TY - JOUR
AU1 - Kuldova,, Tereza
AB - Abstract This article investigates the social function and underlying logic of trademark law by using the unique and unconventional example of self-proclaimed ‘outlaws’, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, and their paradoxical utilization of the IPR law for the protection of their reputation and ‘goodwill’ in both legal and illegal markets. Hells Angels worldwide are passionate about legally protecting their club designs, logos and insignia, as well as logos and designs relating to their legal fashion and accessories businesses with support merchandise. Analysing the example of the Hells Angels and their relationship to their club insignia, it is revealed that the trademarked logos clearly function as fetishes in the anthropological sense. Consequently, it is argued that the trademark law protects precisely this power of the fetish over people, rather than being a mere protection against ‘consumer confusion’ or a mark of ‘origin’. Hence, it is argued that trademark law operates on principles of magic as identified by J. G. Frazer and thus belongs to a magico-legal realm rather than a realm of purely rational law as the legal discipline would like to argue. The power of designed logos is at the crux of the argument. In 2010, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC), represented by their exclusive IPR lawyer Fritz Clapp, sued the famous fashion house Alexander McQueen,1 along with Saks Incorporated and Zappos Retail, for trademark infringement, unfair competition and dilution of a famous mark, i.e. for manufacturing, sourcing, marketing and selling jewellery, apparel and accessories that dilute HAMC marks of membership.2 The case was settled, HAMC compensated with $140 0003 and the offending merchandise destroyed. This lawsuit brought to light the extent to which these self-proclaimed outlaws, who publicly pride themselves on disregarding the law, strategically utilize trademark law to protect their business interests, ‘reputation’, brand equity, and intimidation power.4 Following the model of HAMC, other outlaw motorcycle clubs, so-called ‘one percenters’,5 have during the past three decades registered their trademarks and set up fashion apparel and accessories labels that legally help fund their legal as well as illegal activities.6 This article focuses on the way in which HAMC uses the trademark law to legally protect its reputation and brand value within legal markets, as opposed to the already familiar practices which it utilizes within informal or extra-legal markets, typically resorting to violence in order to protect its reputation and its sacred patch.7 Furthermore, a question is raised as to what implications we can draw from this phenomenon with respect to the underlying logic of current trademark law8 and the trademark’s symbolic power within contemporary consumer capitalism and the logic of marketing, which the self-proclaimed outlaws are clearly aware of.9 This case also shows that the ways in which self-proclaimed outlaw groups integrate into society may take even the most counterintuitive forms—utilizing the law protecting design in order to gain profit and reproduce their existence, which depends on and is embodied in the design10—and that they are, paradoxically, better integrated into mainstream society than their subcultural and outlaw appearance might suggest, or more than criminologists, who tend to perceive such groups as socially and individually deviant, might argue. Moreover, it shows how outlaw biker clubs such as HAMC perceive themselves also but not only as a design product, i.e. as a carefully designed and staged subculture that can be commodified and turned into economic capital while also insisting on being an American export brand, thus showing high levels of appropriation and utilization of mainstream market discourses. The Hells Angels were born in the post-war USA in California, Fontana/San Bernardino, on 17 March 1948. According to Thomas Barker, law enforcement considers them, along with other outlaw motorcycle clubs, to be the only American export criminal organization,11 even though gangs like the Bloods and the Crips have also spread worldwide.12 HAMC is a transnational brotherhood, a subculture and a business franchise organized around central myths, rituals, aesthetics and designed logos that mark the in-group from the outsider. The club has been as heavily mythologized by the media as it has been loathed by law enforcement worldwide; it has inspired movies, from The Wild One with Marlon Brando (1953) to Easy Rider (1969), numerous popular books, TV series such as Sons of Anarchy (2008–14), along with a range of documentaries and has featured in popular shows such as the US History Channel’s Gangland. This has contributed to the power mystique of the club and its special place within American popular culture.13 When it comes to the Hells Angels, distinguishing myth from reality becomes particularly hard, as the club itself engages in myth-making and exploits even the exaggerations of negative press to reproduce its violent reputation, which it capitalizes on across legal and illegal markets. For the club members, the logos and insignia serve the functions of conserving the club’s power, of encouraging membership and support and of reproducing the organization on a daily basis through rituals associated with the marks. With respect to intellectual property rights, this brotherhood of outlaw bikers represents a transgressive case: it blends ‘collective marks of membership’ with business trademarks, and the logic of certification. According to U.S. law, a trademark is ‘any word, name, symbol, or device, or combination thereof, used [. . .] to identify and distinguish goods from those manufactured or sold by others’.14 There is, however, often a difference between the way things appear on paper and the way in which they are actually practised. I argue that the cases involving the Hells Angels reveal that in practice the power of the trademark goes beyond any question of the ‘origin of goods’,15 ‘consumer confusion’16 or ‘consumer search costs’,17 which are the key terms used within the legal discourse pertaining to trademarks and the key justifications used by legal scholars to convince us about the presumed function of trademarks.18 Instead, the symbolic power19 of the trademark treads on the territory of magic and fetishism—the exact opposite of supposed legal rationality. Two questions follow: first, what does IPR do in practice as opposed to what it is supposed to be doing?’20 And secondly, what is the actual function of the trademark law in relation to fashion and design and in relation to the character of the intangible that is protected? This article contributes to what Rosemary Coombe has entitled ‘critical cultural studies of intellectual property’,21 to design history and to an understanding of the symbolic power of designed logos. Filthy rites of passage and the sacred ‘Death Head’™ ‘Members wear their patches proudly as a sign to society—I’m a bikie. Don’t fuck with me. For the clubs, there’s nothing more sacred than the club colours or patches’.22 Becoming a full-patched member is considered an achievement; one has to prove one’s loyalty and suffer at least a year of repetitive humiliation before one is ceremonially awarded the full-patch. [1] This means that the Death Head logo becomes a sacred symbol to the members as it transforms individuals into clan members, for whom the collective always stands above the individual. Hence, while the outsiders recognize the logo as a famous brand, with both desirable and undesirable qualities, the insiders consider it to be a sacred object. Elsewhere, I have discussed the role of the logo for the insiders in more depth in terms of ‘totemic identification’,23 borrowing Malinowski’s concept.24 The daunting process of acquiring the patch helps us understand its value for the members and the partial motivation behind the logo’s legal protection. In his classic book Hell’s Angels, Hunter S. Thompson describes the scatological initiation rite of a prospect becoming a full-patch member as follows: Fig 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Three-part full-patch of a HAMC member (unlike most worldwide charters, which feature the country name on the bottom rocker, the German HAMC decided to use city names after threats from the government to enforce a total ban on the club). Photo courtesy: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty. Fig 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Three-part full-patch of a HAMC member (unlike most worldwide charters, which feature the country name on the bottom rocker, the German HAMC decided to use city names after threats from the government to enforce a total ban