Source: The “Unreasonable” Demand That Got Mormon Stories Sued Channel: Jasmin Rappleye Published: April 17, 2026 | Archived: May 5, 2026

Video: The “Unreasonable” Demand That Got Mormon Stories Sued
Channel: Jasmin Rappleye
Published: April 17, 2026
Duration: 32:50
Views: 58,150
Category: Education
Video ID: 3x5EXeZ2_Ig

Description

Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially filed a federal lawsuit against John Dehlin and the Mormon Stories podcast for trademark and copyright infringement. We are reading through the actual legal complaint live to look at the visual evidence of copied branding and to reveal the surprisingly simple disclaimer request that Dehlin walked away from in mediation. Join me as we separate the facts from the drama and discuss what this means for the future of creator accountability.

===SOURCES=== Public Access to Court Electronic Records Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Utah Case Number: 2:26-cv-00321 Filing Date: April 17, 2026 https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/getting-it-right-clarifying-trademark-branding-concerns https://www.facebook.com/mormonstories/photos/mediation-talks-with-the-lds-church-have-ended-with-no-agreement-being-reached-w/1374522488043274/

===INFORMED SAINTS PODCAST=== https://www.youtube.com/@InformedSaintsPod/featured

===Discover=== If any of my thoughts resonated with you, consider learning more about the single most influential book in my life. https://www.discoverbookofmormon.org/

===Content Disclaimer=== The views expressed represent mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the official position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Tags

Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Latter-day Saint LDS

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 It’s been wild Friday, guys. John Delin of the ex Mormon podcast Mormon Stories has recently walked away from legal mediation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claiming that their demands were too unreasonable. And today, after that mediation fell apart, the Church of Jesus Christ has now officially filed a lawsuit against the Open Stories Foundation or Mormon Stories, one of the largest ex Mormon podcasts in the space.

0:24 And they revealed exactly what this unreasonable demand was. And it’s surprising. And so the church filed this federal complaint today for trademark violation and copyright infringement. They claimed that Mormon stories created brand confusion by mimicking official church branding and official church content. So is this a reasonable claim for the church to make? Are they overreacting? Why are they trying to claim the word Mormon after distancing themselves from it so many years ago?

0:54 and where do I think the Mormon Stories podcast should go strategically moving forward. Today, we’re going to break down this federal legal complaint. We’re going to break down what we know so far and what this means for the future of Mormon Stories and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a disclaimer, I am not a lawyer. Um, take my legal analysis here with a grain of salt. I’m not really going to be evaluating the complaint that was filed today from a strictly legal perspective, mostly a PR, social media, public opinion perspective since that’s my realm. But if there are any lawyers watching, I would love to hear in the comments your opinions on this filing and what you think about it. So, let’s go ahead and get started. The church newsroom announced in a newsroom statement today their side of the story, so to speak. So, I’m going to open up the church’s statement. Here we go. Okay. So, we’ve

1:49 got um the church’s statement getting it right. Clarifying trademark and branding concerns. Um the Church of Jesus Christ has filed a trademark and copyright complaint involving Open Stories Foundation and its Mormon Stories podcast. The issue is not the podcast’s viewpoint. It is the use of the church protected names, images, and design elements in ways that are causing confusion about whether the content is official or affiliated with the church. So that’s their basic claim.

2:18 And here, let’s first break down a timeline. The church includes a little bit of a timeline here, but I think it might be helpful to have a little bit of context of where we’re coming from because today is just the culmination of a series of events that have been happening since November. And this is kind of the big one because the church has officially filed a lawsuit. Now, I don’t know if they’ve ever done this against uh an anti- Mormon necessarily.

