15 July, 2015. 15:07
ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A SYDNEY COCAINE dealer who calls himself Instagram is being sued the US techno-giant after the man refused to change his business name.
The man says he’s earned the right to keep using his street name, which he says has been saved in the phones of over a hundred young professionals in Sydney’s East.
He says changing his professional moniker would be harmful to his booming business.
“I’ve been called Instagram by my friends and customers for over a decade,” says the man.
“It’s my life’s work. I’m not going to let a huge multinational conglomerate push me around. I’m the original gangster around here,”
“They know where to find me. When they come get, they better not miss.”
The Instagram name the man has been using came about after he put a focus on running his business with fast, prompt and great old-fashioned service. He also found a great niche market by only selling a gram at a time, saying that “the cost and quantity were both perfectly scaled to the financial climate at the time”.
However, Instagram has returned fire.
Instagram spokesman Gill Bassingthwaighte says that the legal action was set in motion to prevent any further damaging being done to their public image.
“We get the joke,” he said.
“But we don’t think it’s very funny. We’re not asking him to stop dealing coke, that would be rude. We’re asking him t simply stop using our trademark,”
“Hopefully we can settle this out of court. I really, really hope we can come to some sort of agreement. Our AGM is coming up and we could really do with a good agreement.”
This landmark case is not the first time a large company has gone after an Aussie battler.
In 2012, gluttony-enabler Menulog sued a small blog run by Canberra University students after they used the ‘Menulog’ name without permission. The blog contained pictures of plus-sized human faeces and website users would then guess what the original poster ate to produce the ‘log’.
The case was settled out of court.