on the club). Photo courtesy: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty. Every Angel recruit comes to his initiation wearing a new pair of Levis and a matching jacket with the sleeves cut off and a spotless emblem on the back. The ceremony varies from one chapter to another but the main feature is always the defiling of the initiate’s new uniform. A bucket of dung and urine will be collected during the meeting, then poured on the newcomer’s head in a solemn baptismal. Or he will take off his clothes and stand naked while the bucket of slop is poured over them and the others stomp it in.25 Members of the Hells Angels and their supporters often passionately narrate such stories of ‘filthy rites’26 of passage, involving anything from urine, drugs, shit, semen, to the gang-banging of prostitutes and other women shared by the whole club.27 The stories are presented as a matter of achievement, and can thus be understood as a response to status frustration,28 the club providing the members with alternative means of achievement, respect, and recognition which are encoded in the club’s symbolism. The creation and reciting of club myths is crucial to the production of belonging to the brotherhood, a sense of membership, and to the creation and maintenance of reputation and value of the Hells Angels’ hyper-masculine brand. The core of the myth of the outlaw biker is summed up in the words of Ray, recalling riding with the Hells Angels in the mid-1960s: This was a new breed of rebel [. . .] They didn’t have jobs. They absolutely despised everything that most Americans value and strive for—stability, security. They rode their bikes, hung out in bars for days at a time, fought with anyone who messed with them. They were self-contained, with their own set of rules, their own code of behavior. It was extraordinary to be around.29 Myths and rituals are not only central to the production of persons, belonging and the social,30 but also to the construction of the ‘power mystique’31 of certain groups and no less to brands as they become central to the ‘production of cultural significance’.32 The mythological Hells Angels are said to cultivate a passion for being dirty, repulsive, and offensive to the senses of ‘ordinary folks’,33 from their appearance and bodily odour to the noise of their Harley Davidsons, the ultimate masculine motorcycle with an exposed engine. Through ritual practice, however, matter arousing disgust can turn something ordinary like a jacket with a patch into something sacred. Myth-making and participation in powerful rituals and ‘rites of passage’34 at different stages before and post-membership,35 are among the central activities of outlaw motorcycle club members to forge their identity, establish global solidarity and endow their insignia with meaning. This myth-making36 is thus directed both at insiders, in that it reproduces the brotherhood’s ideology, and at outsiders, in that it cultivates the popular image of the club and enhances the club’s brand value. Insignias and patches remind their wearers that they are never alone; their brothers worldwide back them. Patches not only create kin out of strangers (totemic identification) but also function as a fetish which exerts transformatory power over the members. ‘Fetish’ is to be understood here in the classical sense in which people create something that in the end has power over them.37 Fetishes embody ‘the power of material things to be collective social objects experienced by individuals as truly embodying determinate values or virtues’.38 In Outlaw Bikers,39 a TV documentary, John Real, the former president of Hells Angels Maryland captured the power of this fetish: I was the talk of the town, one of the best guys, we were initiated as Hells Angels, best day of my life, as soon as I changed that patch I became this monster, from just the jacket I wore. I put that patch on and I paid the price. I eventually got arrested, I eventually got charged [. . .] I eventually lost almost everything I owned, because of that patch, but I would do that again tomorrow. A fetish can arouse tremendous amounts of affect and thus mobilize people to action. Pietz described this as ‘the subjection of the human body (as the material locus of action and desire) to the influence of certain significant material objects that, although cut off from the body, function as its controlling organs at a certain moments’.40 Rituals and myths are crucial in the process of creating and cultivating this fetishistic power of the insignia. This is true for any ‘collective marks of membership’41 (some protected by trademark law), including those of fraternities, street gangs, Rotary clubs, or Freemasons. In case of the HAMC insignia, it becomes a matter of ‘distributed personhood’;42 the person must at all costs protect the dispersed pieces of his self. The protection of distributed personhood translates in practice into rules such as: any Hells Angels member who loses his colours can be kicked out of the club.43 Respect towards the patches is crucial; hospital workers in emergency departments, likely to encounter shot and injured members of outlaw motorcycle clubs have been advised that: The patches, or ‘rockers’, that indicate full membership to an OMG [outlaw motorcycle gang] are embroidered on a biker’s colors, and are regarded with great reverence by members and club affiliates [. . .] A biker’s colors are integral to his identity as a member of the club. Should a biker’s colors be removed during the course of his care in the ED, physicians and staff would be prudent to treat his colors with respect or otherwise risk a hostile reaction from the biker and his associates.44 The sacred logo, invested with the power of the brotherhood and its mythology, is passionately protected. Within the street economy, this takes the form of violent extra-legal action. If an outsider dares to offend the sacred patch or make fun of any club insignia, he is in for potentially deadly trouble. In 2001, 44-year old Cynthia Garcia from Mesa, Arizona, was attacked by three local Hells Angels after making fun of their jackets, and was eventually murdered.45 If caught, non-members playing at Hells Angels dress-up might end up with a beating. Hence, purchasing counterfeited Hells Angels designs, or for that matter the designs of any outlaw motorcycle club, is not a good idea. While individuals, including undercover police, trying to use, mock or exploit the power of the patch are dealt with mostly violently, companies within the legal economy that attempt to translate the power of the insignia into profit and infringe on the HAMC trademark are sued or threatened with legal action. Passionate trademark protection and the laws of magic The Hells Angels’ passion for suing infringers has become notorious and is now part of their power mystique. As Fritz Clapp remarked, today the HAMC is so notorious for suing for infringement that he regularly receives letters inquiring if a certain use of a potentially confusing name would be fine with the club. In 2013, a multi-ethnic outlaw motorcycle club called Hell’s Lovers, founded in Chicago in 1967, applied for a trademark. Prior to that they contacted Clapp in order to make sure that it wouldn’t be a problem; he assured them it would not amount to confusion.46 Yet even within the club, the rules of conduct with respect to patches are discussed. Clapp, also a producer of a movie about the life of the legendary Hells Angel47 Sonny Barger, said that during the shooting, one of the biggest issues for the club was whether to allow the actors to wear authentic patches. First, they thought of creating an imitative design for the actors but Clapp argued that ‘it would be silly to infringe on oneself and thus encourage infringement in the public’. In the end, all jackets were closely monitored and were worn by the actors only during the actual shooting and then locked in the clubhouse. The members’ fear of unauthorized bodies wearing the original jackets and appropriating the power mystique of Hells Angels is extreme. This fear corresponds to the principle of sympathetic magic as identified by James G. Frazer, who has shown that sympathetic magic operates by two laws;48 by law of similarity (homeopathic magic), wherein like produces like (fear of infringement and copying) and by law of contact (contagious magic), where the object appears to transmit its imaginary inherent power to the one who engages with it (fear of the actors acquiring the power of actual Hells Angels by wearing the jackets)—people collecting the strangest items that have been used or touched by celebrities follow the same principle. A question arises: does trademark law merely prevent consumer confusion or indicate the origin of goods? Or could it be that legal concepts