The AP has a lengthy article (don’t worry, I’ll chop it down into an eighth) today about the explosion in unlicensed Michael Jackson material since the pop star’s passing. “We sold 2,000 T-shirts in the first week. We’re still selling a lot” recounts a giddy rag trade pirate. I bet that guy prays before going to sleep for God to kill Madonna.
But don’t go trying to sell ersatz Moonwalker socks to John Branca and John McClain. One is Michael Jackson’s estate lawyer, and the other is an unkillable counter-terrorist army of one. No, wait, they’re both sharks:
“The sale of unauthorized Michael Jackson merchandise is illegal and provides nothing for the beneficiaries of his estate, namely his mother, his children and charitable causes that were important to him,” they said [in a statement to the AP, but they probably speak conversationally like that, too]
Here’s the most interesting fact from the article (told you I’d save you time):
Jackson owned a patent on a shoe that allowed the wearer to lean past his center of gravity, as he did in the “Smooth Criminal” video, but it expired in 2005 because he didn’t pay a $2,480 maintenance fee.
Legal free-for-all on crazy-lean shoes! You’re free to glue hooks to heels and sell them as “Smoove Crime Committers.” (Better to play it safe with the name.)
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