2:44 I don’t have that history, but let’s go ahead and look at our timeline here. Boom. Okay. So, in November, the church sent a cease and desist letter to John Delin. He posted it on his Instagram and on his Facebook and he this is what it said which honestly he ended up taking this down. In fact, he’s taken down all of his posts that were kind of referring to the um the copyright violation and his opinions on it. I’m guessing after receiving legal advice because it is very inadvisable to be posting a lot publicly legally from what I understand. But hey, that’s what he did. So, you know, more power to him, I guess. Um, so the actual cease and desist said, “Hello, Mr. Delin. This is coming from Intellectual Reserve. This is the church’s intellectual property office.” Um, reaching out about copyrighted materials you’ve been using with the Open Stories Foundation. And it goes on and on. You’re violating

3:44 trademarks. And they explain exactly why there’s brand confusion. And John Delin responds that like, “Oh no, we’re being bullied by the Mormon church. We can’t let them. Mormon stories has been operating for 20 years. We can’t let them like tear us down or intimidate us. We’ve got to fight back. And he was trying to rally some public attention here. Um but then after that had been going on eventually after probably some legal advice, he took all those posts down while waiting what eventually became mediation. And so at the end of March, there was an official mediation between Open Stories Foundation. And this is the nonprofit organization that houses the Mormon Stories podcast and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Excuse me, I’ve been sick this week. And he posted about that as well. Going into mediation with the LDS church this morning. Their main goal, as I understand it, is to

4:37 force us to take the word Mormon out of our podcast name, URL, social media handles. We will let you know how it all goes. We may need your help. So even that I think is a little bit of a misrepresentation of what the church was claiming in the cease and desist letter and what they have filed in this lawsuit. But how mediation works from what I understand, I’ve actually never been into mediation myself. U but you would have curtain maki is the church’s law firm. John Dyn would have had his law firm and you would have a thirdparty legal counselor lawyer be the mediator. And it’s it’s something where, you know, the lawyer who’s mediating is going to talk in the same room with those people, but they’re also going to take the parties privately and kind of like really push back on their claims and their accusations as hard as he possibly can to try to get these people to make some concessions and come closer together. And so the church talked about how they did that. Um, let’s switch back

5:30 over to the church’s uh thing here because they do talk about the mediation. So, what happened in November of 2025, the church contacted Open Stories Foundation privately about concerns with its branding. The goal was to resolve the matter privately and amicably. And generally, like you may question the church’s sincerity, but I actually do believe that. I’ve seen multiple cases where a creator was reached out to by intellectual property office and as soon as they resolved the concern, that was the end of the story. like no one else has gotten into a lawsuit over this, at least on like the Latter Day Saint creator side.

6:05 Um, then they engaged in a good faith mediation and proposed several options to reduce confusion while minimizing disruption when those efforts did not result in resolution. The church filed a complaint in federal court to protect its intellectual property. So, that’s what happened. And going back to John Delin’s post here, um he said this is him in the the office again. Well, I think these posts might still be on online. I don’t know if he took this one down actually. Um but he basically at the end of March made this statement that mediation talks with the LDS church have ended with no agreement being reached. We cooperatively addressed every one of their reasonable requests even prior to mediation. In the end, the church’s demands were just too unreasonable and we walked away. Now clearly every site is going to have their perspective. Um John Delin and the Open Stories Foundation feel like they were doing their best good faith effort to be you know comply with reasonable requests and the church feels like they

7:01 were making their good faith effort to make reasonable requests. Uh but I I think with this new statement coming out it kind of complicates that picture a little bit and I think the unreasonable demand wasn’t nearly what he represented it to be. So, let’s go back to the timeline a little bit. So, March mediation today, April 2026 is the filed lawsuit. This is a document that was filed in Wait, not that one. Here we go.

7:34 Okay. So, here’s the complaint right here. This was filed today. Um, if you there are like open access databases where you can find some of these court filings. This was just barely filed today. So, if you wanted access, you probably have to like open an account for it because they’re not in the public access ones yet. But basically, it goes through their argument and says that they would request a trial by jury.

