Its ties to hip-hop, skating, and its Nike Air Max 90 Donne focus on casual clothes and graphics have made it particularly popular among younger Nike Air Max 270 Womens generations of shoppers.Streetwear has emerged as a powerful forces in fashion over the last few years.(Quartz has reached out to Nike for comment on each of the cases and will update with any response.)Here are the legal battles underway:Nike has Nike Air Max 90 Mujer been hit with a suit claiming that its iconic, ubiquitous “Jumpman” logo, Nike Air Max TN Damen the silhouetted image of the basketball superstar Michael Jordan with his legs spread and arm extended found on billions of dollars worth of Jordan brand sneakers and apparel, Nike Air Max 90 Uomo owes its existence to a photo taken for Life magazine, and violates the copyright of that image.The story starts back in the summer of 1984, when a photographer named Jacobus Rentmeester took a picture for Life of a flying Michael Jordan in midair as he dunked a Nike Air Max 2017 Mujer basketball. Rentmeester’s infringement suit, filed in a Portland, Oregon, district court Nike Air Vapormax Mujer in January, alleges that after the image ran in Life, Nike paid Rentmeester to temporarily use transparencies of his image “for slide presentation only, no layouts or any other duplication.”

Nike then created its own Jordan image, very similar Nike Air Max 270 Femme to Rentmeester’s original, and started using it in ad campaigns.Rentmeester complained to Nike that its image was essentially a duplicate of his, and in response, Nike paid him $15,000 Adidas NMD Femme to keep using the photo it created, he says. An invoice (not a Nike Air Pegasus 89 Damen contract) for the $15,000 submitted Nike Air Vapormax Damen as part of the filing specifies that Nike’s photo was to be used “for North America only” for two years, with all other rights reserved by Rentmeester. In 1987, Nike unveiled its Jumpman logo, a silhouette of the image Nike Adidas Falcon Femme created, which Rentmeester says copied his original.Almost 30 years and billions in sales later, Nike Air Max 90 Femme Nike is still using the Jumpman, and Rentmeester wants an unspecified share of the cash the company has made with it. But even a small part of the revenue made on products Adidas Superstar Femme using the image would be significant. Jordan sneakers had estimated sales Nike Air Max 270 Donne of more than $2.6 billion in the US in 2014 alone, according to SportsOneSource.

Michael Jordan and the sneakers bearing his name and image helped make Nike into the sportswear giant it is today. So even a temporary injunction Nike Air Max 2017 Femme to stop Nike from using Nike Air Vapormax Damskie the image would be a serious headache for the brand. And a Jordan product without the Jumpman logo is almost unimaginable.Nike has already hit back. On March 16, it filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying Rentmeester’s complaint is “meritless” and Adidas ZX Flux Mujer fails to meet the standard for infringement. “Simply put, Rentmeester does not have a monopoly on Mr. Jordan, his appearance, his athletic prowess, or images of him dunking a basketball,” Nike testily added in its filing.