Dan Inosanto Legal Dispute with Bruce Lee Estate?

What's the score with the legal dispute between Dan Inosanto & Concord Moon (Bruce Lee's estate; wife - Linda, daughter - Shannon, etc)?

Heard that they are trying or have now succeeded in not allowing Inosanto to use name Bruce Lee/Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do at his school or in his advertising & promotion.

Why?

Dan Inosanto after all has virtually single handedly kept JKD alive all these years. All guys like Ted Wong, Richard Bustillo, Jerry Poteet, Chris Kent, Paul Vunak, etc were with or under him at one point. All the so called 'original' JKD guys never came out the woodwork and started doing seminars worldwide until much later.

The Lee Estate apparently have very powerful lawyers and are cracking down hard on unauthorised merchandise producers, making magazines pay to use photos of him etc; nothing wrong with that.

But making Dan Inosanto stop using names Bruce Lee/Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do/& JKD logo, I mean come on! One can only think that they wanted him to pay a fee to use the names & logos, or franchise type fee; and he rightly refused.

 

didn't bruce lee blend together arts to form JKD so that it could be taught to people without sticking to ritual and all that hoohah? he wanted it to be taught, I don't think money was his primary concern, beyond that, if their lawsuit works, I believe that every MA that is incorporated into JKD should then sue the Lee estate.. for plagiarism or some such.

suing someone for teaching a style is ridiculous, if they dont want him to use the Lee name, fine, but JKD is a style, you dont see me putting a trademark symbol next to it when i type it.

just my 2 cents

 

Easy answer - Money :woo:

 

Dan

You can understand if the Lee estate, are cracking down on fake/uncertified/charlatan JKD guys, theres a lot out there, as in all arts.

But Dan Inosanto?????? They should be glad he is honouring & continuing Bruce Lee's legacy.

A while ago there was the Bruce Lee Nucleus which disbanded, but good idea; backed by Bruce Lee estate, with nearly all major JKD guys & original BL students (except Dan Inosanto, he did not want to be part of it).

Good idea though, how can you separate the 'wheat from the chaff' in JKD without some sort of governing body for all groups and individuals? I could start a JKD group tommorow, as could anyone on this forum. People should be able to & have the right to check out instructors & their respective legitimacy. There are masses of JKD tapes on the market , some from people that nobodys seems to know their background e.g. Layton West in U.S.A. had big ad's in major martial art magazines, and is still selling DVD's/videos (claims to have sold 100,000+), go ask any major figure in JKD about his background - he's a mystery man, nobody knows who he is supposed to have trained under in JKD. May well have taught himself, and made a fortune from selling videos on JKD. Anyone can do it or rather could, now there is good chance of lawyers letter from Concord Moon (the Lee Estate) coming through your door.

 

Took the words right from my mouth :bang:

Really....

On another note. Is it just Dan Inosanto or all JKD instructors? Seem like they are just picking on him.

 

wow is that a real quote? I always respected him for his skill and always will, but I always thought money was secondary to him.

i still stand by that they cant censure him calling it jeet kun do, since that's the name of the art, same with any other, tkd, kung fu, etc. not using his name, if his "estate" wants to be greedy, i guess makes sense

 

I wonder that Bruce would have thought of all of this?

 

Look, I think we need to be VERY careful ascribing any intention to people who are not around to defend themselves, especially those who are no longer with us.

In the case of the quote, and knowing Lee's high levels of pragmatism, I would imagine that his quest to be rich had more to do with being able to live a comfortable life style the way he wanted to as much as anything else. I'm not prepared to think than it was simply "money for money's sake."

- Matt

 

Being money hungry can make one exceed limits. BUT Bruce was out there to prove himself as the BEST fighter and martial arts star whilst he's at it!

Ain't seen the quote b4 BUT he was referring to making use of his martial art prowess in his movies which he dam well did a good job off!

We all have our hobbies and Way Of Life and if it can be profitable also; it is like shooting two birds with 1 stone which all I can say is SMART (Efficient)!

 

linda lee won the lawsuit, preventing anyone using the jkd logo or name jun fan. since jeet kune do is so widely used it can not be controlled by one person now.dan inosanto has created his own logo in tribute to bruce lee.
as far as the lee estate goes.they have every right to make money,but are going about it in the wrong way.if sanyone in the world holds true to what bruce lee worked for or taught its dan inosanto.but people outside the us can still use the bl logo

 

To let you know, Jun Fan, Bruce Lee and Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do are trademarked. People can still use the JKD name; but for a limited time only. Sooner or later, the name Jeet Kune Do or JKD will be trademarked.

 

It is a shame that the company felt that it had to sue what has to be the most famous of the Bruce Lee students who we can all honestly say has done more to promote both Bruce Lee and the Jeet Kune Do name than any toher individual.

But, we have to realise that Guro Dan has after all built his whole carea around the Bruce Lee name and Jeet Kune Do and rightly so, but this in it's self is a breach of copyright.

Under the universal copyright law the name of a person and an item or phrase they have coined e.g. Jun Fan, JKD, Jeet Kune Do etc belongs to that person under copy right for some 60+ years after their death.

