contains an expletive.
According to the Daily Mail, “The Intellectual Property Office denied their bid to protect its use in music because it contains an expletive.” That seems like a strange reason to deny someone a trademark because it supposedly only applies to music. The Vardys are able to use their trademark on merchandise and be paid every time someone else uses that phrase but not in music.
That would make sense because trademarking speech and what someone physically says can bring issues onto itself but that’s not the situation here. The reason was the expletive and not the phrase itself. So if Jamie Vardy had said “Chat nonsense get banged,” and it was used in a song, the Vardys would be in the right. Would make for a worse saying but it’d be within the parameters. Nevertheless, if anyone feels like using “Chat shit get banged” in a song, just know that you don’t have to pay the Vardys for the right.
