Local entrepreneur Khalieda Yusra, better known as Kieda Crepe, is in the limelight again for some not-so-good reasons. The crepe business owner recently received backlash after her terrible response to being called out for theft with her new store merchandise.
The merchandise is a jersey with Pahang representations, including a skull-like logo and an elephant, a symbolic animal for the people of Pahang. However, many netizens noticed the logo belonged to the Pahang-based football fan club, Elephant Army (EA), while the elephant artwork was from another local company, Koya Clothing. The EA logo is a trademark registered with the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) in 2018. On the other hand, Koya Clothing sold the elephant artwork as NFT in 2021.
Kieda’s usage of the EA logo and NFT was unauthorised and is thus considered theft. Netizens have since called her out for using the images without permission to sell her product – but her reaction garnered more hate. In a response to a comment, Kieda wrote, “I didn’t know the logo was registered. It’s my fault for not doing the homework. If you (the netizen) want to sue a fellow Malay, we can’t do anything about it. But if you can pray things to go well for a fellow Malay, may Allah ease everything.”. Many, including Koya Clothing co-founder Syed Hafeez, believed the entrepreneur tried to pull the race card in this situation and avoid responsibility for her mistake.
Following the backlash, Kieda apologised for using the logo without permission, claiming that she and her husband were unaware the EA logo was trademarked. She also announced that the shirt is no longer up for sale and all buyers will be refunded. However, there wasn’t a response regarding the usage of the NFT. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time the entrepreneur got slammed for her shirt designs. Previously, NCT Dream fans noticed that the logo on a Kieda Crepe shirt looked similar to the boy group’s logo used during their “Hello Future” promotions.
We hope Kieda learns her lesson and does her homework next time she uses an image for her merchandise. What are your thoughts on this issue?
