Gordon P. Firemark, Esq., Los Angeles, California
Entertainment Law Update
In these podcasts, Gordon has a guest from Texas, Tamara Bennett.
Episode 6 – November 16th, 2009
Carly Simon sued Starbucks for breech of contract. They backed out of the publicity department and decided that, especially since she couldn’t release her newest album with them.
They also mention that Bonnie Vent pitched an advertisement idea for Mars Snack Foods to cross the candies with Adams Family characters. The idea was confidential and original, but Mars claimed that it was not in confidence. She was relying on an implied confidential relationship, so she had no proof that Mars agreed on this relationship.
Similarly was David Chase, the writer for the Sopranos, vs. Bayer. The novel idea for the family in the show was up for question in that relationship.
http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2009/11/episode6/
Episode 13 – August 25th, 2010
Joel Tannenbaum was sued by record industry was in district court in Massachusetts. Judge says that the due process clause applies since he wasn’t in it for money and caused minimal harm. (There will be more information in the Episode 17 entry)
Fair use in the case of the Jersey Boys and a show, which was a review of Four Seasons’ music. Sofa entertainment controls catalogue of Ed Sullivan show. The musical includes Ed Sullivan introducing the Four Seasons (about 7 seconds). They did not file permission for use in the musical on the show. They concluded that it was a fair use case since it was entertainment as opposed to editorial. It was narrative to show a point in time and not purely for entertainment. It was commercial use, but sofa isn’t in the business for licensing these clips, so it would be considered a case of fair use. Also, Ed Sullivan has been dead for more than 50 years, so the right of publicity claim would be null.
http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2010/08/episode_13/
Episode 17th – January 26, 2011
In these podcasts, Gordon has a guest from Texas, Tamara Bennett.
He talks about a fair use case about an artist’s artwork picturing Obama and how the ones who were using his artwork for t-shirts were actually licensed , but he needed to possibly pay a royalty to the Associated Press.
Joel Tannenbaum is a “music pirate” for file sharing. Obviously containing copyrighting problems, he claims that the damages of $675,000 are too much since he didn’t want to gain revenue from sharing the music. Gordon makes a good point that even though he wasn’t in it for profit, he was trying to save money by not paying for the music, which is why there are so many problems with this since Napster and KaZaA cases.
Another case mentioned was the Hard Rock trademark dispute in the Las Vegas Hotel of which the TV show Rehab is filmed. The show was infringing the Hard Rock trademark in that the show portrays images that aren’t exactly great publicity for the brand.
A stock car driver has claimed trademark infringement on “Lightning McQueen” from ‘Cars.’ He is a red racecar with the yellow number 95, the same as the stock racecar driver. However, the courts decided that it is not so because he could not prove any ownership of a trademark for this look, and the movie was not meant to show any kind of “driver” persona, only the cars.
Josh Groban on Jimmy Kimmel live - following Kanye West tweets skit, he sings them on a compilation album commercial. This is possibly a copyright infringement as it is an original work. They discuss if it is each individual tweet or all of the tweets together or any at all. It is not a current case as Kanye had not pressed the matter. Gordon mentions that since it is only a parody to make fun of this, that it is a matter of fair use. If Josh had actually made an album, then it may be a problem.
Another story they mention is that of the Jimi Hendrix estate in Washington. The estate is suing Hendrix licensing selling items bearing his likeness and name. The constitutional aspects must be the only aspects involved since the state ruling of the right of publicity wasn’t in effect until after the case was already brought to the courts. The problem with this case is that the right of publicity is a state law, and trademarks are hard to come by for people’s names and likenesses. One that Tamara mentions that is around is the Elvis trademark.
http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2011/01/episode-17-can-kanye-write-songs-140-characters-at-a-time/