8:01 So, what is really the issue at heart here? I think that needs to be clarified because there’s a lot going on. John Delin has been claiming that they’re trying to take Mormon out of the podcast. Now, that probably is partially true, but it’s so important that we understand that the argument here is brand confusion, not the word Mormon alone. It’s brand confusion. And they make an argument here essentially. So, I’m not going to read all the texts because it’s pretty dense legal ease, but they basically say that not just the word Mormon, but the use of Mormon stories, the use of Church of Jesus Christ blue, the use of Church of Jesus Christ light rays in the imagery, the use of the Christrist statue in like his cover photo on YouTube and other copyrighted images he uses creates brand confusion.

8:54 And I think that’s the important point because it’s misrepresenting the argument to say that he’s just trying they’re trying to steal the word Mormon. They’re trying to claim the word Mormon. It’s not about the word Mormon alone. It’s this compounding factor of all of these things that the Mormon Stories podcast has done to what I would think is deliberately look like the church. I think I think it’s pretty clear that he has tried to deceptively mimic church branding to make it look like a faithful source when the material is almost exclusively anti- Mormon in nature. And so there’s many members of the church who would come across this branding and think, “Oh, Mormon stories.

9:34 That sounds like a church source, watch it, and stumble into a bunch of anti- Mormon content.“ That creates brand confusion. And so I think that is important to just establish that that’s the argument that the church is currently making right now. And um so this is the picture where they’re comparing all the logos and you can see like yeah you’ve got this very standard navy blue and this standard more cyan blue and Mormon stories uses similar font type face uses you can’t really see it because it’s so small in this picture but there are like gentle light rays and the color and in his YouTube banner he uses the Christa statue. So all of that indicates to me that this is fairly intentional or if not intentional just very strong brand confusion that a lot of members could mistake. So in addition to that they include other examples specifically they they bring receipts of like how this is playing out. Of course this it’s a long thing. Um let’s see

10:27 page 23 is where it says okay here it includes in the logo. So the the Facebook post where they’re posting their profile picture. You see the comments on the side of it and it’s mostly from ex Mormons um I’d imagine but the is the background the blue kind of uh or the stories are true. So this looks like the this has LDS logo vibes. Okay. Clearly I’m having a hard time reading this small text. Let me like zoom in for it a little bit. Okay. Um I feel like I’ve seen that color palette somewhere before. H and then post the image of the church. It’s giving LDS logo vibes. I love the color. It’s more like the Book of Mormon. So these are John Dylan’s own audience members admitting and even celebrating and exult exalting in the fact that this is deceptively like the church’s branding.

11:17 And then in you have further down here. Okay. Yeah, those are the same comments pretty much. But then on page 26, you’ve got comments on other Mormon stories, YouTube and Facebook pages that they’ve pulled to say that yeah, this is actually deceiving people. I’ve heard some ex- Mormons claim in the argument around this case that no one is confusing Mormon stories with the church. Like, let’s be serious. Let’s not like put up a straw man. But they’re bringing receipts that like lots of people have actually had this dissonant experience where they thought it was a church choice and it was actually anti- Mormon. I stumbled upon the Mormon Stories podcast thinking it was a church affiliated. It was quickly evident how anti it was. I’ve been watching videos to do with teal by this channel, but I don’t understand. Is this channel run by Mormons or ex Mormons? I was searching for LDS content and ran across and was

12:06 deceived. I listened to half of one podcast and realized where what it was. Thought this podcast was for people wanting to become Mormon at first. So, there’s clear brand confusion. And then if we switch on over, I’ve even gotten comments on my channel. So, I made a post about this a few months ago and yeah, and these are like comments made on my video. Yeah, I’m one of the naive ones and I made that mistake and watched Mormon stories shred our church in front of a few th few few thousand people on a live. I was so mad. Sure looked like an LDS podcast to me except it wasn’t. I stumbled onto Mormon stories way back in the day because I thought it was faithful content. It was obviously meant to draw people in. So again, I could go on. There’s quite a few of these comments that are coming in from various sources, but the point is that there is a reality that there is brand confusion.

