If you had to name the one thing you love most about Bill Cosby, it would be his sweaters, of course.
If Bill Cosby had to name the one thing he dislikes the most, it's you loving his sweaters -- at least that's what his latest legal action indicates.
The 75-year-old funnyman's legal team recently issued a cease-and-desist letter to Kiley Kmiec, a Santa Monica resident who founded CosbySweaters.com, according to Gawker. Kmiec titled his website, which has existed for more than two years and is geared at "sports fans who love music, tech, pop culture and dumb Internet videos," as a tribute to Cosby, who is famous for wearing colorful, intricately patterned sweaters.
But Cosby wasn't so appreciative of the gesture, with the legal reps asserting in the letter that Cosby's association with these sweaters has become so marked that it is part of his intellectual property. Because gaudy sweaters are clearly creative entities and all.
Just a few weeks prior to receiving the order to terminate Cosby Sweaters, Kmiec had quit his job at Electronic Arts to run the site full time. Because he doesn't want to belabor the matter, he's complied with the requests and renamed the site Next Impulse Sports until rebranding efforts can be established, according to Gawker.
"We're gonna rename our site Claire's Pajamas," Kmiec reportedly joked.
This isn't the first time Cosby has lashed out at fans who've used his image to brand their work.
“I have no idea, and I’m not going to make up anything, but I think youthful people have a long time to live, so they can waste some time on something like that," Cosby recently told Collectors Weekly, referring to the reasoning behind fans' devotion to his sweaters, in a long piece dissecting the trajectory of the infamous "Cosby sweater."
Regardless, lesson learned: No matter how much you love Cosby, do not devote your work to him. You may be his fan, but he won't be yours.
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