Pets.com Sale Raises Ad Ownership Questions
from the who-owns-the-damn-sock-puppet dept
As Pets.com discovers the only thing of value they have left are the rights to an annoying sock puppet, it raises the question of who owns the rights to advertising characters. Chiat/Day created the sock puppet, but they won't receive any money from its sale. This makes sense, to some extent. They were paid to create something which Pets.com would then own. However, ad agencies are increasingly looking to retain some piece of the advertising intellectual property. This should lead to some fun intellectual property lawsuits down the road.
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