UPDATED: Impact Sends Hardys, Ring of Honor Cease and Desist Demand Over Broken Gimmick

[Big Red Machine]

Source: [url=http://411mania.com/wrestling/impact-sends-hardys-cease-and-desist-demand-over-broken-gimmick/ www.411Mania.com [/url]
March 10, 2017 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
UPDATED: PWInsider reports that Ring of Honor, as well as all PPV distributors carrying tonight’s 15th Anniversary show, have received legal notices about the Broken Hardy gimmick. The legal demands are reportedly a decision made by Anthem Media and not something Jeff Jarrett is directly involved in; it’s simply a matter of the company trying to protect their IP.

Ring of Honor has already set their plans for tonight, and the Hardys will be appearing. It is possible that the Broken gimmick will be either downplayed or ignored during the PPV.

The site has also issued a minor correction, noting that the cease and desist letter was not fifteen pages but rather three.

ORIGINAL: As expected, Reby Hardy’s lengthy Twitter tirade against Impact Wrestling was caused by a legal threat over ownership of the Broken gimmick. PWInsider has confirmed that Impact sent a fifteen-page cease and desist letter targeting Matt and Jeff Hardy, and perhaps others, demanding that they immediately stop using the gimmick.

Impact is claiming, as earlier reports noted, that they own the intellectual properties created by Matt and Jeff due to their now-expired contracts and that they are not to use anything related to the Broken gimmick moving forward. Matt filed for a trademark for the character of Broken Matt Hardy on March 1st after his contract with Impact expired.

While it is not confirmed, Reby’s tweets claimed that Impact was also going after Senor Benjamin, who is her father in real life, despite his not being signed to or paid by TNA. It’s very possible that this would include all the associated characters including Reby’s “Queen Rebecca” and even their son, who appeared as King Maxel.

It is not clear exactly how the language in the Hardys’ contract read, but if it did include a statement that any material created by talent under contract is retained by the company than Impact could have a legit claim to the gimmicks. This is, of course, the same kind of language WWE has in place for their standard talent contracts. If such language is not in the contract, Impact won’t have much of a legal argument here.

The Hardys are set to appear tonight at ROH 15th Anniversary where they will defend the ROH World Tag Team Championships. They appeared at Manhattan Mayhem as their Broken characters; there is no indication that, as of now, they are going to be pulled from the PPV.

[cero2k]

I'm on Anthem's side here, they have to protect their IP especially if the Hardys are going to WWE in about 40 days, ROH was just caught in between

[Big Red Machine]

I'm on Anthem's side here, they have to protect their IP especially if the Hardys are going to WWE in about 40 days, ROH was just caught in between

Totally disagree. From what I understand Matt was the one behind all of the Broken stuff. If the contracts the Hardys signed with TNA didn't stipulate that any characters they use there become TNA property then it belongs to whoever files for it first, which appears to have been Matt. Also, if you remember the Dudleys vs. WWE thing, it makes TNA come off as hypocrites.

[cero2k]

I'm on Anthem's side here, they have to protect their IP especially if the Hardys are going to WWE in about 40 days, ROH was just caught in between

Totally disagree. From what I understand Matt was the one behind all of the Broken stuff. If the contracts the Hardys signed with TNA didn't stipulate that any characters they use there become TNA property then it belongs to whoever files for it first, which appears to have been Matt. Also, if you remember the Dudleys vs. WWE thing, it makes TNA come off as hypocrites.

it may have been Matt's idea, but debuting under Impact, it makes it Impact property, if Matt had done anything related for their Omega shows, then they would have legal standing, but it all debuted under Impact. Impact does look bad because it's too soon to give fans excuse to shit on them, but it's how the game is played, I mean, Cody can't even use the Rhodes name and he was technically born to it

The Dudleyz vs WWE thing was because Dudleyz were property of ECW, and WWE bought everything under the ECW umbrella, so they inherited the dudley stuff

