Zagreb DJ Marko Yesh Ješovnik is facing lawsuit for using the word ‘reunion’ in an event name.
Marko Yesh Ješovnik, Zagreb DJ, whom we recently did an interview with for our Meet the People of Zagreb feature, posted a bizarre post on Facebook caused by him using the word “reunion” in a name of an event he is organising, Index.hr reports on September 20, 2017.
“Dear friends and colleagues organising events and other people interested in reading an interesting story, can I have your attention, please.
We all know that anything’s possible in Croatia, but certain people find a way to surprise me every once in a while.
After we posted about our Fat Gold event yesterday, tentatively called ‘Fat Gold pres. Fresh Island Festival Reunion w…’ we got a message from Hrvoje Turčin (known as DJ Turk for weddings and PA systems), threatening to file a lawsuit against us for using the word ‘reunion’ as he allegedly has a trademark on the word for all types of events in Croatia.
Even though, theoretically, it is impossible to have a trademark on a descriptive word (but, a lot of things are apparently possible in Croatia, so someone might put a trademark on the words party, Tulum, event, zabava, rođendan, etc.) and it is obvious that we’d used the word descriptively, and not as part of the event’s name. Even though there is practically no legal basis for this claim, which is a low form of intimidation which would probably be followed by a financial extortion, as was the case with some other people in the past, we have decided to change the word because we want NO RELATION WHATSOEVER with a tacky high-school event, that you can find more about with a few mouse clicks. Thank you, Hrvoje, for bringing our attention to this mishap and saving us the irreparable damage that we would face if we had been in any correlation with, in our personal opinion, a kitsch festival named ‘Reunion.’ You can read the entire conversation with Mr Turčin and the alleged documents he attached as proof.
So, fellow colleagues organisers and DJs, and anyone who was thinking about cooperating with Mr Turčin in future, I would kindly like to warn you about the nature and type of his business making, inviting you to be careful because, allegedly, people who received a legal memo from a law firm are his former business partners in the project, who were the original founders of the project that he became a member of later, after which he decided to double-cross them,” Yesh posted on Facebook, together with screenshots of his exchange with Hrvoje Turčin, where he claimed to have “copyright to the word for organising parties, festivals, selling tickets, etc.”
Index contacted Mr Turčin, and he claimed that it was a misunderstanding.
“It was a word game, I have mistakenly written that I had copyrights to the word, when, in fact, I own a stamp with the word ‘reunion’ on it. I meant well with my message, it was a friendly request for him to remove the word from the event name because it doesn’t mean anything to him, and it affects my brand and business,” Turčin said for Index.
Translated from Index.hr.