Guro Dan should have under copyright law asked the permission of the Lee Family to use both Bruce Lee's name and the name of Jeet Kune Do and offered at least some small percentage of any profit made by using that name.

After all did not Bruce Lee close down all of his schools and request that te term Jeet Kune Do no longer be used? if so then every one who uses the name of Bruce Lee and Jeet Kune Do without the permission of the Lee Family is in breach of copyright law, Sad but true.

Also at the end of the day, Jeet Kune Do had to at some time get it's house in order to assure that not just anyone can use the name of either Bruce Lee or any of the styles he has come up with. And if certain individuals regardless of their rank or standing withing the Jeet Kune Do world do not play ball with the Lee Family at the end of the day will leave them selves open to being sued by them.

Think on this, say for instance you came up with a system that was unique to you and all of a sudden everyone was dropping your name and your system in order to make a good living, but at the same time did not want to join any organisation or group your family had set up in honor of your name after your death, would your family not feel that something was not quite right.

I think the best thing Guro Dan can do, is simple, offer a small percentage of any profits he personally makes from using the term Jeet Kune Do and the Bruce Lee name to the Lee family or better still don't use the name at all as after all he his well known enough now to be able to promote Dan Inosanto on his own merits, after all everyone in the Martial Arts knows who he is.

I think you will find over the next few years, anyone who does not pay a percentage of net profits to the Lee family for making money out of the Bruce Lee name and his terminologies will get a legal letter through their letter box. It may well hust a few of the senior members of the JKD clan, but you can also be dam sure it will stop the fakes who's only intent is to use the name of Bruce Lee and Jeet Kune Do in order to make money.

It will also stop many of the magazines from putting Bruce Lee's face on the front cover every other month and re-hashing articles that have beeen re-hashed thousands of times for the simple reason they know it always sells mags.

I feel sorry they have done this to Guro Dan, but I am pretty sure he will not be the last one they go for.

Look at it this way, How would McDonalds feel if we all set up McDonald's Concept's burger bar's saying we where once the top employees of their company, therefore we have the right to make a profit from the name??? It's a bad example but it may well be the way they are looking at it.


Best regards

Pat

 

I had no idea this was taking place. Does anyone know where I can see an article on it?

 

Where would Inosanto be without Bruce Lee? I mean everyone is crediting him with keeping the legacy alive, well, heck anyone would've jumped at the opportunity. Who would know Inosanto if it wasn't for the Bruce Lee estate?

 

You have a very good point and I am taking a guess that this is what the Bruce Lee Estate is also thinking and now they want their slice of the cake so to speak from what they consider the biggest earner from the Bruce Lee name.

It was bound to happen in the end.

As they say, if you don't play ball with the person that owns the ball, the ball gets taken home.

Best regards

Pat

 

Easy.. were fast entering idol worship territory. Before you know it we'll all be bowing down to golden statues of Bruce Lee.

So then why didn't they. There were other students. And where were the estate people for all these years?! How come no one else has stepped up to bat the same way Inosanto did? Sure... now you know about JKD... much of it because of the work of Inosanto... but there was a long time when for most MA'ist it was basically off the radar. The estate did nothing about it.
Now that they see dollar signs... all of a sudden they're out to keep everything sacred.

lol.

Sorry... not buyin' it.

errr.... in case you hadn't noticed... Dan Inosanto is a person in his own right and very talented martial artist in his own right.

Stop the nonsense.

 

Yeah, I read about this and it angered me so much. How can she be so money grabbing?! Guro Dan has kept JKD alive, and even expanded it to a larger potential. I believe one guy under Insonato (originally under Lee) expanded the wrestling portion of JKD, while Dan expanded it on the greater level. So from the view of JKD and the keeping of Bruce Lee's gift alive, Linda should be quited grateful!

 

I am sure she is, and so is her Lawyer and her Bank Manager

But also on the other side of the coin many others have not done badly from it either and control needs to be taken, the problem is, in order to get your message across hittign the most well known name using the JKD banner get's the message across very very quickley (as well as putting a few $$$$ in the old bank account too).

If both had put their heads together in the first place and Done what Bruce asked (close the schools and dont use the name) maybe this would not have happend.

It's swings and round-abouts.

Now maybe they will all go under one banner and one organisation and stop arguing about who has it right and who has it wrong.

Best regards

Pat

 

Who knows it may well be a good thing in the long run for JKD as a whole.

You never know.

Just a thought though, JKD does not wear uniforms and has no style as style so forget the logo and drop the name, it makes no difference then does it, they still cant take away the fact that Dan can still say he was one of the original students of Bruce Lee, now that's not breach of copyright, that just happens to be the truth.

Best regards

Pat

 

Too true..... But remember if it where not for his link with Bruce Lee and he had never actualy met the man he may well still be just another Kenpo Instructor that few people had ever heard of, so to a point they have a case.

If it were not for Bruce Lee, where would Inosanto be? and on the other side of the coin if it where not for Inosanto where would JKD be?

They need to get there heads together and bang them, maybe between them they can finally organise it.

Just a thought!

Pat