Young Boy Named Rooney Scholes Denied Personalised Easter Egg Over ‘Pathetic’ Copyright Issue

Chris Wright

15th, April 2014

7 Comments

By Chris Wright

rooney-scholes-egg

Huge news! A three-year-old Mancunian boy by the name of Rooney Scholes (yep) has been denied a personalised Easter egg after Thorntons refused to ice his name onto the confectionery for fear of violating copyright laws.

According to the Manchester Evening News, the next-door neighbour of United fan Jo-anne Scholes, 43, asked for her son’s first name to be iced onto the chocolate ovoid as an Easter treat only for the staff at Thorntons in Bury town centre to refuse to write “Rooney” on the egg for fear of breaching copyright.

After quibbling for several minutes, the Thorntons staff agreed to ice the lad’s full name onto the egg, with “Rooney Scholes” apparently being much more agreeable from a litigious standpoint.

Jo-anne told the MEN:

“It’s just nonsense anyway. Rooney is his name, does that mean he’s not allowed to have his name on anything because he shares it with a famous footballer?

“It’s really annoying because it turned what was meant to be a nice, personal gift into something which looked really impersonal and just a bit silly really.

“It’s just pathetic that they wouldn’t let a child have his name on an Easter egg for fear of upsetting Wayne Rooney. I can’t imagine Wayne Rooney would care less.”

We’re fairly sure she’s right there and, as the MEN are keen to stress, there is no copyright or trademark protection for people’s names under UK law.

Told you it was huge news!

(Via Manchester Evening News/Image: MEN)

Posted in Man Utd, Newsnow

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7 Comments

  1. Si says:

    It serves him right for having such a ridiculous name. His parent(s) should be ashamed.

  2. PedalRon says:

    Hi mum looks like a really sweet, nice lady.

    The U.S.-based bicycle company Specialized recently went after a small Canadian bike shop owner because he used the name “Roubaix” in the title of his shop. They have a bike model named the Roubaix…but it’s also a city in France and one half of the name of a famous bicycle race, Paris-Roubaix. They dropped the suit after a huge uproar from cyclists/fans.

    Glad to see that in the U.S. we don’t have a monopoly on a) stupid (potential) copyright lawsuits b) dopey parents who name their children stupid things

  3. TäSH says:

    That stupid woman shoulda simply named him Paul, forchrissakes… Poor lad.

  4. Rob says:

    I named our boy after my two favourite players, Shane Long and Julian Dicks, women love him.

  5. Miichael says:

    It’s their fault for naming their kid Rooney Scholes. This is why they can’t have nice things

  6. Iain says:

    The kid looks a bit like his namesake, and the mother looks a bit like Waynes (alleged) sort of bird…. Just saying, maybe there is a reason for the awful name;)

  7. Jo Gibby says:

    Its not their fault coz his first name is Rooney however Wayne Rooney’s last name is Rooney so its not the same.

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