Pandora, a music-streaming pioneer, was on the verge of collapse in 2008. While they survived royalties skyrocketing into the stratosphere, they persevered. Today, they still find themselves in a struggle to keep pace with Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and other rivals.
As part of a rebranding effort launched last fall, Pandora announced a new phase in its evolution as a streaming music service.
That new phase involved a new look to the letter P. Pandora decided to change its famous logo to something not so “2000.”
Their new mark caught the attention of another company that starts with a P. PayPal, an online money transfer service well known for a similar icon, filed suit in federal court. They are accusing Pandora of deliberately copying their equally famous log by creating a capital P in block style in sans serif that has the same deep-blue color range.
In spite of being in different industries, PayPal sees it as piggybacking on their success.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs actually mocked the defendant’s business model, claiming that their newfound courtroom rival was struggling against overwhelming competition. In what they say as a desperate response, they intentionally created confusion to dupe users in an effort to catch up to the competition in the music streaming industry.Customers also noticed as the complaint notes tweets from users who downloaded both apps, only to become confused over the similarities in logos. One follower asked, “Did PayPal buy Pandora?”
PayPal claims that it reached out to Pandora regarding their concerns before filing the trademark infringement lawsuit.