Today In Bananas Copyright Law: Court Urged To Rule That A Banana Costume Is Not Infringing

from the scenes-a-faire? dept

In the fall of 2017, we wrote about a, well, bananas copyright lawsuit filed by costume maker "Rasta Impsta" against K-Mart, alleging that it was selling an infringing banana costume.

That case quickly settled (so, it's likely K-Mart just paid off Rasta Imposta to go away), but around the same time the company had sued a few other companies over similar costumes, including one operation called Kanagroo Manufacturing, for making a similar banana costume. As we had noted at the time of the Kmart case, historically, there's been no recognized copyright in costumes, since articles of clothing are considered uncopyrightable. Except, in a truly awful Supreme Court ruling in 2017, the court swung open the door to clothing/costume copyrights, by arguing that certain elements in a piece of clothing could be considered copyrightable as "design" rather than as a "useful article" (which is not subject to copyright).

And, thus, last year a District Court judge issued an injunction against Kangaroo Manufacturing, arguing that its banana costume likely infringed on the banana costume of Rasta Imposta. The court, not surprisingly, cites that awful Star Athletica Supreme Court ruling to argue that elements of the banana costume are separable and thus can be covered by copyright. Rasta argued that the following elements were separable and could be covered by copyright:

Rasta Imposta claims the following as the unique features of the banana design: the overall shape and cutout holes of the costume, the black ends of the banana, and the vertical lines running down the middle of the banana.

Really. The lower court ruled that the cutout holes are not subject to copyright, as they are utilitarian, but decides otherwise on the shape, lines, and black ends of the banana. Oh, and also the placement of the cutout holes, rather than the holes themselves. Which is... bananas. The following is from a real, actual court ruling:

The Court can easily identify the features of the Banana Costume having a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural quality.

These features include: a) the overall length of the costume, b) the overall shape of the design in terms of curvature, c) the length of the shape both above and below the torso of the wearer, d) the shape, size, and jet black color of both ends, e) the location of the head and arm cutouts which dictate how the costume drapes on and protrudes from a wearer (as opposed to the mere existence of the cutout holes), f) the soft, smooth, almost shiny look and feel of the chosen synthetic fabric, g) the parallel lines which mimic the ridges on a banana in three-dimensional form, and h) the bright shade of a golden yellow and uniform color that appears distinct from the more muted and inconsistent tones of a natural banana.

The court does then basically argue that Kangaroo's Banana is way too similar to Rasta Imposta's banana and that there could be other ways to design a banana costume:

Rasta Imposta provides this Court with twenty-one banana costumes available in the marketplace that are easily distinguished from Rasta Imposta’s design, which suggests that the limited number of options requirement necessary for merger to apply is absent. (Arena Decl. Ex. A). The Court has reviewed this submission and notes several unique ways of designing a banana costume.9 The shape and curvature can vary, as can the existence and color of tips to the banana. Bananas can also be designed to appear ripe, overripe, or unripe, ranging in color from yellow, to brown, to green. The shape can be long or more stout, relatively elongated or thin or more plump. The banana may be whole or partially peeled. There can also be the production of vertical lines and the texture and material can differ.

While the court admits that Rasta has a "relatively weak copyright" in its banana costume, it is a valid copyright, and thus Kanagaroo should be barred from continuing to sell its own version.

Anyway, Kangaroo appealed the case, and the 3rd Circuit recently held a hearing where the judges were able to crack some jokes.

“I thought the counsel would wear the costumes,” U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Chagares laughed.

According to Courthouse News, the debate centered around what parts of a banana are copyrightable:

But Schrader argued Wednesday that there is nothing original about Rasta’s banana costume, such as brown spots or perhaps sunglasses, that would make it protectable; it is simply a ripe, yellow banana.

“So a costume of a terribly underripe or an overripe banana is copyrightable?” U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman said. “But one of a normal off-the-shelf banana is not copyrightable?”

Schrader says not exactly, but pressed that there are only so many ways a banana can look.

“It was designed to look like a banana in nature,” Schrader said. “There is no artistic twist.”

Rasta's lawyer retorted (and, again, this really happened): "There are so many ways to conceive a design of a banana. And they conceived it exactly as ours."

Anyway, it's not clear how this case will actually turn out. Thanks to the Star Athletica decision, the Supreme Court has opened up this kind of nonsense as actually worth litigating. I'd still be hard pressed to think that the framers of the Constitution intended copyright law to be used to fight over two similar looking banana costumes, however.

