Speedophile 2000 in GTA V - Is There a Lawsuit Waiting For Rockstar Games?
A jetski in the trailer for Grand Theft Auto V had the name 'SPEEDOPHILE' written on it, a term which has now started to trend online and on twitter and which may cause a considerable headache to Rockstar Games somewhere down the road.
Our eagle eyed writer Stephen Leigh spotted yesterday a jetski in the trailer for Grand Theft Auto V had the name 'SPEEDOPHILE' written on it, a term which has now started to trend online and on twitter and which may cause a considerable headache to Rockstar Games somewhere down the road. The reason? Well it's been reported that The Federal Court of Australia has ordered one central coast blogger, Dave Evans, to shut down a number of his websites (which were deemed pornographic or 'salacious') because they featured Speedo branded swimming costumes and domain names. Evans had taken out several domains with the word 'Speedo' included and many of them featured men in Speedo briefs alongside pornographic images that caught Speedo's attention as they deemed them offensive. His sites contained paid subscription services. Speedo claimed Evans was infringing trademark agreement that threatened their company's "valuable reputation and goodwill associated with the name and trademark 'Speedo'". He refused to turn up in court for the civil case and the matter was heard in his absence. Federal Court Justice Geoffrey Flick ordered Evans to shut down all the offending websites and transfer the domains to Speedo and he has been banned from using the Speedo trademark or any of their branded products in future endeavors. So with this in mind... what will Speedo think of 'Speedophile' on a Jetski in Grand Theft Auto V? Of course Grand Theft Auto isn't porn but it has in the past and surely will again use sexual images in content as a way of selling their games to the young teenage all the way to adult male. Grand Theft Auto is definitely a franchise that many deem offensive, it has forever been a controversial title and in my opinion, Rockstar may have a problem here with arguing their use of the word 'Speedophile' doesn't have Speedo in mind. I would like to think Rockstar cleared this with Speedo before releasing the trailer.... but if they didn't, I'm sure we will hear about it soon!