King's Outburst Generates £1m-worth of Ringtones

When the Spanish king Juan Carlos turned to Hugo Chavez and said to him, a touch irritably, "Why don't you shut up?", little did he know that his breach of diplomatic protocol would become a smash hit across the country.

Were the king to claim image rights over his less-than-diplomatic outburst, he could find himself a nice little earner, as those five famous words have become a multi-million euro business, selling ringtones, mugs, T-shirts and websites.

According to David Bravo, a lawyer specializing in IT law and intellectual property, "the use of the sentence 'why don't you shut up?' in ring tones ... is a violation of his image rights".

An estimated 500,000 people have already downloaded the ring tone, generating around €1.5m (£1m), but many companies have circumvented any potential problems over rights by using an actor's voice instead of the king's.

Over 700 videos have appeared on you tube, with parodies ranging from a Benny Hill sketch to a Nike advert featuring the Brazilian star Ronaldinho, which ends: "Juan do it. Just shut up."

Meanwhile, the Peña brothers, who run a small T-shirt company, have found themselves overwhelmed with orders for their design inspired by the king. They normally expect to sell 800 T-shirts in a year, but in the week of the king's outburst their orders reached over 1,000.

While Spain and Venezuela might now be trying to smooth over the diplomatic stand-off, it seems the king won't be shutting up anytime soon.