like ‘dilution’, ‘blurring’, ‘tarnishment’ and ‘passing off’ are profoundly magical concepts wrapped up in the rational language of law? Katya Assaf has explicitly put forward a similar argument by suggesting that ‘famous marks are legally treated as magical, sacred objects’ and that ‘this legal approach amounts to endorsing the commercial religion of brands.’49 Magical thinking is at play also when Harley Davidson sells underwear, t-shirts, sunglasses and other derivative items. This form of consumption of branded objects relies on a belief, even if often disavowed,50 but for that matter no less powerful, that the logo somehow magically transmits the brand mythology centred on the core product, such as the Harley Davidson motorcycle51 which embodies freedom, power and American heritage, to all the derivative products. This argument further supports the analysis of the trademark law put forward by the renowned legal theorist Barton Beebe, who argued that since the inception of the trademark law in the mid-nineteenth century, ‘the metaphysics of source was replaced by the fetishism of commodities—or, indeed, of trademarks themselves’.52 This shift in the perception of trademarks dates back to Frank Schechter’s seminal essay, ‘The Rational Basis of Trademarks’,53 that created the blueprint for contemporary dilution doctrine. Schechter argued for the necessity for ‘a remedy for the unauthorized use of famous marks on non-competing products, even when there is no consumer confusion, because such uses diminish the famous mark’s value’ and for ‘the withering away or dispersion of the identity and hold upon public mind of the mark or name by its use upon non-competing goods’.54 This marked the shift from consumer protection (where trademark was a shorthand for the quality and origin of a certain good) towards the protection of owners. In other words, the focus shifted towards the mark’s selling power, brand equity and intangible value. Today, we have reached a point when ‘trafficking in trademarks’, limited until 1994,55 has become an omnipresent feature of contemporary markets; a ‘commercial race towards weightlessness’,56 as Naomi Klein put it. The contemporary reality ‘is that the trademark owners—the branding enterprises—will inevitably seek to expand the strength, power, and scope of trademarks’.57 The transnational business empire of Hells Angels™ Unlike most shadowy criminal organizations the Hells Angels, and a rival gang called the Rock Machine, advertised who they were with their patches on the backs of their leather jackets. Like politicians or corporations eager to generate name recognition, both sides handed out t-shirts and baseball caps to drug dealers who sided with them.58 HAMC is not only a worldwide motorcycle club with charters in fifty-three countries across the world,59 but also a well-run business organization engaged both in legal and illegal activities ranging from fashion, tattoo, events management, security to drugs, weapons and prostitution.60 New charters are backed by existing charters while reporting to their mother charters in the US and to their respective national offices.61 As Fritz Clapp, says, ‘Hells Angels is a brand with franchises all over the world’.62 The most visible of these businesses is the trade in support merchandise, and thus also a trade in the derivative power mystique of the Hells Angels subcultural brand. The support merchandise functions as a lifestyle brand that offers consumers a sense of belonging to a powerful group outside of the bounds of good society, and thus certain derivative intimidation power, while also offering an international brotherhood of supporters a sort of ‘brand community’, familiar from more conventional brands, such as motorcycle, scooter63 and car brands. While fashion businesses and trademark lawsuits represent only a small fraction of the overall income of the Hells Angels, they have great symbolic value as they visually unify the brotherhood while encouraging support, often a first step to recruiting of new members. The franchise-like character of the Hells Angels is revealed in the way they ‘patch-over’ existing motorcycle clubs worldwide and turn them, after a hang-around and prospect period, into one of them. Bad Boy Uli, a German ex-Hells Angel, describes the patch-over in his book; in 1999, the local Bones Motorcycle Club became Hells Angels, marking the beginning of the dominance of the Hells Angels in the German underworld.64 This patch-over testifies to the transformatory power of the trademarked Death Head. Following an afternoon of speeches given by foreign Hells Angels, the Bones MC discarded its colours, adopted the colours of the Hells Angels and celebrated the transition with a wild party. In the meantime, hired Polish women handled sewing machines, removing the old Bones patches and stitching on the new Hells Angels patches; this act of rebranding immediately increased the power of every patched-over member. The old Bones clubhouse was cleaned up and all decorations with Bones symbolism burned; the clubhouse was then filled with Hells Angels merchandise from the US—interior design elements, posters, diverse paraphernalia and patches, t-shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, support merchandise and so on. This aesthetic makeover made the clubhouse look like every other Hells Angels clubhouse in the world. Legally speaking, such branded aesthetics falls under the concept of ‘trade dress’,65 which could be a potential next step for the Angels in protecting their IPR, especially considering that clubhouses typically open their doors to the public once or twice a month, when they turn into bars and party places for befriended clubs, supporters and anyone interested and wishing to enjoy themselves; during this time support merchandise is also sold to the public. The members were also informed that, like in a classical franchise, roughly two per cent of the income of all the members must go onto the club, in addition to monthly membership fees for the local club that can run as high as 400 euros a month, yearly fees paid into the international account and other fees paid into special accounts for the Europe Run and the World Run.66 Moreover, the World Rules, a document with distinct legal appearance, which formalizes the organizational rules, rights and obligations for all charters of Hells Angels worldwide,67 states that members are required: (13) B. To pay $20 per member worldwide to cover the cost of the Trademark bill. The $20 would be due March 1st every year. If more monies are needed a special request would be made. Penalty for not paying by March 1st would be a 100% penalty of the original amount. (14) If a prospect club in a new country becomes HA, they have to send fax to Guinea (Oakland) with the request for trademark. Guinea will send that charter back a confirmation and an official paper to be filled in, which must be sent back to Guinea. After that the new HA charter can arrange the trademark in their own country.68 If we for a moment bracket the brotherhood ideology and the role of the logo for the members themselves, we can claim that the Hells Angels share many features of contemporary brands. At the same time they make us perceive the power of logos in a new light. Brands, too, are learning from organizations like HAMC when aiming to create ‘lovemarks’69 instead of old-fashioned brands, i.e. brands that are loved and that demand commitment for life. Just consider the way brands are increasingly trying to forge ‘brand communities’70 or even ‘branded subcultures’71 and to engage with ‘co-creators’ (instead of consumers) in ritualistic events celebrating their belonging to a given brand community. Think of international communities of the devoted consumers of Harley Davidson, Royal Enfield, Jeep, Apple, or of fashion shows or rallies—branded rituals par excellence72. Since the mid-1960s, when outlaw motorcycle clubs became ‘institutionalized’,73 they have been progressively turning from fringe subcultures into transnational organizations akin to business franchises74 that, like regular businesses, claim their right to protect their reputation in the market. While a subculture in its own right, it is one which actively commodifies itself and turns itself into a lifestyle brand, without at the same time being threatened by such commodification of its own existence—as was for instance the case with punk music fans, who largely disappeared once the subculture became commodified. This persistence over time is achieved through strict rules of membership and thus a very limited and elite worldwide club of actual members on the one hand, and on the other hand through the promotion of the Hells Angels as a lifestyle brand through derivative products. The trademark protection of