Filed Under: bananas, copyright, costumes, halloween, useful articles
Companies: kangaroo manufacturing, rasta imposta

Disney: The Only Fun Allowed At Children's Birthday Parties Is Properly Licensed Fun

from the mouse-in-the-house dept

Readers of this site will hear the name Disney and immediately begin rolling their eyes. By virtue of its insanely aggressive and expansionist views on intellectual property matters, Disney manages to find itself on the wrong side of nearly every issue. Disney is in the business of making money and it often looks to do so in the most draconian of manners, but the company also bills itself as being dedicated to children's entertainment, growth, and happiness.

Which is why it's somewhat odd to see the giant media company going to IP war against a company that sends unlicensed, poorly-disguised homage characters to children's birthday parties.

Characters for Hire in New York has been hit with a lawsuit after being accused by Disney of infringing upon "highly valuable intellectual property rights" (via the Hollywood Reporter). This includes Star Wars and Frozen characters, as well as superheroes such as Iron Man.

Except that those characters are altered ever so slightly and renamed in an obvious attempt to get around the exact intellectual property laws -- copyright and trademark -- over which Disney is suing. Darth Vader, for instance, is listed as Dark Lord, while Chewbacca has been rebranded as Big Hairy Guy. No, that's not a joke. On the company's homepage, it displays the following disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: ALL COSTUMED CHARACTERS ARE GENERIC/INSPIRED AND ARE NOT AFFILIATED, LICENSED OR ASSOCIATED WITH ANY CORPORATION OR TRADEMARK. It is not our intention to violate any copyright laws. The characters that we offer are NOT name brand copyrighted characters, and Characters for Hire, LLC. costumed characters are named of our own creation. Any resemblance to nationally known copyrighted characters is strictly coincidental. Should you have the need for a licensed, copyrighted mascot or character at your event, we encourage you to contact the company/copyright holders for your specific targeted character. If you have any questions regarding this issue, we encourage you to contact us. We DO NOT offer nor do we present any licensed and/or copyrighted characters.

For that reason, Characters For Hire is claiming that both the copyright and trademark claims from Disney aren't valid. The characters are altered and renamed in an effort to gain protection from the idea/expression dichotomy, with those same changes and the disclaimer making it clear to the public that the company has no affiliation with the IP owners of the original characters from which these generics are inspired.

That said... yeah, but no. The point made in the disclaimer that the likenesses are strictly coincidental is laughable at best. It's very likely that the copyright portion of Disney's claims will hold up in court. The trademark claims have less a chance of success, as it's abundantly clear that these are not licensed characters or associated in any way with companies like Disney. But, still, the so-called generic characters of Characters For Hire appear to be more than merely "inspired" by the originals and are instead near identical characters with alterations made only to get around copyright law.

But the larger point is: hey, Disney, why? Given that the copyright claims are the most substantive, there was nothing requiring Disney to take this action. Certainly it is laughable for Disney to claim any serious harm from a copyright perspective due to Characters For Hire's actions. All this is really doing is keeping some fun, if unoriginal, characters from entertaining kids and people at birthdays and related events. Is giving up the stated aim to make children happy really worth smacking around a relatively small company that works these sorts of parties?

Filed Under: birthday parties, copyright, costumes, licensing, trademark
Companies: characters for hire, disney

How The Supreme Court's Continued Misunderstanding Of Copyright Ruined Halloween

from the costume-copyrights dept

Earlier this year we wrote about a truly awful Supreme Court ruling concerning whether or not the design of cheerleader costumes could be covered by copyright. As we had explained earlier, this ruling could have a major impact on a variety of industries. The key issue is that "useful articles" are not supposed to be subject to copyright. Historically, that's always meant that the actual design of clothing or costumes is not protected by copyright law. And that's been a really good thing. It's inspired much more competition and innovation over the years in the clothing world.

As we noted when the ruling came out, allowing the copyright on cheerleader uniforms to stand, with a weird "new test" (basically whether you can "separate" the design from the useful article, and if the separated design is copyright-eligible), would lead to a lot of lawsuits pushing the boundaries of that test. And that's exactly what's happening. And it may ruin Halloween this year. Because suddenly, Halloween costume designers are starting to sue. Specifically, a costume maker named (no joke) "Rasta Imposta" is suing K-mart for having the audacity to sell someone else's banana costume. Really. This is straight out of the complaint:

Incredibly, Rasta Imposta argues that basic features of a banana are its "distinct visual elements."

