--- title: Velcro Goes to Great Lengths to Correct You With Epic Song description: Lawyers from VELCRO want us to stop using the name as a verb and noun, since it violates trademarks — as they explain in a hilarious video. canonical: https://time.com/4956370/velcro-music-video/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-25T20:48:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:47:31.220Z og:title: Velcro Goes Goes All Out to Correct You With Epic Song og:description: "This called hook-and-loop. This one's a hook, this one's a loop." og:url: https://time.com/4956370/velcro-music-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Velcro Goes Goes All Out to Correct You With Epic Song twitter:description: "This called hook-and-loop. This one's a hook, this one's a loop." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Velcro Goes Goes All Out to Prove You're Using 'Velcro' Wrong With This Epic Song > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=b78e79f9-60d6-4dea-8988-289745916329&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 25, 2017 8:48 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 25, 2017 8:48 PM UTC Stop calling it [Velcro](http://time.com/vault/issue/1958-09-08/page/94/). At least, that’s what the lawyers behind VELCRO® brand — yep, the sticky stuff that replaces laces on shoes and keeps wallets theft-proof — want us to do. They insist in a dramatic new music video that unless it’s officially a product of the Velcro Companies, we’re supposed to call the stuff “hook and loop.” “We’re a company that’s so successful that everywhere you go, you see the scratchy, hairy fastener, and you say ‘Hey, that’s Velcro,'” the song begins. “But even though we invented this stuff, our patent lapsed forty years ago. Now no matter who else makes it, you still wanna call it Velcro… You think it’s awesome for us, we’re famous. But we’re lawyers and it’s causing us grief. ‘Cause there are trademark laws being broken. It’s all here in this short legal brief.” The brand’s website [further elucidates](http://www.velcro.com/about-us/dontsayvelcro/) that using “velcro” as a noun or a verb is the main problem. “You diminish the importance of our brand and us lawyers would lose our \*insert unfastening sound,\* the company site explains. They’re admittedly fighting an uphill battle: the generic term “hook-and-loop” is, as they are so keenly aware, not as catchy as Velcro. The name “Velcro” comes from the French words for velvet (“velour”) and hook (“crochet”), and was coined by the Swiss inventor of the hook-and-loop fastener, [George de Mestral according to Biography.com](https://www.biography.com/people/george-de-mestral-9271201), who patented the fastening fabrics in 1955 and registered for a trademark the following year. Looks like this is an example of a brand becoming too successful for its own good over the ensuing six decades. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4956370/velcro-music-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4956370/velcro-music-video/"},"headline":"Velcro Goes Goes All Out to Prove You're Using 'Velcro' Wrong With This Epic Song","datePublished":"2017-09-25T20:48:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:47:31.220Z","description":"Lawyers from VELCRO want us to stop using the name as a verb and noun, since it violates trademarks — as they explain in a hilarious video.","url":"https://time.com/4956370/velcro-music-video/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4956370/velcro-music-video/","name":"Velcro Goes Goes All Out to Prove You're Using 'Velcro' Wrong With This Epic Song"}}]}] ```