Eminem's In Some Shady Trouble

17 July 2003

Eminem has been smacked with a lawsuit from a sporting goods company, over the use of the name Shady Inc. for his new clothing line.

According to Shady Inc., (the Nevada based sporting company who sell t-shirts and hats via different stores and over the internet), they maintain that they've been using the name since 1999 and that they had it trademarked in 2001.

Thomas Hession, an attorney for Shady Inc., told press, "We were first and used it in good faith. We did not know at the time that Eminem was planning clothes".

However Eminem's lawyer, Manny Pokotilow, thinks otherwise. Pokotilow believes Eminem will win the case because the rapper has been using the 'Shady' name since 1996 and in 1999 the rapper registered the Slim Shady trademark.

Said Pokotilow, "We consider this a very frivolous claim that has been made. It is what I would call a hit suit, which is in order to take advantage of somebody's celebrity status. . .That anybody would think that 'Shady' on a t-shirt would come from any source other than Marshall Mathers (or Eminem) would be kind of difficult to believe."