I'm not a lawyer but I'm fairly certain this wouldn't be covered by fair use laws because the site is a commercial entity directly selling something with a trademarked name for profit. I think you'd have a hard time arguing this one in court.

Also not a lawyer but I think the problem here is that the thing being satirized (NFTs) is not Olive Garden and so they don't get protection from the olive garden copyright. Eg this satire of the OJ Simpson trial done in the style of Dr Seuss: https://www.imaginelaw.com/cat-in-the-hat-parody-infringes-o...

Hmm, valid analogy. Arguably they're satirizing Olive Garden as well, here, though? Alternatively, the creator could crank up their Olive Garden satire a little more to pass this test?

Trademarks are primarily about consumer confusion. Arguing that it's clearly not sanctioned by olive garden isn't that hard. And they're not competing with olive garden in any markets.

Does Olive Garden have a trademark in this domain? Trademarks are limited by the area they operate in, which is why you had Apple Music (the label) and Apple Computers side by side for years.

Also see https://www.nissan.com/, which Nissan (the car company) has had legal proceedings with for years, bullying a company that has the same name because they want their domain. So far, unsuccessfully.

I don't know what class this falls under, but unless Olive Garden has a trademark in class 38 or class 42, I don't think trademarks will give them the legal ability to take the website down.

What will help them take the website down is the ability to bully a small project into submission by filing all kinds of lawsuits to basically out-lawyer them. You can only get justice if you're rich, after all. I think a cease and desist will be quickly accepted to avoid the inevitable tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for a full-on lawsuit.

They are claiming the NFT represents "An Olive Garden Franchise" and saying things like "While every Non-fungible Olive Garden is tethered to a real Olive Garden... "

It's going to be pretty difficult to argue that their statement "granting owners no rights or privileges in meatspace Olive Gardens" is sufficient.

would be a great case about the legality of crowdsourced leveraged buyouts.

What I have heard from a lawyer specializing in IP law is that the definition of "satire" as it applies to fair use in US courts is actually far narrower than people usually use. To qualify as "satire," it would specifically have to "comment on the original work"--commenting on, say, the author of the work would not qualify it as fair use.

Indeed, I suspect there's a good case for fair use as parody or satire (but I'm not a lawyer and this HN comment should not be interpreted or used as legal advice).

Super hard to argue parody or satire when you're making real money from it.

I am guessing then that Starbucks would have sued Dumb Starbucks eventually[0] if it didn’t shut down so quickly.

“ Starbucks did not pursue legal action, although it did note to the press that it was "evaluating" the possibility while reinforcing that the "Starbucks" name is a protected trademark. Upon the episode's broadcast, it was acclaimed by television critics.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_Starbucks

I would think so. Starbucks was likely evaluating who put the surpringly well put together satire store up, and whether it was just creating good press for them. And then comedy central(or maybe Absolutely productions) heard SB noticed and decided the joke run its course and it was better to avoid a suit. Eventually though, I assume Starbucks would also decide the joke run its course and it's more important to protect IP than let some production company keep running the joke.

They can be removed from centralized marketplaces like opensea, though. Of course people can still interact with the contract directly no matter what.

Making satire about Olive Garden would be fair use. Using Olive Garden to make satire about NFTs is not fair use.