Toronto firm gets up, stands up for Bob Marley trademark rights
Late reggae legend's brand 'could be bigger than Elvis,' CEO says
Last Updated: Friday, March 20, 2009 | 11:32 AM ET
CBC News
In the heart of Toronto's financial district, one private equity firm has landed a gig to crack down on counterfeiters using the image of the most famous reggae musician the world has known.
Reggae musician Bob Marley is seen performing in 1979. (Associated Press) Faced with a global black market of Bob Marley goods, the Jamaican reggae legend's family turned to Hilco Consumer Capital to regain control of the late musician's image.
Marley's relatives entrusted Hilco's Toronto-based CEO Jamie Salter to broker licensing deals and crack down on bootlegs.
In an interview from Miami this week, Cedilla Marley told CBC News her family found Salter a natural fit to protect her father's legacy.
"We heard Canadians do it better," she said with a laugh. "We think Jamie is just a great guy, his whole team.… We've always been a family that goes after gut instincts."
Hilco estimates Marley's image might bring in about $1 billion worldwide every year.
"We feel very strongly that this brand could be bigger than Elvis Presley," Salter said.
Marley's image has been a pot of gold to the counterfeit industry — until now, Salter said. He said there's already been trademark enforcement success in Britain and south of the border.
"Two major retailers in the United States already, they have pulled their goods off the shelves," Salter told CBC News.
'We're not looking at the flea market guy'
Through his life and his music, Marley emerged as an icon of free expression, justice and spirituality. Some have bristled at the prospect of his counterculture legacy as an artist being turned into a brand empire.
But his daughter said fans of the legend believe in his lifestyle, and would want to support the family's efforts.
'It's not going to be something is that is just like, my dad's face is on everything. We're way more creative than that.' —Cedilla Marley, daughter of reggae legend Bob Marley
"We try not to make mistakes, and that's why it's taken us this long even to venture out to find someone to help us, because we've always held it close to our hearts," Cedilla Marley said. "It was important to find somebody that would have the same devotion we have to his legacy."
Marley's legacy also is heavily associated with marijuana, but Salter said there was "no interest" in pursuing products linked with its use.
"Even if marijuana was legalized, we've talked about it, would we do anything on the Marley side, and the answer is no," he said.
But a glimpse of head shops and a poster store on a strip in Canada's largest city shows just how extensive the counterfeiting is.
Keenan Marr Tamblyn works behind the counter of the World of Posters store on Toronto's famed Yonge Street, where teens and Bob Marley fans can buy smoking paraphernalia, T-shirts, pictures and plenty of stuff with the musician's image emblazoned on it.
"We have Bob Marley everything, I would say," Tamblyn told CBC News.
Marley's daughter said the family's approach is not aimed at small merchants, but larger bootlegging factories in China and India, as well as the U.S.
"We've always said, 'Come to us, and we'll do a licence and that way, you're legit,'" she said.
"We're not looking at the flea market guy; we're looking at the guy who's printing for the person who's selling in the flea market."
The family is planning a line of products to mark what would have been Marley's 65th birthday next year, as well as a chain of cafés themed with the Marley motto, One Love. "It's not going to be something that is just like, my dad's face is on everything," Marley said. "We're way more creative than that."