The appearance and trade dress of Rasta Imposta’s distinctive Banana Design is identified by a combination of arbitrary and distinct visual elements which make up its overall appearance, design, and trade dress, including, but not limited to the Banana Design’s bright yellow color with dark tips at the ends, the lines running down the sides, the Banana Design’s placement of the banana ends, and the cutout holes in the Banana Design.

I don't see how Rasta Imposta can legitimately argue that its copyright covers the yellow color of a banana, the dark tips or lines running down the side. That's kinda common to all bananas. But, still, it insists another banana is infringing.

The Kmart Totally Ghoul Costume has the same shape as the Banana Design, the ends of the banana are placed similarly, the vertical lines running down the middle of the banana are placed similarly, the one-piece costume is worn on the body the same way as the Banana Design, and the cut out holes are similar to the Banana Design.

And, no, I have no idea why Kmart has named its Banana costume "Totally Ghoul."

This whole thing seems particularly pointless. It's a freaking costume of a banana. But, alas, with the Supreme Court flinging open the door to pulling out elements of costumes and making them copyrightable, expect more of these lawsuits.

Filed Under: banana, copyright, costumes, halloween, scotus
Companies: kmart, rasta imposta

Can't Make This Up: Paramount Says Star Trek Fan Flick Violates Copyright On Klingon And 'Uniform With Gold Stars'

from the make-it-stop dept

Let's go back just a few months to remind you about two stories that seem fairly unrelated.

1. Story one: at the very end of last year, we wrote about the ridiculousness of CBS and Paramount suing the makers of a Star Trek fan film on the basis of that fan film actually looking like it was going to be good. The key issue, not surprisingly, was about money. Because this fan film had raised over $1 million from crowdfunding, suddenly it must somehow be illegal.
2. Story two: a few months earlier, in trying to better explain to people just how crazy CAFC's ruling regarding copyrighting application programming interfaces (APIs) was, we discussed Charles Duan's excellent argument that noted that if such a ruling stood, merely using Klingon could be copyright infringement. The basic argument was that an API is a "created language." But could you imagine a situation in which the creators of such a language would claim that merely speaking it was infringement.

Well, welcome back to the present, in which Paramount and CBS's lawyers are now claiming that part of the reason why the fan film infringes is because of its use of Klingon. As first noted by Eriq Gardner at THR, Esq., the lawyers for the fan film had responded to the original lawsuit by pointing out that nothing in the lawsuit showed any specific thing that they were infringing on. And that's a problem, because of that old idea/expression dichotomy. You're only supposed to be able to infringe by copying the actual "expression," not just the general idea. And, thus, we get the amended complaint, in which the lawyers for Paramount and CBS desperately scramble to try to come up with just about anything that they can claim was infringed upon. And thus, we get... Klingon. The amended complaint basically argues that anything similar to Star Trek is copyright infringement, including characters, races, places, costumes, plot points, spaceships, logos and... language. Yes, including Klingon: But, that's hardly all. Paramount and CBS literally claim that using any of the following terms are infringing: "beaming up," "transporters," "warp drive," "stardate" or "starfleet" or "phasers." Really.

To claim making use of words or phrases like that, which certainly remind people of Star Trek, is by itself infringing seems crazy. Ditto for claiming that merely using Klingon is somehow infringing. But, really, when you're throwing everything at the wall, you're going to throw some really stupid shit. How about this one: it's infringing because it has the same "mood and theme" and that's as a "science fiction action adventure." Even things like the fact that the Klingon logo is similar is called out: And there are a lot of complaints about costume similarities, starting with a "uniform with a gold shirt" with a "particular type of collar": Or uniforms with a "cowl neck." Or, "triangular medals on uniforms." Really. Believe it or not there's a lot more in there. I'm just highlighting a few. And a bunch of these it's difficult to believe are actually protected by copyright. General similarities in "mood and theme" are nowhere near copyrightable. Costumes, which make up a bunch of the claims, are (as we've discussed in the past) considered by the US Copyright Office as "useful articles" and not subject to copyright protection.

