EasyJet founder sues Netflix
October 1, 2018
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of budget airline EasyJet, has launched legal action against streaming giant Netflix, claiming it has breached trademark law with its series Easy.
The comedy series, which boasts a stellar cast including Orlando Bloom, Emily Ratajkowski and Dave Franco, launched on Netflix in 2016 and has run for two season. A third and final season was commissioned earlier this year., But Haji-Ioannou is unhappy about the title given to the series.
Haji-Ioannou, who now runs easyGroup, which includes brands such as easyHotel, easyGym and easyPizza, commented: “I think this is a case of typically arrogant behaviour by a very large American tech company who never bothered to check what legal rights other companies have outside the US. When Joe Swanberg came up with the name “easy” for his new TV series a couple of years ago they should have checked with their European lawyers before using it.”
“We own the European trademark in the word “easy” and another one thousand trademarks with easy as a prefix and we can’t allow people to use it now as a brand name, especially when they are doing it mostly with our colours and font. At least I am pleased that Netflix have said that they will stop at series three anyway. However we have to stop them from promoting the older series in Europe for online streaming,” continued Haji-Ioannou.
A Netflix spokesperson retaliated: “We’re looking into it but think viewers can tell the difference between a show they watch and a plane they fly.”