the exclusive Death Head reserved only for full-patched members, and of trademarks associated with support merchandise available to all, contributes to the protection of the core subculture while at the same time enabling its commodification. Registered trademarks and the business of fashion The HAMC Death Head (skull with wings logo) received patent no. 926-590 from the United States Patent Office on 4 January 1972. As a trademark (reg. no. 1136494) it was filed for the first time in 1978 and officially registered in the U.S. in 1980 as a mark of ‘membership in an association of motorcycle drivers’. Today, HAMC in the U.S. has seventeen different trademarks associated with fashion apparel and accessories labels aimed at club supporters, like the ‘Support 81’75 label run by Hells Angels’ charters worldwide. ‘HAMC Death Head’, the words ‘Hells Angels’, ‘Big Red Machine, ‘Support 81’, ‘Red and White’, and ‘Route 81’ are all trademarked internationally. While the Death Head is reserved for initiated members, other labels are used in support merchandise and can be purchased from local charters’ websites worldwide. The same is the case within the European Union where, in addition to its registration as a motorcycle club, HAMC has a number of trademarks connected to very specific businesses, such as jewellery, goods in precious metal, clocks and watches, earrings, key rings, badges, chains, pins, periodical publications, books, photographs, articles of clothing, footwear, coats, jackets, trousers, sweaters, hats, vests, waistcoats, belts, badges, belt clasps, lace and embroidery, buttons, headwear ornaments, patches, entertainment services, sporting and cultural services including wrestling and boxing, educational and training services, concert and discotheque services, organization of exhibitions relating to motorcycles and so on. Each charter runs its own internet store with support merchandise that follows the World Rules regulation and features individualized designs created by club members or supporters. The support merchandise is typically designed by members within individual charters and is also most commonly managed by one or two members within a charter. A club member with a distinct design sensibility usually creates the design, for instance, a tattoo artist, a common profession among the HAMC members. The design process relies on common tropes of the mythology of the club as well as on inspirations from the rock music scene and biker culture at large. Manufacturing of support items is most often awarded to local companies (in proximity to individual charters), which offer printing on items such as t-shirts, jackets, cups, patches, and so on. In certain countries, there are also members who own such printing companies. This is largely to prevent copying (as might occur if production were outsourced to China, for instance), and to enable the flexibility of designs. Clothing items are often produced in response to different occasions (memory runs, charity runs, anniversary parties) or are created in support of members who are in jail. Hence, flexibility in respect to production volume and timeliness is required. Since the production costs are high, this is why even simple items such as t-shirts are priced at more than forty euros. Since power over design and production lies within individual charters, there is no bulk production, something that is also enabled by sales over the internet, which also facilitates on-demand production. However, the opening of the first physical support store in Mönchengladbach, Germany, in February 2016, appears to be the first step towards more standardized bulk manufacturing. While design creativity is encouraged among the members and supporters, there is an important prohibition on designs pertaining to the Death Head, which is reserved for members, and to designs associated with Nazi symbolism:76 (20) A. In the future HA should not manufacture or wear any items of clothing carrying the SS logo. B. Stop wearing or manufacturing any items with ‘Lightening bolts or Swastikas’ such as shirts, jewellery, plagues pictures, drawing, etc. This would include also member signatures. C. No more items with lightening bolts or swastikas to be manufactured, word, sold or displayed. This covers bike paint jobs, tattoos, t-shirts or clothing of any type, jewellery, posters, flyers, members signatures, plaques & pictures. The ONLY exception allowed are EXISTING headstones, plaques and tattoos. (21) Hells Angels stickers can be given to prospects, hangarounds and support clubs. (22) B. No more t-shirts with HELLS or ANGELS on it to be sold to the public.77 The name, Hells Angels Motorcycle Club,78 was suggested to the founder of the first charter in 1948 by Arvid Olsen, a former squadron leader of the 3rd Pursuit Squadron of the ‘Hells Angels’ American Volunteer Group; the original smaller Death Head logo was designed by Frank Sadilek, who was the president of the Frisco charter (San Francisco) in 1953 and was inspired by the insignia of the World War Two US Air Force 552nd Medium Bomber Squadron. Later, in 1959, Sonny Barger, the legendary president of the Oakland charter, introduced the current larger Death Head design, which initially went under the name ‘Barger Larger’ and over time became a standard for all charters worldwide. This imaginary link, through the logo, is however the only connection to the actual WWII Hell’s Angels;79 none of those veterans ever joined the HAMC. Still, it is generally true that the Hells Angels have been popular with war veterans, in particular Vietnam war veterans. HAMC is also known for supporting charities like The Wounded Warrior Project. Every charter develops its own creative take on the general theme of the Death Head and each charter often has its own unique Death Head in addition to the globally unified logo worn on the jackets. For instance, an individualized Death Head can feature a location within the design, while the skull may be reworked in more detail and so on. The same creativity can be observed in the accessories and clothing sold in the online support stores. Hence, creativity among the Hells Angels members and supporters is channelled towards playing with the logos and symbols. In addition to design, different brand slogans are invented, both for supporters and members (see[2] and [3]). Fig 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Inside a Hells Angels clubhouse in Germany. Photo courtesy: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty. Fig 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Inside a Hells Angels clubhouse in Germany. Photo courtesy: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty. Fig 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Image of a member of HAMC wearing a t-shirt with a slogan: ‘it is not a crime to be a Hells Angel’. Photo courtesy: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty. Fig 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Image of a member of HAMC wearing a t-shirt with a slogan: ‘it is not a crime to be a Hells Angel’. Photo courtesy: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty. Charters worldwide encourage this design creativity. Recently, the Oakland charter launched an Support 81 Oakland art contest, encouraging supporters, friends and members worldwide to participate in designing logos and artwork for their line of support gear. These are some of the official rules of this contest: 2. The words HELLS and/or ANGELS must NOT be used. 3. The Death Head logo must NOT be used in ANY VARIATION. 4. Design must incorporate the word “OAKLAND” 5. Design must not resemble a back patch or any clubs patches or logos. 6. If using 81, it MUST incorporate “Support” somewhere in the design. Example: Support 81 7. Designs must be ORIGINAL pieces. 8. Multiple design admissions will be accepted. 