Why does the WWE have to block there own logo?

[Punk13]

Hi all,
Whats always made me think especially after buying new DVDs with older matches. My question is I know they can't use the initials WWF anymore but why the hell do they have to blur out their own logo. Its in no way the World Wildlife Federations logo. And I don't see why they should blur it out. To me it's pretty annoying when every little sign is blurred out. I honestly think it leaves a bit of a scar on the history of the WWE.

What are your opinions and does anyone hve answer to my question?
Thanks
Jake

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

Hi all,
Whats always made me think especially after buying new DVDs with older matches. My question is I know they can't use the initials WWF anymore but why the hell do they have to blur out their own logo. Its in no way the World Wildlife Federations logo. And I don't see why they should blur it out. To me it's pretty annoying when every little sign is blurred out. I honestly think it leaves a bit of a scar on the history of the WWE.

What are your opinions and does anyone hve answer to my question?
Thanks
Jake

Because evidently, the World Wildlife Fund must be concerned that if you are seeing what is clearly a wrestling product, that contains a symbol that appears to look like a W,W,and an F ... that this will apparently cause confusion with people who may think that this "wrestling product" has something to do with the World Wildlife Fund.

.....


Well, that's the on-the-surface reason.

The real reason The World Wildlife Fund is forcing WWE to do this, is for money. And clearly, Vince had enough of their antics. It was pretty much extortion, on the part of the Wildlife Fund.

 

[gers09]

it cos the wwe broke the agreament with wildlife fund so were sued they just not allowed to use anything with the initials and even tho it is part of the history if they showed it still brakin the court ruling

 

[taker4ever]

it cos the wwe broke the agreament with wildlife fund so were sued they just not allowed to use anything with the initials and even tho it is part of the history if they showed it still brakin the court ruling

still they dont blur out the old WWF logo just the one they used in the late 90's early 2000's its weird

Blurred one-

not blurred-

 

[Vee Dub Represent]

Basically, WWE fucked up. World Wildlife Fund has the trademark on the WWF acronym, however, They had a working agreement with WWE that basically said they could promote using the WWF logo in North America, more specifically USA and Canada only. But could not use the initials to promote anywhere else. WWE broke the agreement and were taken to court and beaten. Therefore they have lost all rights to show the WWF logo or use the acronym in any shape or form.

(Edit: After reading a little bit more into this, they apparently can still use the old school WWF logo's in DVD's but not the attitude ones, as Taker4Ever pointed out before. Not sure why this is so but it is allowed.)

 

[The C. Hicks]

Vee Dub hit it right on the head basically.

It's a stupid judgement even though WWE did mess up. They can't use the Attitude WWF logo because that one in particular was the logo being used once the case was filed in addition to it being the one used when WWE violated the agreement.

While WWE was clearly wrong, I do find it ridiculous that they are forced to edit old footage and commentary so that "WWF" is neither seen nor heard. That's a bit extreme not to mention distracting.

 

[Scott Free]

Well, that's the on-the-surface reason.

The real reason The World Wildlife Fund is forcing WWE to do this, is for money. And clearly, Vince had enough of their antics. It was pretty much extortion, on the part of the Wildlife Fund.

Yeah, extortion, to a worthy cause, imagine that. Take into account how much it cost the WWE to edit all their old footage, then consider that if they made a deal with the WWF to donate some tax deductible funds in exchange for leaving the logo and just adding "Not affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund." to the beginning and end of the programs, you might start to wonder why they went and did the more time consuming, costly and disfiguring thing instead of the logic thing. Maybe the WWF didn't want to make a deal, but I find that hard to believe.

 

[ztwhite]

Yeah, extortion, to a worthy cause, imagine that. Take into account how much it cost the WWE to edit all their old footage, then consider that if they made a deal with the WWF to donate some tax deductible funds in exchange for leaving the logo and just adding "Not affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund." to the beginning and end of the programs, you might start to wonder why they went and did the more time consuming, costly and disfiguring thing instead of the logic thing. Maybe the WWF didn't want to make a deal, but I find that hard to believe.

I think your statement can be justified by the "I'm God" personna Vince McMahon has. Instead of making a deal and doing things the eay way, Vince wanted all or nothing and spent as much money as he could trying to get all and wound up with nothing.

It's the same as when he fought the IRS. That time he won and he feels he's invincible. Several interviews have shown us that he feels he's greater than God (hypothetically - I don't truly think he believes he's better than God - but...).

