Bad News for Cheech and Chong Fans from former owner of cheechandchong.com
Cheech and Chong recently won cheechandchong.com from Ryan Tracy. Ryan Tracy owned and operated the site, with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong’s blessing, since 1998. Only after reuniting, did they pursue getting the domain. Rather than working out a deal, they bullied him. Ultimately, they opened a domain dispute with UDRP and won, leaving it’s former owner high and dry.
Tags: Cheech, cheechandchong.com, Chong, Fans, former, from, news, owner Posted in
July 20th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
wow,,far out man
July 20th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
@GetItLegal who cares about cheech and chong anymore, cheech played the minortiy sidekick in miami vice2 , i mean nash bridges.
and chong looks like a used up Sham WOW. who managed to make the 70s show an even worse show than it was. yall should have stayed dissapeared , instead your ten years behind on technology and then take a loyal fan to court. ill help spread the word that you are a deusch, find a new gig, no one cares about your “work” anymore
July 20th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
C&C should own their name. They are back, the business is back. Its time for them to control it. I think you know this deep down Ryan. Legally, Tommy is 100% right.
BUT. Tommy, remember that there is more to this than the law. If what Ryan said is true than he did a lot for you. Now that things have taken off for C&C, you should have your name back, but I think you should also do something really REALLY nice for the guy that kept things going through the lean years.
Fair is fair.
July 20th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
you’re totally wrong about ryan and his experience. completely. and if, at the end of the day, you’re not completely shafted by them, you’ll be a very rare exception.
July 20th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
very interesting :=)
thanks for the info..
July 20th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Two weeks ago, when Cheech & Chong won the domain back in the UDRP dispute, my lawyer contacted Matt Sugarman of wwllp saying I want permission to run a different Cheech & Chong fan site. He said he’d speak to Tommy and Cheech. After repeated attempts, Matt never responded.
July 20th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
wwllp said Cheech & Chong would rather spend their money on lawyers than give me money for the domain. I didn’t want money, I wanted to work with Cheech & Chong. During one of the last negotiations, Josh mentioned giving me $20k. This wasn’t enough to cover my inventory & the amount of money I’ve spent on legal so I had to decline. That was the most they offered & Tommy will confirm this.
July 20th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Ryan, this is simply about the guys wanting their domain. Cheech and Chong is a trademark and they are entitled to be able to do what they want to do with it. You were offered $50-100k for the domain and you turned it down. You have made $ by selling Cheech & Chong merchandise and you will continue to do so under the CheechandChongFans website. Cheech & Tommy are 2 of the nicest guys on the planet and in my opinion, you are the one who is being greedy and really uncool. ~Stacey
July 21st, 2010 at 12:36 am
They didn’t care about me, didn’t want me to have anything to do with the site and Live Nation didn’t want to buy my inventory. The phone calls started to just be Ben Feigin and Matt Sugarman of wwllp. They were arrogant & kept threatening to sue me. I kept asking them if Tommy knew what they were doing. Ben replied saying he didn’t care what Tommy thinks. On the one hand, I was happy Cheech & Chong reunited, but I was being bullied. The agents & lawyers have made this past year hell for me.
July 21st, 2010 at 12:55 am
I thought it was to work together, but they just wanted the domain. I said they could redesign the site, I’d retain ownership & act as a retailer. This way everyone profits. They said no. I then suggested that I give Cheech & Chong the domain for free, but I get hired by Live Nation to post news & update the site. The said no. I didn’t want the content to go stale like it has already on the myspace pages.
July 21st, 2010 at 1:08 am
You asked me to send emails to Cheech encouraging him to reunite. This worked & you initially gave me credit for the reunion, later crediting your son. You, Cheech and your camps encouraged & assisted me in operating the site. I NEVER sold any drug-related items. I wanted it to be an entertainment site, not a drug site. After the reunion was announced, I had a conference call with Live Nation, Ben Feigin (Cheech agent) & Josh Klein (your agent).
July 21st, 2010 at 1:10 am
Hi Tommy. Before I started the site, many people didn’t know who Cheech & Chong were and others thought Cheech Marin and/or Tommy Chong had died. They wanted to know how they died. I changed this. In 2006, you said you wanted to work with me on the site. You wanted me to promote your shows & have comedy clubs book you through the site. I did this & you were happy with this until the Cheech & Chong reunion happened. Cheech also wanted me to promote appearances.
July 21st, 2010 at 2:08 am
Cheech is 50% of Cheech & Chong, yet you failed to even mention him in your anti-Cheech & Chong rant. You stole our name and now we have it back, so please drop this “vendetta” before you find yourself in more legal trouble. When you start accusing victims of your illegal scams, you run the risk of paying for criminal acts. Use your energy to create a product that is yours. Get rich off your own work and quit leaching onto others – TC
July 21st, 2010 at 2:30 am
When I plead guilty, I was told I could not sell or promote marijuana and if I did, I risked more jail time, yet you were busy selling those products on a website that had my name attached. The Feds could have acted on your illegal acts. I mentioned you in my book, thanking you for keeping our name alive. I did not however give you any right to use our name.
July 21st, 2010 at 2:51 am
Ryan, I am sorry you feel like you were robbed by Cheech and Chong. The truth is, you started and maintained the Cheech & Chong website without permission from us. In other words, you stole from us for years. You sold Cheech & Chong products and never shared the profits with either one of us. You operated the site without asking our permission and you advertised marijuana and sold marijuana products eventhough I had been jailed by the Fed Gov for selling bongs.
July 21st, 2010 at 3:43 am
Wow, this really changes my view on the duo. I thought they loved their fans, but now I see that isn’t so if they are standing in the way for potential revenue.
July 21st, 2010 at 4:04 am
Sorry to hear of the betrayal you suffered. I would’ve expected more from Cheech and Chong, of all people. I guess company men appear in many disguises.
I love Cheech and Chong, but there is no excuse for a lack of integrity in my book. I dont give a fuck who they are and what they’ve done, wrong is wrong, period.
July 21st, 2010 at 4:57 am
Read Ryan’s response to the complaint specifically the exhibits. You’ll see that Cheech and Tommy offered him a great deal which he turned down. You’ve only heard Ryan’s side of the story not Ceech and Tommy’s. Please keep that in mind.
This could have worked out much much better for Ryan had he not been so greedy.
July 21st, 2010 at 5:49 am
Dude go back to smoking joints and stop trying to be Shelock Holmes
July 21st, 2010 at 6:45 am
I just watched the video and I wanted to tell you that I feel really bad about your whole situation. You’ve had the best cheech and chong site online and i’ve seen through the years that you’ve really supported everything they’ve done and everything related to them.
So I’m sorry that you had to land into this unfairness and dishonesty. I’m really happy that you will still have a site up that is the same but it might be hard to support someone that did such wrong to you. I wish you the best
July 21st, 2010 at 7:17 am
what a fucked up decision, fucking assholes.
July 21st, 2010 at 8:08 am
That really fucking sucks man! I bet if they did do another movie it’d be a sad PG-13 money grabbing slack-fest. Best of luck to you Ryan.
July 21st, 2010 at 8:49 am
i can’t stand these money grabbing twats…i was a fan of cheech and chong but not no more
July 21st, 2010 at 9:13 am
I think a LOT less of C&C because of this……..this is totally messed
July 21st, 2010 at 9:36 am
Go after a fan after all these years now? How much money did they say you’re going to make if you demanded the website name? The die hard fans are you have left. A part of my youth died today. Sad. Sad. Sad.