Clearly, the lawyers at Paramount and CBS are trying to argue that by copying many of these non-copyrightable elements, all together, that somehow magically makes it copyright infringement. And, you never know. Courts have been persuaded by these kinds of arguments in the past. And, of course, no one denies that this is clearly an attempt to build a "Star Trek" fan film. So it's obviously based on Star Trek. But there's a real issue about whether or not there really is infringement here, and by throwing absolutely everything into the filing, even things that are clearly not even remotely covered by copyright, it really makes Paramount/CBS look extremely desperate.

Filed Under: apis, copyright, costumes, fan films, klingon, languages, star trek, uniforms
Companies: cbs, paramount

NYPD Says It Has No Record Of Asking Disney To Use Copyright To Shut Down Times Square Characters, Despite Public Admission

from the FOILed-again dept

It's hard to imagine in the depths of this frigid New York winter, but last summer the city seemed to be in the grips of a Times Square Problem. Costumed characters -- and the relative newcomers, painted topless women -- were declared a public enemy, begriming the otherwise idyllic tourist mecca of midtown. But the NYPD, tasked with enforcing this mandate, had a problem: with only about one crime reported per day in Times Square, there's not a lot to actually enforce.

So, as Techdirt and others reported at the time, the Department tried to get IP law to step in. Posessed of a legal theory that wouldn't have survived much scrutiny, Commissioner Bill Bratton (or one of his employees) approached Disney and Marvel, asking them to sue the costumed performers for copyright infringement. The companies declined. We know all this because Bratton confirmed it to media outlets last August. In CNN:

The NYPD confirmed to CNNMoney that Commissioner Bill Bratton asked Disney and Marvel to sue for copyright infringement. But according to the NYPD, the companies aren't biting.

And in the Daily News:

The city’s top cop said Thursday they got the cold shoulder from Disney and Marvel when they tried to enlist them in the fight against the costumed characters preying on tourists in Times Square.

The NYPD specifically asked the companies if they wanted to charge the hustlers who wear Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man and other well-known costumes with copyright infringement.

Lest you think, "But how would this all fit with the First Amendment?", later in the same interview Bratton gives a remarkable quote that shows exactly how much respect he holds for freedom of speech:

Bratton also took a shot at Times Square artists like Andy Golub, whose specialty is using naked people as his canvas.

"What he is effectively doing is flaunting the first amendment," he said. "Well, it may be an artistic expression, but it repulses the average person, and this is what we’re dealing with."

Given that stance, the copyright requests of Disney and Marvel seemed like they might be extraordinary. So just after these news reports were published, late last August I made a public records request for the communications -- or records of the communications -- under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

I should not have expected much. After all, NYPD was given an "F" grade for its FOIL compliance by then Public Advocate Bill de Blasio in a 2013 survey of New York agencies. At least at that time, nearly a third of FOIL requests to NYPD simply went unanswered. Over a quarter took more than 60 days to process.

And when my request was acknowledged, I was told a review for the records would take 90 business days. Already, that's an outrageously long time for an agency to take. FOIL allows some flexibility in response times, but 90 business days is about four months -- too long for the records to be useful to a follow-up story, and far too long to allow me to refine my request and send in for more information.

Alas, this wasn't a top priority for me, and I accepted the 90-day timeline without appeal. So a little more than three months later, I got the word: "this unit is unable to locate records responsive to your request." In other words, no responsive documents; I get nothing.

What could this mean? As I see it, there are just a few possibilities.

• First, maybe I phrased my request in a way that doesn't describe the records they do have. I think I was pretty accurate with my description, but you be the judge:

  Communications and/or records of communications from January 1, 2012 to August 28, 2015 between the New York City Police Department and representatives of Disney, Marvel, The Jim Henson Company, Sesame Workshop, Sanrio, Viacom, Nickelodeon, DC Comics, Warner Brothers, Lucasfilm, or Nintendo of America, pertaining to or addressing the use of costumed characters in or around Times Square. Such communications, in the form of encouragement to Disney and Marvel to initiate copyright litigation, have been acknowledged by the NYPD to CNN in an August 28 story titled, "NYPD to Disney and Marvel: Get Minnie Mouse and Spider Man out of Times Square"

• Maybe there are no communications at all, despite Bratton and Disney confirming there were to the media. I don't really see what anybody has to gain by doing this.

