Juan Carlos' 'Shut Up' Still Ringing

King's dis of Chavez inspires sought-after ringtones, T-shirts
By John Lister,  Newser User
Posted Nov 19, 2007 3:37 PM CST

A diplomatic misstep by Spain's king has rung in a $2 million windfall: A ringtone of Juan Carlos asking Hugo Chavez "Why don't you shut up?" has been downloaded about 500,000 times. Many fans are student foes of the Venezuelan president. Several versions use actors to avoid copyright issues, but one lawyer says even using the expression might violate Juan Carlos' rights, the Guardian reports.

One quick-thinking Spaniard is auctioning the domain name of the phrase in Spanish—porquenotecallas.com—on eBay, and a T-shirt firm took a year's worth of orders the week after Juan Carlos made the comment at a Nov. 10 summit. YouTube parodies include a spoofed Nike commercial that ends "Juan Do It. Just Shut Up." (More Juan Carlos stories.)

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