Cassper Nyovest Lambasts TV Channel for "Stealing" His Slogan

Hip Hop Star Cassper nyovest is riding very high at the moment. He is the most decorated artist of 2014 and looks set to make more waves in 2015. But for all his successes the rapper is crying fowl over sports channel Supersport 4's use of a tagline similar to his song's title — and he has a point!

In what could set presidence should the matter go beyond the rants, rappers Cassper Nyovest and Riky Rick have called out Supersport 4 for  using the catch phrase "slyza tsotsi" in promos for PSL soccer games.

The rappers, who collaborated on the track of the same name, have accused the channel of doing them wrong. In true 20-something fashion the disgruntled artists took to Twitter instead of a court of law to air their grievances. 

Cassper tweeted lately: 

 "Supersport4 is using the slyza tsostsi slogan. Are we getting payed [sic]? Nope. Just like when Savanna used my s**t. Corporates never loved us."

Riky Rick tweeted: 

 "The crazy thing is that we know so many people up there.

"Sad that they don't respect us. #SlyzaTsotsi."

Well there might be a good reason why the rappers did not go the legal route on this. Firstly, they do not have copyright on the phrase which makes fair game for anyone to use it. 

Yep, much like people like Oprah who essentially own the sentence "Live Your Best Life", the rappers would have had to legally register the phrase for them to have any legal recourse against Supersport. 

Furthermore, they would have prove in a court of law that he channel's usage of the phrase not only infrienges their copyright but also causes them a loss of revenue. 

So basically, the question would be; Does Supersport's use of the phrase, if the rappers owned it legally, affect the sales of the track? After-which the judge would then have to rule that Supersport pay them for that loss of revenue. 

Tricky one hey...

Supersport through their spokesman Clinton van der Berg has dismissed the claim, saying: 

"Slyza tsotsi has been part of tsotsi taal for a while.

"Had Supersport used the song, which we didn't, Cassper would have been quite right to complain.

"The phrase, however, is a rich part of popular culture. As far as we are aware, Cassper owns no copyright to the slang itself."

Ok, Cassper does not own the phrase but it would be gullible for anyone to think the channel did not use the phrase simply because of its association with the most popular artist in the country right now. Let's just be frank about that. 

With that, it is evident that the channel has indeed exploited the rapper, however the law is not about emotions but statutes and as it stands, phrases and slogans are generally not protected by copyright as they are deemed too common to belong to a specific person.  

You would be surprised to know that even song titles are not protected in the same way so anyone can simply use the same title. The only infringement would be if the lyrics, arrangement and melody sound the same as well, then an artist can sue. 

That said, bigup to Cassper and his collaborators for voicing their dismay about this. It may not have been illegal for Supersport to do this but it still stinks because the motive is very clear.