• Maybe the department has responsive records and chose not to give them to me. The agency didn't cite an exemption or provide any indication that this was the case, but we're talking about an agency that made up its own bogus "classification" scheme. It may be in violation of FOIL, but it doesn't seem beyond the pale for the NYPD.

• Finally, it's possible NYPD conducted these communications in a way that did not generate any records. This is just speculation, but if this is the case, it's hard to imagine this happening by accident. The NYPD asking Disney and Marvel to bring lawsuits, and there's no paper trail at all?

Unfortunately, the nature of frustrated transparency efforts is that we don't really have the answers. If the NYPD had promptly responded that it had no such records or would be withholding them according to a particular exemption, or even if it had given me a limited set, we could close this case. As it stands, we don't really know anything more about the NYPD's bizarre efforts to jam its "quality-of-life" issues into an ill-fitting copyright enforcement box.

Filed Under: copyright, costumes, foia, nypd, transparency

Left Shark Bites Back: 3D Printer Sculptor Hires Lawyer To Respond To Katy Perry's Bogus Takedown

from the jumping-the-shark dept

Did you think Katy Perry's lawyers sending a questionable cease & desist letter over 3d printable plans for "the left shark" backup dancer in Katy Perry's Superbowl Halftime routine would be the end of that story? It turns out that the guy who originally created the 3d printed figurine, Fernando Sosa, has now gone out and retained law professor/lawyer Chris Sprigman (the same Chris Sprigman we quoted in our original article detailing why a costume is a "useful article" and thus not copyrightable) to send a response to Perry's lawyers explaining copyright 101 to them.

Mr. Sosa is not especially eager to be fighting over copyright, but the legal merits of your claim seem very weak. (We also wonder what Katy Perry could possibly stand to gain from declaring war on an Internet meme, but that's her business.) Mr. Sosa has a few questions that he wants answered before he will remove Left Shark from the other online stores in which it is available.

First, can you tell me why you believe the costume of a shark that you claim Katy Perry owns is copyrightable? As you likely know, federal courts and the United States Copyright Office have made clear that costumes are generally not copyrightable. Please tell me why you think the Left Shark costume should be treated differently.

Second, what is the basis for your claim that Katy Perry, and not some other person, owns the copyright? Did Katy Perry design the Left Shark costume? If so, when? If not, who did? Did that person transfer any copyright interest he or she might have (in reality, very likely none) to Katy Perry? If so, when?

We ask about ownership not least because Katy Perry herself suggested that she didn't have control over the content of her halftime show, but rather the NFL did. See, for example, her recent interview with Ell magazine:

"In my show, I am boss daddy. I am bossy mommy. They call me Boss. Everything goes through my eyes; I call all the shots, 100 percent of it. With the NFL, I have to be accountable to several levels of red tape. There are many committees I have to go through for my costumes, the budgets of my show, every interview--everything, I have to report to somebody. So I am no longer the boss; I have to relinquish that control."

At the very least, Katy Perry's own account raises questions about what, if anything, she owns. If she wasn't the boss of her halftime show, she's also unlikely to be the copyright owner.

Sprigman also ends his letter with some quite sane advice: perhaps Katy Perry's lawyers should just drop this:

I'll end my letter with a simple request: Just drop this thing. My client wants to get back to his business, and he (and I'd wager pretty much everyone else) would be grateful if you'd just back off. Going ahead with these very dubious copyright claims will not benefit Katy Perry. But if you're determined to press on, please do respond to my legal questions, and we can try to work it out from there.

This may be some of the best advice given to opposing lawyers. Now the question is whether or not Perry's lawyers will take it.

Filed Under: 3d printing, chris sprigman, copyright, costumes, fernando sosa, katy perry, left shark, useful articles

School Threatens Child With Expulsion For Halloween Drawings

from the fear-itself dept

There is an epidemic coursing its way through our school systems that puts our children's lives in danger. For some reason, this epidemic appears to be on the rise, resulting in fear, oppression, and a demoralizing experience for our kids in schools that almost certainly effects the educational experience, if not the psychological well-being of millions of young Americans. As I'm sure you have already guessed, I'm obviously talking about the stupid adults that run everything and have put in place a nearly-institutionalized overreaction to some very real but rare tragedies of recent note. That overreaction is how you get terrified kids during school shooting drills. It's how you get seven year olds suspended for novelty pens, which I guess is mightier than the high-powered rifle.

