Warner Bros Is Cracking Down On Harry Potter Festivals (apnews.com) 160
Warner Bros is cracking down on local Harry Potter fan festivals around the country, saying it's necessary to halt unauthorized commercial activity. From a report: Fans, however, liken the move to Dementors sucking the joy out of homegrown fun, while festival directors say they'll transfigure the events into generic celebrations of magic. "It's almost as if Warner Bros. has been taken over by Voldemort, trying to use dark magic to destroy the light of a little town," said Sarah Jo Tucker, a 21-year-old junior at Chestnut Hill College, which hosts a Quidditch tournament that coincides with the annual suburban Philadelphia festival. Philip Dawson, Chestnut Hill's business district director, said Warner Bros. reached out to his group in May, letting them know new guidelines prohibit festivals' use of any names, places or objects from the series. That ruled out everything from meet-and-greet with Dumbledore and Harry to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. Related story, from 18 years ago: Harry Potter Sites vs. Warner Brothers.
Great business decision.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Great business decision.... (Score:2, Funny)
Don't you know the books will disappear in a puff of magic smoke if Warner Brothers stop making money from Harry Potter?
Snoutums troughiamus!
Re: Great business decision.... (Score:3, Interesting)
What is so wrong with using your imagination as an adult? It's like everyone forgets the joy of being a kid and pretending. Yea life comes at ya and pushes that to the side, but we should still make time to pretend and imagine things that don't exist. Whether that means writing a book, playing d&d, or even role playing in and outside of a video game universe.
Lighten up, sometimes I wish I was a kid again, the pure bliss and my imagination, Jr was all I needed at times. Now everything drains my time and
Re: (Score:3)
we should still make time to pretend and imagine things that don't exist. Whether that means writing a book, playing d&d, or even role playing in and outside of a video game universe.
There's a big difference between role-playing in a universe of your own creation and role-playing in a universe whose exclusive rights are owned by a multinational conglomerate.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Damn, did you just call him a Presbyterian?
Re: (Score:2)
How is someone going to 'get' difficult problems if they keep retreating into 'good and evil' fairy tale worlds, that protect/satisfy them in some twisted way.
Often by seeing through the bullshit behind "it's complicated" and realizing it really isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great business decision.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nomative use is not considered to dilute a trademark.
Except that is not what is happening. These "fan festivals" charge fees, sell merchandise, are promoted with paid advertising, and are clearly commercial activities.
It is disingenuous to spin this as WB cracking down on kids playing in their backyard.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You missed his point: you don't dilute a trademark by using it for the trademarked product. Calling Kleenex "Kleenex" does not in any way dilute that trademark, authorized or not, and requires no defense. Calling Puffs "Kleenex" is what you need to sue over.
But it's irreverent anyhow, this is all copyright-related.
Re: (Score:1)
Trademarks last forever, at least until the owner can't defend them.
All the HP characters are trademarked. (Don't dress up as wicked witch Fiorina, without paying a license fee.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great business decision.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You missed his point: you don't dilute a trademark by using it for the trademarked product.
You missed the point: The trademark is being used for OTHER PRODUCTS. Specifically, a commercial festival that is not endorsed or affiliated with the owner of the trademark.
Re: (Score:2)
And as long as the festival is clear about its un-officialness, that's fine. This is why it's so rare to get trademarks around fictional IP. Trademarks are mostly there to protect action figures, costumes, and similar physical goods where traditional branding applies.
You don't in any way violate trademark by making your own Spider-Man costume for Halloween. You would if you sold that costume, however.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of that pub in the UK called "The Hobbit". Got a C&D and there was a massive uproar, but actually when you look at the pub and its marketing material it was all full of images of the actors from the movies, using the logos and fonts they developed.
Meanwhile other Middle Earth themed pubs that used their own or public domain artwork were fine.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great business decision.... (Score:5, Interesting)
They could also "defend" it by offering an inexpensive licensing deal for small festivals.
Disney does this for school plays. For a small fee you get scripts, rent-a-costumes, and plans for props for "Show White", "Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast", etc.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am aware that these stories are centuries old, and Disney does not actually own them. But they do own trademarks for many of the characters, and people are far more familiar with the Disneyfied version of these stories than the originals, which tend to be darker and more violent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
am I infringing on the use of their Snow White trademark if my Snow White looks nothing like the Disney Snow White?
No. Disney does not have a universal trademark on the phrase "Snow White", since it was already in the public domain long before Walt was even born. They have a narrow trademark on a particular depiction and use of the phrase and character [justia.com].