12:52 People are clearly being confused by this branding, thinking it’s coming from an official church source. That’s a problem. But the question I’m I hear with a lot of this is, is this about the word Mormon? Is this the church trying to claim back the word Mormon that they’ve lost control of in the public messaging? If you remember in 2018, President Nelson gave a talk in general conference where he very strongly encouraged members of the church to abandon use of the word Mormon. The church was going to abandon use of the word Mormon in some contexts and focus more on the full name of the church. I shouldn’t say abandon, but rather he said we want to emphasize the full proper name of the church because we want to put Jesus Christ back in our messaging. And I mean it’s it’s it’s an inspired move. It’s very strategic. It really wants to center our Christian identity in a lot of ways and it has proved helpful in members being able to

13:50 discern what is coming from the church and not because official church sources are always using the proper name of the church. Non-church sources are much more likely to use the term Mormon. So, it’s a little bit easier for Latter-day Saints to make that distinction now. However, clearly some people are still getting confused. And then there’s people in the middle. Like my own channel, I talk about the church a lot and I’m coming from a faithful perspective. I am advocating for the church. I love the church, but I’m not a church source myself. And so my branding is more fluid where people, you know, in a world there could be brand confusion where people would like mistake my channel for a proper church source if it weren’t for the fact that I constantly put disclaimers in my YouTube description saying this does is not an official like thing of the church. I don’t remember exactly what the disclaimer is, but I made sure from day one that I had that disclaimer there

14:36 because I feel like it’s important to make help members understand that my opinions are mine alone. I’m not correlated. I am not um getting this stuff reviewed. This is not official church doctrine. I try to teach true doctrine and the church’s positions as best I can, but it’s just me at the end of the day. And so um I think that’s also an important thing to keep in mind. And when it comes to Mormon, one of the arguments I’ve been hearing is that oh, there’s a legal case that the church doesn’t have claim on the word Mormon because they’ve clearly abandoned it.

15:07 And if you can demonstrate clear abandonment of that term, then the church doesn’t have a case. Again, I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t actually I can’t really comment very much on the legality of this, but I would suggest that the church has not abandoned the word Mormon. They have absolutely emphasized the church’s proper name, and you can argue semantics about that, but the church clearly still uses the word Mormon in certain context, and that’s what they talk about in their complaint.

15:35 Um, let’s see if I can even find it off the top of my head. I read through the whole thing a little bit earlier today, but they talk about um like how they still use those those terms in Book of Mormon. The word Mormon is is a a name for a prophet found in the Book of Mormon and Book of Mormon stories. I think that’s an important thing, too. It’s not just Mormon that’s the issue.

15:58 It’s Mormon stories that’s the issue because they’ve trademarked the phrase Book of Mormon stories. Now, Mormon stories is different than Book of Mormon stories, but there can be brand confusion with that. Um, the reason they’ve trademarked that. Um, so here is the exhibit one. They submitted this as well. Basically, a filing of many of their trademarks that they’ve filed and they’ve trademarked Book of Mormon to demonstrate that like Mormon is a term that they’re still using in their um in their stuff. Book of Mormon story, same thing. uh more Book of Mormon stories and lots of Book of Mormon stories.

16:30 Mormon channel um is something they still trademark and have copyrighted. Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Book of Mormon videos, Mormon Battalion. So there’s many Mormon handiccraft. There’s many instances where they’re using the term Mormon in trademark settings. So I think I’m not a lawyer, but I think it’s a reasonable case to say that the church is still using this term in certain context. So there’s not an abandonment of this term.

16:54 Um, in addition, one thing that’s important is that like think about it from a more corporate standpoint that with with products like back in the 90s, early 2000s, you had the Macintosh computer. No one calls them Macintosh computers anymore. They’re Macs or their MacBook Pros. But just because they’ve they haven’t been using that product for many years doesn’t mean that anyone any competitor can start calling their computer a Macintosh. That would be I think a pretty clear violation of trademark infringement. So just because the church is emphasizing the full name of the church I don’t think means that it’s up for grabs and now anyone can use it in a legal context.

