The Force Is Strong In Public Ridicule: Lucas Backs Down From Threats Against Wicked Lasers
from the your-skills-are-now-complete dept
A month ago, we covered the news that Lucasfilm was threatening Wicked Lasers over one of their recent lasers. The problem wasn't anything the company had done specifically, but the fact that various blogs, in talking about the laser, had compared it to the infamous lightsaber from Star Wars. That didn't make much sense. It's not like if you make a fictional product that you get control over anything remotely like it in the real world. Lucasfilm was widely ridiculed for the C&D, and Wicked Lasers ended up auctioning off the C&D to raise funds for a legal fight. However, after seeing all the negative publicity, Lucasfilm backed down, amusingly pretending that Wicked Lasers had helped set the record straight:"We are aware that, during this time you have made several statements to the media insisting that your product is not intended to resemble a lightsaber and is not marketed by your company as either a lightsaber or as having any connection with 'Star Wars' or Lucasfilm."Yes, but it's also true that before the media storm Wicked Lasers still hadn't made any statements suggesting its laser resembled a lightsaber, and it was never marketed as being a lightsaber or having any connection to Star Wars or Lucasfilm. This is just Lucasfilm's attempt at gracefully admitting it made a mistake, while pretending something had "changed." Either way, chalk one up for public ridicule getting a company to back down on a questionable legal attack.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: lasers, lightsabers, trademark
Companies: lucasfilm, wicked lasers
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
"He said sales have tripled, and Wicked has had to expand to a larger factory and double its customer support team."
"This has been strange," he said. "We felt that it would have been a very bad thing in the beginning, but it ended up helping the business in a very big way."
Publicity you just can't buy. Now all Jedi lasers are going to be Wicked Lasers in the future.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I remember BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 1978
storm troopers looking like cylons
suing the best tv show of the day off the air
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I remember BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 1978
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I remember BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 1978
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Subject
Naturally, the lawyers were probably the ones to initiate the whole thing seeing that they needed to make themselves look like they are useful, important and worth keeping around.
In the end, Lucas Arts lawyers turned a very healthy profit and extracted it from Lucas Arts. Not a penny was extracted from the alleged copyright infringer.
YAY for the Lucas Arts lawyers!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Subject
"Lucas Arts Lawyer" has got to be a super cushy job. Play minesweeper, check Google Alerts, send a threatening letter, play minesweeper, awkward meeting, tell PR to cover your ass, play minesweeper, cash paycheck.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Subject
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Perhaps LucasFilm's lawyer could enLighten us
Perhaps it was a trademark issue. Perhaps the public might have been confused into believing that make-believe had come to life. Perhaps a 5 year old moron in a hurry would think a real laser was a light-saber.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ah if only it were all open source...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: “copyrights were originally created to inspire creativity”
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
http://www.afhvac.com/
Slogan: May the Forze Be With You.
Their mail flyer has the owner dressed as Obi Wan claiming to slash the dark side of your air conditioning system. The front has a picture of Princess Leia.
Of course it could all be officially licensed I suppose.
Personally I thought it was a pretty catchy ad. I put it on my refrigerator. Oddly enough it had no effect on how much I enjoy the movies or my purchase of legitimate Lucasfilm products.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Galaxy Quest
From the Wikipedia plot summary:
Seventeen years after the show was canceled, at a Galaxy Quest convention hosted by Guy and full of costumed fans, Jason is approached by a group of people whose leader, Mathesar (Colantoni), claims that they are aliens called "Thermians". Jason allows them to take him to what he assumes will be an amateur filming session, but the Thermians really are aliens, octopoidal creatures using "appearance generators" to make themselves appear human. Being so naïve as to have no concept of fiction, they have mistaken broadcasts of Galaxy Quest as "historical documents", built a full-size working version of the NSEA Protector (the show's spaceship) and invented real versions of the other technologies portrayed in the show.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Infamous?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]