9. By submitting your designs you are giving us permission to utilize the artwork whichever way we see fit.80 The enforcement of the rule against incorporation of the Death Head logo reserved for the members is strict, as is the prohibition against the similarity to the patches of members. The only shared feature of the written designs with the original logos is the typescript, which also symbolically aligns it with the originators. As in the majority of fashion business, the designs themselves are not protected—the only thing protected by trademark is the ‘Support 81’ wording, but the rules also state that ‘artist’s signature will be kept in all artwork and will be used in printing of any and all designs for artist recognition’, which affords recognition of the creativity to the individual artists or designers. The rules of this contest display again the level of awareness of the motorcycle club about intellectual property rights. The derivative ‘81’ logo offers outsiders and non-members the possibility of benefitting from the carefully cultivated power mystique of the Hells Angels. As Fritz Clapp, the HA IPR lawyer, himself a supporter but not a member, remarked: ‘my Harley is red and white and full of Hells Angels support design and sure, when I park somewhere people around tread carefully, nobody dares to mess with you’.81 This is the derivative magical power inherent in the logo— in this case, the power to intimidate and to induce respect. This is what the supporters or consumers primarily purchase when buying support merchandise; the imaginary proximity to the powerful HAMC. The sales of derivative products such as sunglasses or perfumes by luxury brands to those who cannot afford the real thing but wish to participate in the brand magic connected to the brands status are based on the same logic. Hence, through its support merchandise, HAMC is manufacturing a form of its own diluted brand power; the outsiders cannot purchase the original marks of membership but are able to participate at least in some of the power mystique of the Hells Angels through a derivative design. The trademark law prevents others from doing the same, i.e. benefitting from the symbolic power associated with the trademark owner. As several Hells Angels members in Europe and US told me, what provokes them the most when designs are copied is that someone has dared to disrespect their sacred patch and make money out of their carefully cultivated image. Ex-members especially find themselves under attack as they often have a tendency to financially benefit from their previous association with the Hells Angels, by writing bestsellers about their dark past or appearing on TV shows.82 Potential infringers are regularly warned through legal letters sent out by the HAMC IPR lawyers to ‘cease and desist’ their practice. For the Hells Angels it is extremely important to control their public image when they can, especially considering that their image is often in the hands of journalists and law enforcement keen on creating a moral panic around the outlaw motorcycle clubs or increasing readership.83. The battle over the clubs’ public image, i.e. over the power behind the brand, has led to the institutionalization of Hells Angels PR officers or the HA’s increasing engagement in charitable actions and in emulation of the corporate social responsibility programmes and philanthropists84—from yearly Toy Runs on Black Friday in the U.S. or care for neighbourhoods to fundraising for children with cancer or collecting clothing for the homeless in Germany. Like contemporary philanthropists such as Bill Gates, Hells Angels, too, attempt to, at least partially, replace the state, which they portray as incompetent, impotent, overtly bureaucratic, unable to deliver, i.e. the exact opposite of the way they see themselves. Invoking IPR law and donating to charity translates into seeking an appearance of legitimate power.85 Such legitimacy lowers protection costs and serves their commercial mission.86 These media battles deserve an investigation of their own but suffice it to say here that they need to be taken into account when considering the obsessive desire to control the image of the brand and aggressively pursue infringers. Settling with Marvel Comics, Alexander McQueen and Young Jeezy In 1992, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation, a non-profit organization established in California in 1970 and represented by Fritz Clapp, sued for the first time for infringement. Marvel Comics had created a comic book called Hell’s Angel about a superheroine; HAMC claimed that Marvel Comics was exploiting their bad-boy image to increase sales and deceiving the public by making it believe the comic was endorsed by HAMC. Marvel Comics was accused of unfair competition and damaging ‘goodwill’ to which it responded that Hells Angels had no ‘goodwill’, since their reputation was a bad reputation rather than a good one.87. However, hey soon thad to abandon that argument—the law does not judge the character of the reputation and goodwill at stake, as long as the reputation is undeniably a commercial asset. The lawsuit was settled. Marvel Comics changed the name of the comic book to Dark Angel and—in the spirit of HAMC creating positive PR—was also forced to donate $35 000 to a children’s charity. The lawsuit was supposed to bring to the attention of the public the fact that HAMC’s insignia were trademarked and should not be infringed. In 2010, another lawsuit captured public attention, the famous lawsuit against the fashion house Alexander McQueen Trading Ltd., Saks Incorporated and Zappos Retail. It was stated that: From decades of notoriety, the HAMC Marks have acquired very widespread public recognition, consequently they evoke strong and immediate reactions whenever used. The impact of these marks is virtually incomparable, as a result they have a great commercial value. Defendants seek to exploit that value for their own gain.88 [5, 6] Fig 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Detail of support merchandise for women. Photo courtesy: author. Fig 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Detail of support merchandise for women. Photo courtesy: author. Fig 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Excerpt from the legal case against the fashion house Alexander McQueen, with details of the designs that infringed on the intellectual property rights of HAMC. Fig 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Excerpt from the legal case against the fashion house Alexander McQueen, with details of the designs that infringed on the intellectual property rights of HAMC. Fig 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Excerpt from the legal case against the fashion house Alexander McQueen, with details of the designs that infringed on the intellectual property rights of HAMC. Fig 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Excerpt from the legal case against the fashion house Alexander McQueen, with details of the designs that infringed on the intellectual property rights of HAMC. The psychological and symbolic power of ‘evocation’ invoked here is precisely what is in practice protected by the trademark law as a commercial asset in its own right. More than with design per se, the case has to do with the evocative power of certain designs; this is possibly the most effective way to protect design in contemporary marketplace (think of Louis Vuitton logos). The dilution charge equals here an accusation of profanation of the sacred (original) symbol which was, through dilution, robbed of its power since some of its power was magically transferred to McQueen’s designs, and turned into profit. Since McQueen’s designs directly exploited the signature Death Head, the case was straightforward and was settled with financial compensation and the destruction of all merchandise, including that already sold. What is revealing in this case is that the legal argument of potential ‘consumer confusion’ does not stand even if the logo was directly copied. Comparing the support merchandise produced by HAMC and the designs of the fashion house, it is clear, as Fritz Clapp himself remarked that ‘of course, in practice, there are no people who would actually be fooled’.89 As a rule, the law operates with an underlying concept of a rational individual, and considers how a rational person would act in any given situation. Trademark law, however, appears to operate with an underlying idea of an easy-to-deceive naïve observer rather than a rational individual. Viewing McQueen’s designs in an already existing socio-cultural context, nobody would confuse them with Hells Angels’ products. Instead, what is at stake here is the power associated with the design, the power deriving from myths and images accumulated within the logo, from the symbolism of the outlaw image, hyper-masculinity, to the idea of America and unrestrained freedom. Still, we could ask, to what degree does this power actually belong to the Hells Angels, considering the quantity of movies, documentaries, newspaper pieces, and so on, produced by outsiders, all of them also feeding the power of the insignia. When the commodification of subculture is at stake, who becomes its rightful owner? Can culture be owned and stolen? Considering that the subculture is as much produced by insiders as by outsiders, and would not exist in the same form without the iconic Harley Davidson, how can ownership of a trademark extend to ownership of culture? In 2014, another lawsuit involving a fashion brand was settled outside court.90 The case involved Young Jeezy, a popular American hip-hop artist from Atlanta, who used the sacred Death Head logo on his 8732 Apparel line. Clapp remarked that Jeezy, like most celebrities with fashion lines ‘outsourced design to an unknown Chinese fashion designer, who was ignorant and copied the logo onto the sleeveless denim jackets’. Jeezy was accused of causing HAMC irreparable harm for which money and other remedies were inadequate. In this case, the jackets were potentially confusing to those only vaguely familiar with the outlaw motorcycle scene. 