17:39 Sorry again. Sick. Um, but that kind of brings up the point like, well, what about other people using the word Mormon? I’ve occasionally used the word Mormon in my videos as I’ve like as it’s felt appropriate, as I’m trying to contextualize what non-members may be finding online. But again, I think the point is that this is not about the word Mormon. It’s about the compounding factors of multiple counts of trademark and copyright infringement that create the brand confusion. Um, I put disclaimers on my content and I point people to church sources and it is clearly something that’s trying to advocate for the church. So, an occasional use of the word Mormon is not the same thing as calling your podcast Mormon stories, using the church’s blue, using the church’s logo, using the church’s light rays. Um, so is this an unreasonable demand?

18:28 Let’s switch back over to the church’s Oh, no. We were in the right place. Church’s um statement here. Okay, one thing I thought was interesting that they pointed out, sorry, bad day to do a live stream. Um, I can’t find where they said it, but basically they said that they’re not trying to change the content. They’re not attempting to influence, and they said this in the federal complaint as well, the content. They’re not trying to shut down Mormon stories. They’re not trying to get it off the air. What they are trying to do is just, again, separate that brand confusion. And so what was the thing that they told them to do? Why was mediation unsuccessful? Let’s find out here. All right. The primary issue, ongoing confusion about whether Mormon stories is affiliated with the church.

19:18 To address that, the church proposed a simple solution. A brief disclaimer that the podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a common and straightforward way to help audiences understand the source of content. That step was not adopted. As a result, the likelihood of confusion remains and the church moved forward to protect its trademarks. So basically, from what I understand from that is the church probably, I wasn’t in the mediation room, I don’t know, made certain requests to change their branding. John Delin claims that he complied with their reasonable requests.

19:51 And it is noteworthy that that Church of Jesus Christ blue and light rays is gone. Um, I actually don’t know if that’s the most recent one. as soon as this uh mediation started and all of this that he went through various iterations of the orange testing stuff out. I think this is the most recent one and on his Instagram it is uh looks like more of like a gradient orange with Mormon stories. So he has gotten rid of some of the visual graphical elements that connect it with the church. I mean the type face is still the same and the name Mormon stories is still there. I assume that John Delane’s probably going to stick to that pretty hard because he’s had this podcast for 20 years. this means a lot to him and it is a competitive advantage in trying to get members of the church introduced to anti- Mormon content by helping by like tricking them into thinking it’s actually church content. Um but they said so John has complied with some of

20:41 those requests but it sounds like what he thought was the unreasonable demand reading between the lines here but it sounds like it was that he wasn’t willing to put a disclaimer in his content. I don’t know the nature of what exactly they required. Um I I think it says in the complaint in here. Let’s see if we can find it. Disclaimer. Okay. For example, defendants refused to include a simple disclaimer at the beginning of podcast episodes either verbally or in writing. Acknowledge that Mormon stories is not affiliated with the church. And so that so that wording kind of changes things. So, one thing that I do is I put a disclaimer in every single one of my YouTube videos in the description. And I’ve done that since day one because I didn’t want members to be confused about if this is an official church source or if this is just my opinion. It is just my opinion. I try to represent the church’s teachings and beliefs as best I can, but I make mistakes all the time. And so, I want

21:35 people to understand that there’s there’s going to be that that spectrum there. And I’ve been part of organizations that did that as well. Scripture Central. When I was director of communications, we made that an emphasis uh that we wanted to make sure we were starting to put a lot of disclaimers in our content to just help members understand the difference between like correlated policy and doctrine and what our organization was putting out and what our individual creators were putting out because there’s a variety of opinions even on the Scripture Central staff about what you should and shouldn’t say about certain topics. And so in the descriptions of all the videos, we started putting disclaimers. Even in like the Church History Matters podcast at the very end, they would put a disclaimer about like, hey, these are just our opinions. This doesn’t represent the churches. Or even Scripture Central’s official position on anything. And we felt like that was a really helpful step to take. Now that I’m with the Ancient America Foundation,

