Hacker News Reader

Comment by KingMachiavelli | Hacker News Reader

The real question is why do you even need a license? I thought it was well established that you can show copyrighted images/text and trademarked images/text in context - i.e you can show beer and signage of real companies that exist in real life.

I really don't understand the value in our currently level of IP law... like you said it often costs more paying lawyers to review contracts than the actual contract is worth.

View on HN

You wouldn’t need a license, is the bottom line. It’s CLEARLY fair use to passively display arcade games in a fictional arcade setting, without infringing on the intent of the IP.

Unfortunately, in this litigation-happy world we are becoming increasingly risk-averse.

There was an article recently on how music is now “co-written” by the influences for that piece, as well as the influences for those influence pieces, etc - just to preempt these kind of legal challenges.

It’s fucked up, and it needs to change.

Wasn't it like this forever? Why otherwise all fake brands for cereal, beer and whatnot in movies?

Someone else responded to you - but they seem to have now deleted it.

Those fake brands are either as placeholders for product placement, or the art directors just wanted to have some more fun/control :)

Some products - like beer, cigarettes, etc - likely need to be changed due to advertising restrictions on alcohol/tobacco/etc

There's a myriad of shows where company trademarks are blanked out or modified to something else. Seinfeld is full of this. And I've seen countless shows where actors are using MacBooks or iMacs and the Apple logo on the case is taped over or modified with a different shape. It's not a placeholder for product advertising. Either Apple said no, or wanted some other control over the show's content and oversight on the Mac and the producers refused.

> Either Apple said no, or wanted some other control over the show's content and oversight on the Mac and the producers refused.

No. Apple have absolutely no right to dictate that. It would be fair use to use a commercially available laptop to denote a laptop in a TV show. They could ONLY contest if it was to dilute their mark through misuse. A product being displayed and used in its intended way is - by definition - not misuse.

It is possible that they greeked the product to appease a competitor. e.g. masking out apple logos if they are sponsored by samsung, etc.

But as I already mentioned in a previous comment: we live it a litigation-happy world, and the threat of a court case can be enough to scare some producers - even if it would be unjustified.

Real brands can be distracting visually, even real no-name brands.

Many of the things you use as examples are trademarks. Beer signs involve company logos. Beer signs ARE company logos.

I'll give you a real world example. Madonna Ciccone, famous pop singer, published a coffee table book called Sex in 1992. The book, natch, is filled with explicit images and words.

One of the pictures featured Madonna, semi-nude, being sexually penetrated on top of a Williams Electronics "Taxi" pinball machine. The entire machine is visible including a very prominent Williams logo.

Williams took Madonna to court over it and she quietly settled before it got to a judge. Williams had a very strong argument that their trademarks were being used in a manner contradictory to their product - a family-friendly pinball machine. This kind of imagery is damaging to their brand. And, of course, no permission was requested by Madonna. This was a slam dunk case. You need permission to do things like this.

IP holders get all kinds of legal opinions involved when permission is requested. What exactly are you doing with that Ms Pac machine? Is it just background filler, or is a major character going to be beheaded on top of it? It's not just a matter of "can we use this?" but a question of "HOW is this going to be used?"

I agree with where you're coming from, but this is likely to be backed up by industry norms, standard production contracts, guild/union requirements, and informal black balling. Imaginary property maximalists living their best lives /s.

It might just be as simple as a defensive/precautionary maneuver to convert a slam dunk case into a triviality that could be decided in a default judgment. If you can get there blessing even if you don't need it, it's that much less risk.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com