8732 Apparel design clearly imitated the classical three-part patch aesthetics common to the majority of outlaw motorcycle clubs. However, the bottom rocker, commonly used by outlaw motorcycle clubs to indicate their country/region was instead decorated with the first two digits of 8732 Apparel. The ‘MC’ patch was also missing. However, from a distance the jacket was potentially confusing. An interesting and unspoken fact about this case is that Jeezy is a black hip hop artist; this means that we are dealing here with a case of potentially subversive subcultural borrowing from one commercialized subculture by another. The World Rules of HAMC state that black people are not allowed in the club and cannot ever become members, a rule vigorously followed. Considering this, Jeezy’s design was subversive precisely through appropriating the aesthetics reserved for this exclusive club of white men. The infringement is obvious from the trade point of view but this case also reveals that the trademark law protects a monopoly on meaning and prevents any challenge to the established meaning. To challenge the established meaning of a brand legally, while using the brand trademarked insignia, is possible only through the parody exemption.91 As a consequence of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006, in the U.S. ‘federal dilution has become a luxury claim, rewarding trademark owners for becoming so deeply integrated into our culture that their marks have meaning to the general public. The statute also rewards the public by protecting the meaning of symbols we choose to make prominent in cultural discourse’.92 Since only famous brands known to general public are in practice afforded protection, this leads to strengthening of existing monopolies and the creation of ‘boundaries around the meanings and uses of words’ where a ‘group is legally entitled to insist on the maintenance of static meanings for specific words’ and hence ‘its identity, traditions, and ideals will be forever insulated from the taint of the outside world’.93 Such protection can quickly become a double-edged sword, reinforcing the fetishistic power of labels. At the same time, such protection means that the reputation of clubs such as the Hells Angels can be controlled by them and go unchallenged. Only parody is possible. Conclusion: protecting and attacking the power of the fetish ‘Their bread and butter is the patch on their backs’, said RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] Sgt. Randy Mortensen, sergeant-in-charge of B.C. [British Columbia]’s Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Unit94 Recently, governmental authorities worldwide have been waking up to the problem of IPR and trademark laws offering legal protection to outlaw motorcycle clubs. However, in the process, the authorities themselves have become seduced by the magical power of the fetish (logos), believing that if they remove the logos from the street and attack the identity of the clubs, the ‘problem’ will go magically away— even if the reality on the ground speaks clearly against this idea. For example, Germany has been trying to enforce a flat ban on the public display of HA logo since 1988 when the Hamburg supreme administrative court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) prohibited the display of Hells Angels’ colours, logos and other symbols in the city, because of their power to intimidate. The protection offered by trademark law complicates this issue. The claim to protection of reputation within IPR law prevents many governments from acting against outlaw motorcycle clubs. Some argue that removing the trademark protection for outlaw motorcycle club insignia would enable law enforcement to manufacture jackets and t-shirts with these symbols and thus dilute their power en masse, while also being able to wear them undercover.95 While the power of magic in everyday life and of the fetish is certainly significant, as the contemporary valorization of brand equity reveals, it is irrational to believe that abolishing or diluting the insignia would result in a profound transformation of material relations on the ground and an elimination of the motorcycle clubs’ criminal activities. Pushing people into invisibility does not make them go away, it merely hides them from sight, in the same way that cancelling their trademarks and thus also legitimate businesses may in fact push them into even more criminality, encouraged by resentment towards the majority society. Moreover, such proposals are grounded in the same logic as the protection afforded by the trademark law, which we have identified here. They are merely yet one more testimony to the seductive and magical power of designed symbols, which condense conflicting meanings and cult mythologies onto a few square inches. A recent incident in Germany sums this up; the football team SV Gremberg of the local division was about to play against Leverkusen when it turned out that they were running around in ‘Support 81’ T-shirts with the text ‘Red Army 81 Cologne supports Hells Angels’. Leverkusen felt intimidated and refused to play. The response of Hells Angels on social media was: ‘do these people believe that a t-shirt can intimidate anyone, seriously?’ While they themselves are aware of the symbolic power of their objects, and hence they protect this power by trademarking it, their query also raises the question of the limits of the power of the fetish. Overall, this case raises not only questions about the power of designed logos to forge brotherhoods engaged in illegal activities as much as branded communities, but also ethical dilemmas in respect to the utilization of the trademark protection by groups considered by law enforcement worldwide to be criminal organizations. Paradoxically, while trademark law may appear to further their agenda, it also makes them extremely visible and thus vulnerable, especially compared to worldwide criminal organizations such as the Mafia, where members are largely invisible. However, this also goes to show that the HAMC is not only a criminal organization, as law enforcement would have it, but is still also a worldwide brotherhood of motorcycle enthusiasts seeking an alternative lifestyle, where not everyone is engaged in crime and where crime is not the primary motivation. And yet, without crime, the feared and loathed image protected by the trademark could not be sustained. If you have any comments to make in relation to this article, please go to the journal website on http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org and access this article. There is a facility on the site for sending e-mail responses to the editorial board and other readers. Notes Research for this publication has been enabled by the funding for the project The Enterprise of Culture: International Structures and Connections in the Fashion Industry, from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 291827. The project is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme (www.heranet.info) which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, BMBF via PT-DLR, DASTI, ETAG, FCT, FNR, FNRS, FWF, FWO, HAZU, IRC, LMT, MHEST, NWO, NCN, RANNÍS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme. Finalizing of this publication has been enabled by the funding received for the individual project ‘Gangs, Brands and Intellectual Property Rights: Interdisciplinary Comparative Study of Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Luxury Brands’ has received funding from The Research Council of Norway through a FRIPRO Mobility Grant, contract no 250716. The FRIPRO Mobility grant scheme (FRICON) is co-funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Marie Curie grant agreement no 608695. Tereza Kuldova trained as a social anthropologist and received her PhD from the University of Oslo in 2013. Currently, she is a researcher at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History of the University of Oslo. Tereza’s primary research field has been the fashion and art world in contemporary South Asia, and in particular she has studied the elite segment of the Indian fashion industry, and the material relations of production and reproduction of social hierarchies and class. She is now part of the HERA II Enterprise of Culture research project, focusing on international structures in the global fashion industry since the Second World War. She is the author of the academic monograph Luxury Indian Fashion: A Social Critique (London: Bloomsbury, 2016) and editor of the volume Fashion India: Spectacular Capitalism (2013), as well as over twenty academic articles and book chapters in international journals and edited volumes. In 2016, she began a new research project, entitled Gangs, Brands and Intellectual Property Rights, focusing on the outlaw motorcycle clubs in central Europe and their peculiar relation to intellectual property and design. Footnotes 1 " The fashion designer Alexander McQueen committed suicide in February 2010, and the case occurred in October 2010, hence he was not personally involved. 