22:24 many of the podcast and channels they support are also putting disclaimers because it’s just smart. I think it’s just wise. So, the fact that they weren’t willing to put that as part of their content strategy, I I just have a hard time seeing that as an unreasonable demand. Now, what they did say is a simple disclaimer at the beginning of podcast episodes either verbally in writing. That I’ll acknowledge like that is a little bit more upfront and like very visible than in the bottom. And so I don’t know, this doesn’t clarify if they were also demanding like you have to change your branding and put a disclaimer or if you don’t change your name, at least put a disclaimer. And I would say if the church said don’t change your name but put a disclaimer, I think that’s a very reasonable request because you’re clearly doing using branding that is very confusing for a church member to to encounter. If it was like you have to

23:18 change all your branding and you have to change your name and you have to like say a Lloyd Newell voice over at the beginning. None of this is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. Like I can as a creator I can understand why that could feel clunky. I’ve I’ve had to deal with introducing disclaimers and I’ve had to deal with rebrands. Rebrands are hard. Rebrands are clunky. adding disclaimers can feel institutional and like legal ease and you don’t want to just distract your users from that. But in this case where there’s a long history 20 years of brand confusion, I think it’s a fairly reasonable request to make those to make that concession of putting a disclaimer and or changing the branding.

24:03 And as far as like why the church filed this complaint now, I think it’s just a matter of the timing of how everything played out. So they sent the cease and desist in November. Then they scheduled mediation, I’m sure, plenty in advance. So it didn’t happen until like March. And now that that has happened, um, and all of that has kind of been cleared up and it’s clear that we’re not going to resolve this amicably. Now the church proceeds forward. But I also think it’s interesting that in the complaint that they filed, let’s see, we’re going to page three, they listed another reason this was happening. So, okay. Um, am I on the right page? Uh, oh, okay, here we go. This is this is a great line. And while defendants assured the church they would remove the church’s copyrighted images from their website and social media pages and would not use copyrighted images in the future, just a few days later,

25:00 defendants used a copyrighted image of a church temple to advertise a podcast episode. And I think they give examples of what they mean by that. It’s mostly in thumbnails. Okay, so they give examples of these like they’ve used these images before in some of their videos and on their thumbnails. Here’s an example of some thumbnails. Church copyrighted image and this is how it was used by the defendant. And likewise, excuse me, sorry. And likewise, you got some church imagery here.

25:33 So again, the church seems that this is not only did they not resolve it amicably, but there were additional infractions after that. And so that’s probably why the church is now filing this complaint. Um, and I mean it’s hard because I I can very much sympathize with a creator mindset. You’re doing a lot of content. Gosh, I’m dying on here. I’ve done a lot of content and I’ve used a ton of imagery and a ton of videos and a lot of creators operate in the gray area of fair use. Like, oh, it’s just a thumbnail. It’s derivative artwork or it’s I’m just using like a clip on screen for a couple seconds that doesn’t count. That’s fair use.

26:15 But the reality is that there is no black and white when it comes to the legal world. Every time you use copyrighted material in any setting, there is a level of risk involved is how they would probably articulate it with fair use. Um there’s maybe low risk when you’re doing derivative artwork and when it’s only on screen for like a second, but there is a level of risk there because any use of copyrighted material is copyright infringement to some extent. And so it’s just really important to be cognizant of that. And honestly, it has never been easier to not uh infringe on that with things like AI. You want a picture of a temple?

26:52 Well, like generate an image of a of a temple looking thing. And obviously, it’s not the same. But one of the things that’s important about this imagery conversation is that the church actually has very specific guidelines with imagery. And again, like that causes brand confusion. One argument might be that well um it doesn’t matter because like it’s just a picture of President Nelson. You can’t copyright President Nelson’s face.

27:15 Like it’s it’s generic enough. Can you really copyright it? Or of like a scripture study image that’s on the church’s website. But they do have a very clear brand guidelines if on their website. This is a PDF that I just found by googling that indicates like this is the vibe. This is the energy. this is the style we’re trying to evoke because we want people to feel a very particular spirit when they encounter our content, our imagery. So, even things like images to avoid and they talk about like don’t use posed or staged images and don’t cast models in stilted poses like make sure they’re organic and you’re catching candid authentic moments and all of this stuff. There’s so much thought that goes into how a leadership portrait should look, how sacred location should look, how lifestyle photographs should look.

