"White Lives Matters" Trademark Owners Willing to Give Up Phrase to Kanye West for $1 Billion
"White Lives Matter" trademark owners Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward of radio show Civic Cipher are willing to sell phrase to Ye for $1 billion.
Kanye West would have to cough up a hefty price to grab the "White Lives Matter" trademark. While current trademark owners and hosts of Civic Cipher, Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward are currently not selling the phrase, the duo recently told TMZ that a potential buyer could make a considerable $1 billion offer.
The trademark was acquired by the Arizona radio co-hosts on October 28, one day before the artist formerly known as Kanye West debuted his 'White Lives Matter' t-shirts during Paris Fashion Week. The phrase was gifted to the pair from a former anonymous owner, who believed that the social justice-centerd radio hosts would be able to “leverage the phrase for Black causes.”
Ja recently spoke to Capital B about owning the 'White Lives Matter' trademark, revealing that if anyone tried to generate a profit from the phrase could face a lawsuit from the Civic Cipher co-hosts. It was last reported that Kanye’s “White Lives Matter” t-shirts were being donated to homeless people on Skid Row in Los Angeles by disgraced style influencer Ian Connor.
“If we were to sell that trademark, for whatever amount of money, we could donate that money to causes that we feel would benefit Black people, like the NAACP or Black Lives Matter organizations," Ja added. "Because, realistically, we cannot stop the shirts from being made right now. We can write cease and desist to people selling these shirts right now, but that is a big monster that requires teams of lawyers and thousands of dollars that we do not have.”