The World Wildlife Fund called his bluff and won so all of us have to deal with blurry historical wrestling footage.

 

[Shocky]

It was probably ego mania running wild at Titan Towers. Vince McMahon came off of a successful trial against the Federal Governement for providing his guys with steroids and he won the case. The Federal Government has something in the area of 90plus percent conviction rate, so McMahon is a rare gem indeed to stand up and win.

So if we have learned anythign about the name McMahon, the word Ego isn't too far behind. McMahon probably honestly thought that he could back out or not hold up his end of the deal with the WWF, but then got bitch slapped back to reality.

 

[aljnxh]

Yup, their all right. World Wildlife Fund sued Titan Sports, the company who owned WWE/F. They made an agreement to change and block the WWF logo that they were currently using, but they didn't have to block the old one before that. Ironically, after all this ended, WWE's motto was "Get the F out!"

 

["Cool Guy" Jensen]

I have noticed that if you watch any old WWF wrestling, they will blur out the WWF symbol. The World Wildlife Fund did not want to share the acroynm of WWF then and they don't want to do it now. When they sued WWF, it was simply because they felt that if Vince continued to use the name WWF, then it would make their company seem weak, because we all knew that the World Wrestling Federation was always more popular than the World Wildlife Fund. They must have felt that if WWE continued to use the WWF symbol and name, it would result in them lsoing money, due to Vince's WWF being the more popular product.

The only time the WWE acknowledged the change from WWF to WWE, is the short time they used the slogan Get the ''F'' out. WWE had no choice, but to change their name. They lost the trial against the World Wildlife Fund, and if they didn't change quick, they could have gone out of business. Though, if the WWF wanted to change their name to WWE, it would have been a lot better to name it World Wrestling Enterprises, instead of World Wrestling Entertainment, but who am I to tell Vince McMahon what to do?

 

[codebreaker212p]

It all goes back to the matter that they were sued for in the first place. They could no longer use "wwf" initials for their company. So for example if someone was watching one of their dvds and saw the wwf logo, that would go against what the courts rulling, and initially they could be sued again. It does suck, and I don't get whats up World Wildlife foundations ass to make them do that, or why they even did it in the first place. To me wwf will always stand for "world wrestling federation" not the damn pro-animal and anti-human federation.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

It all goes back to the matter that they were sued for in the first place. They could no longer use "wwf" initials for their company. So for example if someone was watching one of their dvds and saw the wwf logo, that would go against what the courts rulling, and initially they could be sued again. It does suck, and I don't get whats up World Wildlife foundations ass to make them do that, or why they even did it in the first place. To me wwf will always stand for "world wrestling federation" not the damn pro-animal and anti-human federation.

Money. Plain and simple. Greed and money.

They have extorted Vince for money for years. And when he put his foot down, they got mad and sued.

So, hopefully they are happy now. No more extortion money for them.

 

[Scott Free]

Money. Plain and simple. Greed and money.

They have extorted Vince for money for years. And when he put his foot down, they got mad and sued.

So, hopefully they are happy now. No more extortion money for them.

The only thing I could find about any money passing from Vince to the World Wildlife Fund was on this link http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DIZ/is_34_13/ai_77701775/

According to this, there was only talk about a donation, not even in written form. So if you have anything supporting your claim that Vince was paying them for the use of the name, I'd be glad to see it, funny, Vince is so defensive about his own TM, did you know he just fired Billy Graham and sent him a letter that he has to stop using the "Superstar" TM because the WWE owns it ? You have to wonder why he'd change the WWWF to WWF when he damn well knew someone else had that name.

 

[d_henderson1810]

Basically, WWE fucked up. World Wildlife Fund has the trademark on the WWF acronym, however, They had a working agreement with WWE that basically said they could promote using the WWF logo in North America, more specifically USA and Canada only. But could not use the initials to promote anywhere else. WWE broke the agreement and were taken to court and beaten. Therefore they have lost all rights to show the WWF logo or use the acronym in any shape or form.

(Edit: After reading a little bit more into this, they apparently can still use the old school WWF logo's in DVD's but not the attitude ones, as Taker4Ever pointed out before. Not sure why this is so but it is allowed.)