27:58 And so, so much has gone into the branding of even the photos they take that if you’re using a lot of this imagery in your own content, it’s going to start evoking the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, creating brand confusion. So, is this a reasonable take? Um, I’m gonna quote my friend here. Let’s go back over here. Um, where did it go? Okay, so this is actually a content creator lawyer. She specializes in being a lawyer for content creators, protecting their IP and having their interests at heart. She’s also a Latter Day Saint and she said, “This is literally what branding and trademarks do.” This is response to a video I made about this initial cease and desist letter. They denote the source indicator of goods and services so that consumers are not confused about who is making whatever they are consuming. And yes, I’ve had plenty of clients from all different content perspectives get these polite letters too and work with me to pivot to their own branding so they can

28:57 build on IP land that they own. And so this is a very positive way to frame it that like if you want to really build something that’s going to last, if you want to build something that is your own, you should build it on IP land that you own. trademark your own things and I mean it’s expensive to do and so I can understand why that would be prohibitive for many creators but work on new land because that’s going to be far more fruitful in the long term than trying to crib off of someone else’s IP and branding. So if I were John what would I do if I were like literally trying to like think in his best interest and be strategic here? Like honestly I would just change the branding. I would probably and it would be hard, but I would give up Mormon stories. I think I know there’s this competitive advantage of sounding very much like the church and being able to communicate a broader message if it’s not just members of the Church of Jesus Christ. Like there’s lots of kinds of Mormons, whether you’re cultural Mormon or you’re from the

30:00 community of Christ or whatever. I get that. And it’s hard to rebrand. I’ve been a part of multiple rebrandings in my time at Scripture Central and now the Ancient America Foundation and it’s there’s a lot of friction there, but it can be very very worth it. And if the content is strong on its own, the brand will not be harmed in the long term. If the content is strong, and of course, if the roll out of the rebrand is done executed well, and I’ll be the first to admit, I haven’t always executed it well, but I’ve learned a lot of lessons.

30:29 And so I would give up on Mormon stories and build on IP land that he owns. Obviously that works in the church’s favor, but I honestly think it would work best in his favor if his content it can stand on its own. So what would I do? Here are some options. And these are clearly just like super quick AI mockups, but try ex Mormon stories. That probably is still going to be a bit of a trademark violation because you’ve got Mormon in there or it would be like a level of risk. But ex Mormon stories, ex Mormon diet tribes, maybe ex Mormon ASMR if you’re really into that. Uh considering how long these episodes go sometime, but if you want to really move away onto your own IP ground, uncorrelated stories, you know, it’s a little unorthodox. Life after the ward implying, you know, your life after Mormonism or the church, deconstruction diaries, again, don’t judge the graphics. This is clearly just quick AI

31:20 reclaiming the narrative. And so on like rebrands can be fun. Rebrands can be exciting. They can have great opportunities for changing people’s perception and their image and revitalizing something. And I think that is going to be the real test, right? Like rebrands are hard, but if the content’s solid, it will survive long term. And that’s probably the test and the question we’re looking at here. Is this content independently interesting and valuable? Or is its survival dependent on having a parasitic relationship with his opponent’s branding? That’s the question, but I don’t know what’s going to happen moving forward. If there’s any lawyers in the comments, I’d appreciate your insights on reading this legal brief and the complaint the church filed today. And we’ll see where this goes. They requested a uh trial by jury. So, I’m I’m kind of excited to see where it goes. I mean, I think think it’s just interesting because I’ve I’ve never seen this in my lifetime where the church has

32:25 taken on a public figure like this in a legal way. So, it’ll be interesting to see interested to know what you guys think. If you want to learn more, go to the church newsroom where they have the article explaining their new statement on this position and this legal complaint they’ve just filed. And you can also check out the actual fed federal complaint in the online databases. And remember, the church is true. God is good. He loves you.