Marley heirs' trademark war

Heirs of the Jamaican reggae legend are plunging into the global trademark wars, seeking to enforce their exclusive rights to an image that has grown steadily in scope and appeal since the Jamaican superstar died of brain cancer in

KINGSTON (Jamaica) - COMING to a store near you: Bob Marley video games, shoes... snowboards? Heirs of the Jamaican reggae legend are plunging into the global trademark wars, seeking to enforce their exclusive rights to an image that has grown steadily in scope and appeal since the Jamaican superstar died of brain cancer in 1981 at age 36.

The Marley name, look and sound are estimated to generate an estimated US$600 million (S$831 million) a year in sales of unlicensed wares. Legal sales are much smaller - just US$4 million for his descendants in 2007, according to Forbes magazine. The Marleys refuse to give a figure.

Now the family has hired Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital to protect their rights to the brand. Hilco CEO Jamie Salter believes Marley products could be a US$1 billion business in a few years.

'The family managed all the rights before Hilco was brought on board,' said Marley's fourth son, Rohan. 'We didn't have a real good grasp on the international scope prior to Hilco, nor the proper management.'

The turn to big business has stirred some grousing from die-hard fans in Internet chat rooms, who say it goes against the grain of a singer who preached nonmaterialism and popularized the Rastafarian credo of oneness with nature and marijuana consumption as a sacrament.

But Lorna Wainwright, who manages a Kingston studio and music shop called Tuff Gong, Marley's nickname during his boyhood in a nearby slum, backed the move, saying 'the world needs the Bob Marley police.