In July, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver launched an online storefront designed to provoke the famously litigious Texas travel-center giant Buc-ee’s into picking a fight with someone its own size.
As of Oliver’s last update, Buc-ee’s hadn’t yet taken the bait. Other online sellers, however, have seized on the idea.
Unofficial “Buc-Off” merchandise has popped up in various places, much of it from individual sellers offering their own versions of the show’s designs. Unlike Oliver’s store, which benefits the nonprofit Hunger Free America, those sales do not appear to have a charitable component.
Among them is one seller that has gone considerably further, operating a dedicated storefront that appears prominently in search results for Buc-Off under the title “Buc Off Merch – Official Merchandise.”
It is not official.
The actual Last Week Tonight store is Buc-Off.com. The other site sells shirts and hoodies, including products labeled “Buc Off Official Logo.” Only on its About Us page does it say the collection was “inspired by” Oliver’s campaign.
Adding insult to injury, the knock-off shop’s T-shirts cost a dollar more than the ones sold by Oliver’s store. In other words, a shopper who confuses the two could pay more for an imitation, with none of the proceeds going to Hunger Free America.
Unlicensed merchandise inspired by Last Week Tonight is nothing new. Oliver’s 2016 segment about Donald Trump’s family name, Drumpf, famously produced a cottage industry of unofficial shirts, hats, mugs, and other products. When the show itself has sold merchandise in more recent years, it has generally directed the proceeds to charity.
The irony is that Buc-Off was created specifically to invite a trademark fight.
Oliver launched the store after detailing Buc-ee’s history of suing smaller businesses over animal mascots it said infringed on its cartoon beaver trademark, even when those businesses predated Buc-ee’s and/or their mascots bore no resemblance to Buc-ee the Beaver.
Oliver’s argument was that many of those businesses didn’t have the resources to test Buc-ee’s claims in court, choosing to fold rather than absorb the expense of fighting a much larger company. With HBO’s legal resources behind him, Oliver was inviting Buc-ee’s to test those arguments against a defendant equipped to fight back.
The “Buc-Off” logo was constructed accordingly. Rather than reproduce Buc-ee’s beaver, Last Week Tonight created a graphic representation of Mr. Nutterbutter, the show’s seven-foot squirrel mascot, while deliberately incorporating the generic characteristics Buc-ee’s had cited in previous lawsuits: a smiling cartoon animal facing right, a red tongue, a black circle, a yellow background, and an arbitrarily selected hat.
The unofficial storefront has been less careful. It has reproduced Oliver’s Mr. Nutterbutter design wholesale while marketing merchandise associated with the campaign as “Official Merchandise.”
If Oliver and Last Week Tonight chose to object, they would have a more conventional intellectual-property dispute on their hands than the ones Buc-ee’s has pursued. Calling an unaffiliated product “official” could raise questions about whether consumers are being misled about its source, while directly copying the show’s artwork could raise separate copyright issues.
There is no indication that the show or HBO intends to take action.
Buc-ee’s, as it happens, could have a more straightforward complaint of its own against the unofficial store: It also lists Buc-Off shirts featuring Buc-ee’s original beaver mascot.
HBO and the operator of the unofficial Buc-Off store did not respond to requests for comment. Buc-ee’s declined to comment.
For now, the copycats amount to another turn in the John Oliver-Buc-ee’s saga: A parody carefully designed to dare Buc-ee’s into court has been copied by sellers who would seem to present a much more conventional case of infringement.
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