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The World Wildlife Fund also calls themselves the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. So, why don't they just change their logo to WWFN, or WWF4N.I will tell you why. Because the World Wildlife Fund are money-grabbing, and knew that they could extort from the World Wrestling Federation, and hid behind being a charity to get the media and public opinion on their side.

BTW, even if World Wildlife Fund had a point, why not enforce it from the time of the court case onwards. Why do it retrospectively. It should be that WWE get fined if they continue to use the WWF symbol, but it should not have to mean that they have to go back and "fix" the past.

 

[Scott Free]

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The World Wildlife Fund also calls themselves the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. So, why don't they just change their logo to WWFN, or WWF4N.I will tell you why. Because the World Wildlife Fund are money-grabbing, and knew that they could extort from the World Wrestling Federation, and hid behind being a charity to get the media and public opinion on their side.

Tell me why Vince didn't just keep the WWWF logo then ? Considering that the WWF was already TM by World Wildlife Fund, why use that to begin with ? Stupidity ? Again, show me proof that the WWF "extorted" anything from Vince, they were entitled to payment for allowing use of their WWF™, but I have yet to see anything that shows Vince paying them a cent.

BTW, even if World Wildlife Fund had a point, why not enforce it from the time of the court case onwards. Why do it retrospectively. It should be that WWE get fined if they continue to use the WWF symbol, but it should not have to mean that they have to go back and "fix" the past.

I was wondering that too, then I came up with this notion, they aren't fixing the past, they are modifying their new products. Since they are selling their DVD's and programming now, they would be in TM violation if the offending logo was on them, that's my theory anyway.

 

[gers09]

i think it is just the Attitude era one thats blocked the old sign is fine it was agreed in first place

 

[The Bard Jesse James]

The wwe is releasing the attitude era ppv's on dvd via silvervision in the uk. Basically the dvd's are vhs quality and aren't edited. So far they have released all ppv's without the censored logo and at a lower price up to 2001.


This is from wikipedia:

In 2000, the World Wide Fund for Nature sued the World Wrestling Federation (now named World Wrestling Entertainment) for unfair trade practices. Both parties had shared the initials "WWF" since late 1979. The conservation organization claimed that the wrestling company had violated a 1994 agreement regarding international use of the WWF initials.[10][11]

‎On 10 August 2001, a British court ruled in favor of the World Wide Fund for Nature. The World Wrestling Federation filed an appeal in October 2001. However, on 5 May 2002, the World Wrestling Federation changed its Web address from wwf.com to WWE.com, and replaced every "WWF" reference on the existing site with "WWE", as a prelude to changing the company's name to "World Wrestling Entertainment." Its stock ticker also switched from WWF to WWE.

Abandonment of the initialism did not end the two organizations' legal conflict. Later in 2002, the World Wide Fund for Nature petitioned the court for $360 million in damages, but the wrestling company prevailed. A subsequent request to overturn by the World Wide Fund for Nature was dismissed by the English Court of Appeals on 28 June 2007. In 2003, World Wrestling Entertainment won a limited decision which permitted them to continue marketing certain pre-existing products with the abandoned WWF logo. However, the wrestling company was obliged to issue newly-branded merchandise such as apparel, action figures, video games, and DVDs with the "WWE" initials. Additionally, the court order required the company to remove both spoken and visual references to "WWF" in its library of video footage (which spans several decades) outside of the United Kingdom.


In 2000, the World Wildlife Fund (also WWF), an environmental organization now called the World Wide Fund for Nature, sued the World Wrestling Federation. The Law Lords agreed that Titan Sports had violated a 1994 agreement which had limited the permissible use of the WWF initials overseas, particularly in merchandising. Both companies used the initials since March 1979. [12] On May 5, 2002, the company quietly changed all references on its website from "WWF" to "WWE", while switching the URL from WWF.com to WWE.com. The next day, a press release announced the official name change from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., or WWE, and the change was publicized later that day during a telecast of Monday Night Raw, which emanated from the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut. For a short time, WWE used the slogan "Get The 'F' Out."[13] The company had also been ordered by the Lords to stop using the old WWF Attitude logo on any of its properties and to censor all past references to WWF, as they no longer owned the trademark to the initials WWF in 'specified circumstances'.[14] Despite litigation, WWE is still permitted use of the original WWF logo, which was used from 1984 through 1997, as well as the "New WWF Generation" logo, which was used from 1994 through 1998. Furthermore, the company may still make use of the full "World Wrestling Federation" and "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment" names without consequence.