And it's how you end up with a grade school child being threatened with expulsion for drawing some pictures of what he'd like to dress as on Halloween.

The three images in question depict a soldier, a ninja and a Star Wars character - possibilities for the 8-year-old's Halloween costume. Each of the drawings show the character holding either a gun or a knife.

"I think we really send our children the wrong message when we show that, as adults, we're so afraid of our shadow that an innocent picture - that any 8-year-old might've drawn - is cause for this kind of concern." [Comment from a local citizen]

The report also notes that the student engaged in creative writing which was likewise deemed to be dangerous, but which ultimately turned out to be a fictional story about the school being attacked by zombies, otherwise known as the kind of thing every single young boy thinks about at some point. For these crimes, the principal of the school informed the parents that they have a zero tolerance policy for images depicting guns and violence, that the child's creativity resulted in every other child in the school being in danger, and that they were grounds for expulsion.

And, in case you haven't decided yet, this is stupid. The images of school shootings in our media are powerful ones, but they don't necessarily need to result in everyone over the age of eighteen completely losing their minds and institutionalizing a culture of fear of our own children. You want to create a mythos around violence and guns amongst children? Outlaw discussion about them. You want to ostricize children? Limit creativity. You want to make children trust adults even less than they already do? Try to put them in some iron-grip of zero tolerance during the very time when they are learning to be most expressive, curious, and creative.

Can we please just go back to trusting our children to be relatively decent again? Because each and every one of these stories is dumb.

Filed Under: costumes, drawing, halloween, overreaction, students

Questions About Copyright On Stormtrooper Costume Hit UK Supreme Court

from the i-find-your-lack-of-copyright-disturbing dept

Over the past few years, we've covered the ongoing legal battle between Andrew Ainsworth -- the prop designer who created the original Stormtrooper costumes for Star Wars -- and George Lucas. Ainsworth had been selling Stormtrooper costumes, and Lucas claimed it was a copyright violation. In 2008, a UK court tossed out a ruling against Ainsworth, pointing out that movie props are utilitarian, rather than works of art, and thus not covered by copyright in the UK. Of course, Ainsworth is being a bit silly too. At one point he countersued Lucas, saying that Lucas owed him money for all the merchandising he had done involving the Stormtrooper outfits.

Either way, the case is finally going to the UK Supreme Court. Apparently, Lucas is claiming that there was an implied term in the agreement between Lucas and Ainsworth that Ainsworth wouldn't be able to have any rights to sell the works he created. So the question really may come down to whether or not the court really believes in such "implied" terms, or whether it prefers contractual terms to actually be explicit before people can agree to them.

Filed Under: andrew ainsworth, copyright, costumes, george lucas, storm troopers, uk

Another Lawsuit Over Costume Copyrights: Gorilla Holding A Cage

from the feeling-caged-in? dept

Following our recent story about copyright on Mardis Gras costumes, it seems that now we're hearing more and more about costume copyrights. THREsq points us to the news of a lawsuit involving the maker of those "gorilla holding a cage" Halloween costumes (pdf) claiming that a competing gorilla-holding-cage costume maker was violating its copyrights:

While there may be arguments over the copyrightability of the costume itself, notice that the lawsuit takes this even further, and throws in the claim of copyright inducement in asking retailers to sell the costume, with the argument being that the maker of the costume is now "inducing" the retailers to infringe.

Filed Under: copyright, costumes, gorillas

Motion Picture Academy Threatens Costume Shop For Offering An Oscar Costume

from the trademark-fun dept

The Motion Picture Academy is notorious not just for its incredibly aggressive stance when it comes to copyright, but also to trademarks -- especially when it comes to the Academy Awards, better known as The Oscars. I've heard stories of them threatening/suing people for holding Oscars parties with mock Oscar statues. So it comes as little surprise to see the following story, sent in by Lawrence D'Oliveiro, that the Academy is threatening a small costume shop in New Zealand for daring to offer costumes that look like the Oscar statue. As if they don't have anything better to be focusing on? The Academy and misguided trademark lawyers will of course chime in and insist that they must do this or risk the statue becoming "generic" such that the trademark goes away, but it still seems like a bullying approach. Why not just work with the shop to offer a "licensed" version? It's not like having such costumes around the world causes any actual harm to The Oscars. In fact, it helps to promote them...

Filed Under: costumes, oscars, trademark
Companies: mpa