It's a David and Goliath battle of the glossy magazine world - Lifestyle glossy Hello! magazine has forced a young rival to change its logo after engaging in a "fierce" and "costly" legal campaign - despite the new magazine obtaining the branding legally.
The Huffington Post UK broke the news that a new magazine called Goodbye! was launching last summer. Goodbye! is owned by Rebecca Garrett Media, an independently owned media agency, and was designed to help owner Rebecca Garrett diversify her companies' income stream.
Its iconic original logo, seen below, was reminiscent of Hello!'s famous branding - featuring white capital letters on a bright red background - but Garrett was adamant her magazine didn't breach any copyright issues, and wasn't going after Hello!'s target market.
The logo and masthead for Goodbye! magazine
The logo and masthead for Goodbye! magazine
According to Garrett, the magazine planned to feature articles on "saying goodbye" to events, such as Christmas, the Olympics and so on, as well as real life stories where people have said "goodbye" to something - unwanted weight, cheating boyfriends etc.
Despite the new magazine's masthead looking similar to Hello!, it is not looking to poach Hello!'s readership and if anything was "an antidote to Hello!".
"We're not going to duplicate Hello!'s style, but we will have glossy photos," she explained. But it appears Hello!'s lawyers didn't agree.
"Following your article, Hello! Magazine launched very aggressive legal action against both the company and myself personally to prevent us from using our Goodbye logo," Garrett told the HuffPost UK.
"This logo, as you spotted, was legally and correctly granted and despite the fact Hello Magazine did not oppose the registration within the three month period, they felt they were justified in attempting to get our logo cancelled belatedly.
"We found ourselves trapped in a David and Goliath situation, facing very fierce and costly legal action from Hello. Without the funds to defend ourselves properly, we had no choice but to give in, retract our registered logo, and agree to use a very different, watered down, and quite frankly weak logo instead."
Garrett said the magazine launch would still go ahead as planned, albeit with a very delayed schedule caused by the ongoing legal procedures - the original launch date for the online version was last month.
"We have registered our new logo and will be looking to launch Goodbye online in the near future," she added.
A spokesperson from Hello! told the HuffPost UK: “Hello! is proud to be the market leader in celebrity magazines and will continue to fiercely guard its reputation and image.
"This year we celebrate our 25th birthday and we cannot allow rival publications to trade on our brand by copying our style or our logo."