Posted in 1 on 26/03/2010|
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Copyright and trademarks
I just read a New York Times articles about the Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans, who are trying to copyright their elaborate costumes, so as to prevent photographers profiting from selling posters and photos of them.
The legal issue is interesting. We’ve had this for years with publishers worried that a MacDonalds sign was visible in a street scene and might lead to problems. The general feeling is that if an image is the central subject of a picture, permission may be needed.
The legal trepidation reached a peak in the mid-90s when American editors started putting ™ or © signs after half the proper nouns in New American Streamline. I had a text about a car crash in Departures unit 55 and the first edit was `The Ford™ crashed into the Chevrolet™.
I sent the editors a couple of pages from the Grapes of Wrath where the name Ford appeared and said I don’t believe Ford could ever win a case against a publisher who failed to put “TM” after the word Ford, as anyone could find hundreds of examples without. They saw reason and the offending signs were removed, though one at least © was missed, so superstar Courtney Dallas still boasts in Unit 16 that I have a new Mercedes © and a lot of money …
This impacts on readability.
I also said I couldn’t believe Ford or Chevrolet would be dumb enough to sue, as they maintained their names were trademarked and a court might decide that their loss was nil in a work of literature, thus undermining the trademark. Anyone with any sense knows FORD is trademarked to stop the Central Asian Motor Corporation producing a range of “Fords” and more so, to stop spare parts manufacturers putting “FORD” on their goods. It’s not about describing a car in a book. When we borrowed a Ford for filming a video from the manufacturer I told the marketing guy about the TM issue and he fell about laughing at the very idea of sueing a writer for infringing their copyright. After all, his job was product placement, getting the Ford name into as many places as possible.
The moral of the story, as ever, is “Keep the lawyers in check.”
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