[Big Red Machine]

I'm on Anthem's side here, they have to protect their IP especially if the Hardys are going to WWE in about 40 days, ROH was just caught in between

Totally disagree. From what I understand Matt was the one behind all of the Broken stuff. If the contracts the Hardys signed with TNA didn't stipulate that any characters they use there become TNA property then it belongs to whoever files for it first, which appears to have been Matt. Also, if you remember the Dudleys vs. WWE thing, it makes TNA come off as hypocrites.

it may have been Matt's idea, but debuting under Impact, it makes it Impact property, if Matt had done anything related for their Omega shows, then they would have legal standing, but it all debuted under Impact. Impact does look bad because it's too soon to give fans excuse to shit on them, but it's how the game is played, I mean, Cody can't even use the Rhodes name and he was technically born to it

The Dudleyz vs WWE thing was because Dudleyz were property of ECW, and WWE bought everything under the ECW umbrella, so they inherited the dudley stuff

Cody wasn't technically born into the Rhodes name. That's not his shoot name. WWE owns the name because their contracts stipulate that they own all of that stuff (that's why they would always rename people). If TNA contracts stipulated that, I don't think the Hardys would be making such a big deal over it because they would know that they ahd signed it away.
As for the Dudleys, that's exactly my point. In that case, where it was clear that Bubba and Devon didn't have the legal rights to the names (whether or not Heyman lied to them about it is irrelevant), and yet TNA claimed that they did, so how can they take the other side in this much more questionable case?

[cero2k]

Cody wasn't technically born into the Rhodes name. That's not his shoot name. WWE owns the name because their contracts stipulate that they own all of that stuff (that's why they would always rename people).
i know, i meant that the Rhodes name existed for longer than Cody has

If TNA contracts stipulated that, I don't think the Hardys would be making such a big deal over it because they would know that they ahd signed it away.
actually, if you check out their interactions, both Anthem and the Hardys have all been super polite and understanding with each other, no fighting between them, it's all be crazy pregnant Reby Sky talking shit on twitter. If the Hardys had a legal standing, they'd already be suing

As for the Dudleys, that's exactly my point. In that case, where it was clear that Bubba and Devon didn't have the legal rights to the names (whether or not Heyman lied to them about it is irrelevant), and yet TNA claimed that they did, so how can they take the other side in this much more questionable case?
But that was a different TNA, Impact now is owned by Anthem who is not a wrestling company, they're in the programming business and they don't work like wrestling promotions, they obviously will protect all their IPs

[Big Red Machine]

Cody wasn't technically born into the Rhodes name. That's not his shoot name. WWE owns the name because their contracts stipulate that they own all of that stuff (that's why they would always rename people).
i know, i meant that the Rhodes name existed for longer than Cody has
Right, but he's not legally entitled too it. Dustin would have more of a claim because he used it before ever working for WWE. If he were smart he would have applied for the trademark before ever showing up in OVW (which he really should have known to do considering that this was after the Dudleys thing went down).
If TNA contracts stipulated that, I don't think the Hardys would be making such a big deal over it because they would know that they ahd signed it away.
actually, if you check out their interactions, both Anthem and the Hardys have all been super polite and understanding with each other, no fighting between them, it's all be crazy pregnant Reby Sky talking shit on twitter. If the Hardys had a legal standing, they'd already be suing
Or maybe they haven't done anything yet because this was the first time TNA actually took legal action.

As for the Dudleys, that's exactly my point. In that case, where it was clear that Bubba and Devon didn't have the legal rights to the names (whether or not Heyman lied to them about it is irrelevant), and yet TNA claimed that they did, so how can they take the other side in this much more questionable case?
But that was a different TNA, Impact now is owned by Anthem who is not a wrestling company, they're in the programming business and they don't work like wrestling promotions, they obviously will protect all their IPs
Doesn't matter. It still makes TNA seem like hypocrites.