2 " Case No. CV10 8029 CBM[MANx]. 3 " Personal conversation with Fritz Clapp, the IPR lawyer of the Hells Angels, 18 September 2015, Pomona, California, USA. 4 " Tracy L. Reilly, ‘Marks of Mayhem & Murder: When a Few Bad “Mongols” Spoil the Bunch, Should the Government Seize a Motorcycle Association’s Registered Trademark?’, Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal 7 no. 1 (2009): 1–62. Teresa Scassa, ‘Antisocial Trademarks’, The Trademark Reporter: The Law Journal of International Trademark Association 103, no. 5 (2013): 1172–1213. 5 " Following the famous riot in Hollister in 1947, the American Motorcycle Association proclaimed that 99% of all motorcyclists were honest, law-abiding citizens, and only 1% were troublemakers. Consequently, the outlaw motorcycle groups proudly appropriated the 1% label and turned it into one of their logos, displayed either on the front or back of their colours. The patch is diamond-shaped and in the colours of the OMG in question (e.g. white and red for Hells Angels, white and black for Mongols). 6 " Among them were the three other biggest clubs following the Hells Angels MC, i.e. the Mongols MC, the Bandidos MC, and the Outlaws MC. 7 " The mechanisms of extra-legal protection, as well as the meaning of the Death Head logo for the club members are described in more detail in: Tereza Kuldova ‘“Transnational Brotherhoods” Sacred Jackets: Hyper-text(ile)s as Sources of Transnational Identity, Social Cohesion, and Authority Among Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs’, In Textiles: Cloth and Culture, eds. W. Ling and L. Rabine, forthcoming, 2018. On this topic, see also: Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1996; Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 8 " Megan Richardson, ‘Traversing the Cultures of Trade Marks: Observations on the Anthropological Approach of James Leach’, in Trade Marks and Brands: An Interdisciplinary Critique, ed. Lionel Bently, Jennifer Davis, and Jane C. Ginsburg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 343–358. 9 " Steve Hall, Simon Winlow and Craig Ancrum, Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture: Crime, Exclusion and the New Culture of Narcissism’ New York: Routledge, 2012. 10 " Tereza Kuldova, ‘“Transnational Brotherhoods” Sacred Jackets: Hyper-text(ile)s as Sources of Transnational Identity, Social Cohesion, and Authority Among Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs’. 11 " Thomas Barker, ‘American Based Biker Gangs: International Organized Crime’, American Journal of Criminal Justice 36, no. 3 (2011): 207–215. 12 " Frank van Gemert, ‘Crips in Orange: Gangs and Groups in the Netherlands’, in The Eurogang Paradox: Street Groups and Youth Groups in the U.S. And Europe, ed. Malcom W. Klein et al. (Amsterdam: Springer Netherlands, 2001): 145–152. 13 " D. Mark Austin, Patricia Gagne, and Angela Orend, ‘Commodification and Popular Imagery of the Biker in American Culture’, The Journal of Popular Culture 43, no. 5 (2010): 942–963. 14 " 15 U.S. Code § 1127. 15 " D. C. Pagano, ‘Origin of Goods’: Delving into Dastar Corp. V. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.’, Journal for Civil Rights and Economic Development 19, no. 2 (2005): 421–465. 16 " Vincent-Wayne Mitchell, Gianfranco Walsh, and Mo Yamin, ‘Towards a Conceptual Model of Consumer Confusion’, Advances in Consumer Research 32 (2005) 143–150. 17 " Daniel Klerman, ‘Trademark Dilution, Search Costs, and Naked Licensing’, Fordham Law Review 74, no. 4 (2006): 1759–1773. 18 " William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner, ‘Trademark Law: An Economic Perspective’, Journal of Law and Economics 30, no. 2 (1987): 265–309. 19 " Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. 20 " Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss and Jane C. Ginsburg, Intellectual Property at the Edge: The Contested Contours of IP (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 7. 21 " Rosemary J. Coombe, The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation and the Law. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. 22 " Arthur Veno and Edward Gannon, The Brotherhoods: Inside the Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs (London: Allen & Unwin, 2004), 33. 23 " Tereza Kuldova, ‘“Transnational Brotherhoods” Sacred Jackets: Hyper-text(ile)s as Sources of Transnational Identity, Social Cohesion, and Authority Among Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs’. 24 " Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays, Glencoe, ILs: Free Press, 1948. 25 " Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels (London: Penguin Books, 2003),. 26. 26 " Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Filthy Rites’, Daedalus: Representations and Realities 111, no. 3 (1982): 1--16. 27 " Ulrich Detrois, Höllenritt: Ein Deutscher Hells Angel Packt Aus. Berlin: Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, 2013. 28 " Albert K. Cohen, Deliquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press, 1955. 29 " Ben Cosgrove, ‘Life Rides with Hells Angels 1965’, Time Magazine, 2014. 30 " Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2011. 31 " Abner Cohen, The Politics of Elite Culture: Exploration in the Dramaturgy of Power in a Modern African Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. 32 " Dick Hebdige, ‘Object as Image: The Italian Scooter Cycle’, in Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things (London: Comedia, 1988): 77–115. 33 " During my fieldwork, however, I have never encountered an unwashed Hells Angel. To the contrary, the smell of washing powder was more prevalent. But as with any myth it is the imaginary that matters, not the real. 34 " Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge, 2004. 35 " There are different rituals to mark anniversaries of membership, where members are awarded silver and golden pins of increasing size in proportion to their years in the club or are allowed to have tattoos featuring certain symbols. 36 " Roland Barthes, Mythologies. London: Vintage, 1993. 37 " David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. New York: Melville House, 2015; Karl Marx, Capital: A Crtique of Political Economy, Volume 1. London: Penguin Classics, 1992. 38 " William Pietz, ‘The Problem of Fetish, I’, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 9 (1985): 5–17, 14. 39 " Edward Winterhalder, Gary Biggar, and Ryan Boyko, Outlaw Bikers, 2010. 40 " Pietz, ‘The Problem of Fetish, I’, 5–17, 10. 41 " Collective marks of membership are an exception in the trademark law; they serve as an indication of membership in an organization or association. Many countries across the world had to amend their trademark laws in order to include collective marks in 1994, when the TRIPS agreement came into power. 42 " Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. 43 " ‘Colours’ are another name for the jacket with patch. In addition, each outlaw motorcycle club has its signature colours, e.g. Hells Angels MC has red and white, Bandidos MC has yellow and black while Mongols MC has black and white. Ulrich Detrois, Wir Sehen Uns in Der Hölle: Noch Mehr Wahre Geschichten Von Einem Deutschen Hells Angel. Berlin: Ullstein Taschenbuchverlag, 2014. 44 " Anand N. Bosmia et al., ‘Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: Aspects of the One-Percenter Culture for Emergency Department Personnel to Consider’, Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health 15, no. 4 (2014): 523–528, 525. 45 " Stefan Schubert, Wie Die Hells Angels Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten: Wie Die Gefürchteten Rocker Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten. Berlin: Riva Verlag, 2012. 46 " Personal conversation with Fritz Clapp, Pomona, California, 18 September 2015. 47 " Ralph ‘Sonny’ Barger, Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club. London: Fourth Estate, 2001. 48 " James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. New York: Cosimo Classsics, 2009. 49 " Katya Assaf, ‘Magical Thinking in Trademark Law’, Law & Society Inquiry 37, no. 3 (2012):595–626, 595. 