“Dumb Starbucks” less funny ha-ha, more funny legal ramifications

Dumb Starbucks, a mysterious coffee shop that opened in Los Feliz last weekend, was a prank by Nathan Fielder.

Dumb Starbucks, a kind of prank by Nathan Fielder.

It turns out that Dumb Starbucks, the mysterious coffeeshop that opened in a Los Feliz strip mall this weekend, was in fact a hilarious prank by comedy central show-haver Nathan Fielder. Here we use “hilarious” in its strict sense, to mean “funnier than an LA Times headline, I guess.” Basically, Fielder opened a coffee store that was almost identical to Starbucks except A) all the drinks were free, B) the word “dumb” appeared in front of them—dumb iced coffee, dumb frappuccino, et cetera, and C) it wasn’t inspected by the health department. LA County shut down Dumb Starbucks for item (C), but I’m more interested in what the parody store says about fair use.

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