50 " On the role of disavowed beliefs see: Robert Pfaller, On the Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions without Owners. London: Verso, 2014. 51 " Peter Stanfield, ‘Heritage Design: The Harley-Davidson Motor Company’, Journal of Design History 5, no. 2 (1992): 141–155. 52 " Barton Beebe, ‘The Semiotic Analysis of Trademark Law’,UCLA Law Review 51 (2004): 621–704, 681. 53 " Frank I. Schechter, ‘The Rational Basis of Trademark Protection’, Harvard Law Review 40, no. 6 (1926): 813–833. 54 " Ibid., 825. 55 " According to Lury, in UK trademark law, ‘the Trade Marks Act (TMA) 1994 which included the removal of the prohibition on ‘trafficking’ in trademarks contained in the 1938 Act [. . .] made multi-class applications much easier. The earlier Act had forbidden trademark proprietors from trafficking in their marks. In effect, this Act prevented merchandisers from registering famous names or characters as trademarks if their intention was to deal in marks primarily as commodities in their own right, rather than to identify or promote merchandise in which they were interested in trading’ C. Lury, ‘Trademark Style as a Way of Fixing Things’, in Trade Marks and Brands: An Interdisciplinary Critique, ed. Lionel Bently, Jennifer Davis, and Jane C. Ginsburg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 201–222, 206. To my knowledge, this has been also the case for the US Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 and the consequent Trademark Dilution Revision Act (2006). 56 " Naomi Klein, No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. London: Harper Perennial, 2005. 57 " Sheldon W. Halpern, ‘Trafficking in Trademarks: Setting Boundaries for the Uneasy Relationship between “Property Rights” and Trademark and Publicity Right’, Depaul Law Review 58, no. 4 (2009): 1013–1046, 1018. 58 " Paul Cherry, The Biker Trials: Bringing Down the Hells Angels (Toronto: ECW Press, 2005), 1. 59 " For a full list, see the official Hells Angels website, accessed 18 August 2015 http://affa.hells-angels.com/charters/. 60 " Schubert, Wie Die Hells Angels Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten: Wie Die Gefürchteten Rocker Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten; William Marsden and Julian Sher, Angels of Death: Inside the Bikers’ Global Crime Empire. London: Hodder, 2007. 61 " Thomas Barker, Biker Gangs and Organized Crime, 1st edition, Carroll & Graf, New York, 2006. 62 " Personal conversation, Pomona, 18 September 2015. 63 " Hebdige, ‘Object as Image: The Italian Scooter Cycle’, 77–115. 64 " Detrois, Höllenritt: Ein Deutscher Hells Angel Packt Aus; Jörg Diehl, Thomas Heise and Claas Meyer-Heuer, Rockerkrieg: Warum Hells Angels Und Bandidos Immer Gefährlicher Werden - Ein Spiegel-Buch. Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2013; Schubert, Wie Die Hells Angels Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten: Wie Die Gefürchteten Rocker Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten. 65 " Trade dress is a type of protection afforded to unique packaging (size, shape, colour, material etc.), design and even ‘ambience and atmosphere of the brand’. Winnie Won Yin Wong, ‘Ambience as Property: Experience, Design, and the Legal Expansion of ‘Trade Dress’, Future Anterior 9, no. 1 (2012): 88–105. In US most trade dresses remain unregistered and are protected by the 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) (2001) of the Lanham Act (1946). 66 " Detrois, Höllenritt: Ein Deutscher Hells Angel Packt Aus. 67 " The World Rules regulate the organizational structure of HAMC, the obligatory membership fees and other fees, code of conduct among the members, the internal laws and punishments for breach of these laws (e.g. no fights among members using any form of weapons, no hard drug use among members and so on), obligatory meetings at the international level and so on. 68 " Detrois, Höllenritt: Ein Deutscher Hells Angel Packt Aus,. 236. 69 " Kevin Roberts, Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands. New York: Murdoch Books Pty Limited, 2004. 70 " J. Albert M. Muniz and Thomas C. O’Guinn, ‘Brand Community’, Journal of Consumer Research 27, no. 4 (2001): 412–432. 71 " Tereza Kuldova, ‘Designing for Zippies: On Commercially Inflected Nationalism and Branded ‘Subcultures’, in Styling South Asian Youth Cultures: Fashion, Media and Society, ed. Rohit Dasgupta, Lipi Begum and Reina Lewis (London: I.B. Tauris Publishing, forthcoming, 2017), pp. 72 " Tereza Kuldova, Luxury Indian Fashion: A Social Critique. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. 73 " John M. M. Hagedorn, A World of Gangs. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. 74 " Andre Standing, ‘The Threat of Gangs and Anti-Gangs Policy’, ISS Paper 116, https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/PAPER116.PDF, 2005, pp. 1–32. 75 " ‘81’ stands for the position of the letters H and A in the alphabet. 76 " It is said that Hells Angels prohibited worldwide use of Nazi symbolism out of solidarity with the German charters, which had to obey the German Strafgesetzbuch (criminal code) section 86a, which explicitly prohibits wearing symbols associated with the Nazi period. 77 " Detrois, Höllenritt: Ein Deutscher Hells Angel Packt Aus, 238–239. 78 " Hells Angels MC is registered in the US under the registration number 1301050 as a collective mark of membership (in a motorcycle club), which was first in use in 1948 and first in commercial use in 1966 (filing date 5 July 1983). The phrase ‘Hells Angels’ is registered several times as a standard character mark/trademark (international registration number 0971196, serial number 79056456) for jewellery, accessories, clothes, books, patches, entertainment services etc. Within the EU ‘Hells Angels’ is registered under the trademark no 000454819, as belonging to two owners, Hells Angels Europe Limited based in the United Kingdom and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation based in the U.S. 79 " Jay A. Stout, Hell’A World of Gangss Angels: The True Story of the 303rd Bomb Group in World War II. Berkeley: Penguin, 2015. 80 " Accessed 10 August 2015 https://www.facebook.com/HAMCO.OFFICIAL. 81 " From a personal conversation on 18 September 2015 in Pomona, California. 82 " E.g. the recent controversy about George Christie appearing on the History Chanel’s TV show The Outlaw Chronicles. For more details see: https://www.agingrebel.com/13428/comment-page-2, accessed 19 September 2015. 83 " Karen Katz, ‘The Enemy Within: The Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Moral Panic’, American Journal of Criminal Justice 36 (2011):, 231–249. 84 " Tereza Kuldova, ‘Designing an Illusion of India’s Future Superpowerdom: Of the Rise of Neo-Aristocracy, Hindutva and Philanthrocapitalism’, The Unfamiliar: An Anthropological Journal 4, no. 1 (2014): 15–22; Linsey McGoey, ‘Philanthrocapitalism and Its Critics’, Poetics 40 (2012): 85–199; Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World and Why We Should Let Them. London: A & C Black, 2008. 85 " Max Weber, ‘Die Drei Reinen Typen Der Legitimen Herrschaft’, in Max Weber: Gesammelte Aufsätze Zur Wissensschaftslehre, ed. Johannes Wincklemann (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985):5–88. 86 " Sebastian R. Prange, ‘Outlaw Economics: Doing Business on the Fringes of the State—a Review Esssay’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 53, no. 2 (2011): 426–236. 87 " Interview with Fritz Clapp, 18 September 2015. 88 " Case No. CV10 8029 CBM[MANx], 4. 89 " Interview with Fritz Clapp, 18 September 2015. 90 " Case 2:13-cv-02242-WBS-DAD. 91 " Deborah R. Gerhardt, ‘The 2006 Trademark Dilution Revision Act Rolls out a Luxury Claim and a Parody Exemption’, North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology 8 (2007): 205–230. 92 " Ibid., 221. 93 " Pamela C. Chalk, ‘The True Value of Trademarks: Influencing Who We Are and Who We Want to Be’, Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 12 (2000): 20–25, 20. 94 " http://news.nationalpost.com/hells-angels-in-canada, accessed 12 August 2015. 95 " Schubert, Wie Die Hells Angels Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten: Wie Die Gefürchteten Rocker Deutschlands Unterwelt Eroberten. © The Author [2016]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. All rights reserved.
TI - Hells Angels™ Motorcycle Corporation in the Fashion Business: Interrogating the Fetishism of the Trademark Law
JF - Journal of Design History
DO - 10.1093/jdh/epw041
DA - 2017-11-03
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/hells-angels-motorcycle-corporation-in-the-fashion-business-d6puu02b8S
SP - 389
VL - 30
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DP - DeepDyve
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