Disclaimer: If you are actually planning to make such a book/play/movie, you might want to get a second opinion before proceeding.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember a few years back there was a big push from Disney and the likes to stop people from making recordings of their children's school musicals due to copyright.
Re: (Score:3)
That is a bullshit dodge. You can also protect your mark by sending a letter asserting your mark and PERMITTING it's use. Perhaps throw in some language about no porn or some such.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
They sure didn't seem to have a problem finding events to send a nastygram to. Just because the law allows it, they don't have to be inflamed assholes. Let's not forget that without Harry Potter fans, Warner wouldn't have made a dime on the movies.
They could even go so far as to make it easy for people who aren't part of Hollywood to request and be granted clearance. They might even point out that procedure in a polite letter requesting that people use that procedure in the future.
There are many things in l
Re: (Score:2)
This. And they need to remember that every sad kid who finds out that his or her favorite fan festival got canceled because of a threat of a lawsuit by the studio that shall not be named is going to wear that scar for the rest of his/her life, and will eventually
Re: (Score:2)
You would have a point if the crackdown were just on the "huckster row" that fan cons have. If someone sells T-shirts or figures with copyrighted characters, these should be licensed. But references to the characters in impromptu stage plays, fan fiction and festival themes should be fair use. These are free advertising for the franchise.
I would like to see some franchise fan base plan regional flash mob events where people come out in costume and openly defy the whole initiative to deny fair use to fans. O
Re: (Score:2)
Trademarks do not work that way. For something to become generic, it has to be used to describe something other than the original product. For example, if I create a series of bo
Re: (Score:3)
I remember in a old Dragon magazine a comic, maybe Phil Foglio did it, about the Tolkien estate coming after them. "The phone is circular metal band-ing - can someone answer it?!"
Re:Great business decision.... (Score:4, Informative)
It was in Dragon Magazine, Issue #84. The comic was "What's New with Phil & Dixie!"
You can find a PDF of the issue at: https://annarchive.com/files/D... [annarchive.com]
Re: (Score:2)
...of shareholders (not that there is anything wrong with that, I remind to my own corporate masters)
The simple solution is to require registration, charge a fee based on economic activity (nominal if otherwise free, like a library) and stipulate licensed merchandise only. Sure the keyboard lawyers will talk about 'liability', however, the real lawyers can mitigate any responsibility. Such ac
Re: (Score:2)
Honest question - do you have examples of this happening? I'd be interested in reading about it.
List of lost trademarks [consumerreports.org]
Most of the trademarks on this list were lost through dilution or genericization. But some, such as "Asprin" and "Heroin" were confiscated from German companies in the aftermath of WW1.
Re: (Score:2)
"Aspirin", with a capital "A" is still trademarked here and in many countries, 80+ according to wiki, which also says
Though I also thought it was lost as a reparation after the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
People also associate Harley Davidson motorcycles with bikie gangs
A Harley bike gang rented my house on Airbnb. When they left, it was spotlessly clean, they cleaned and folded all the sheets and towels, and they left me a five star review.
Re: (Score:2)
Always a smart move to leave a clean crime scene.
Re: (Score:2)
Must be why they have been losing workers to layoffs and shutting down factories.
No, that's because their Boomer fan base is dying off.
Re: (Score:2)
They opened a factories in Thailand and India at the same time they closed the last one.
Chinese parts have been SOP for years, bet they aren't making any Harleys in the USA in 10 years. The customers that care, already have Harleys.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The fastest way to lose your trademarked characters is to stop the fans being fans. History will take are of the rest.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A naive faith in slippery-slope argumentation is pretty much my definition of not terribly smart.
My neighbour lives nearby.
My neighbour's neighbour lives nearby.
My neighbour's neighbour's neighbour does not live nearby.
BUT
If someone adds another house in between then we have:
My neighbour's neighbour's nei
Re:Great business decision.... (Score:5, Informative)
Because trademark law offers no "fair use" provisions, which means that a company has to aggressively hunt down anybody who uses their trademarked characters or risk losing the trademarks altogether.
Absolutely false, and people need to stop repeating this crap. First off, US law definitely has "fair use" protections on trademark usage, such as those related to 1st Amendment protections. Secondly, you cannot ever lose a trademark just because someone else uses it and you don't sue them. To be blunt, there are only two ways to lose a trademark: (1) Non-use; and (2) dilution (i.e. becoming generic).
Someone else using your mark without permission theoretically could be considered contributory evidence that you've abandoned your mark, but that's also going to require a lot more evidence (basically, extensive non-use, typically meaning your company doesn't do anything with the mark for 5+ years).
The other risk (dilution/becoming generic) is not a concern for something like "Harry Potter" - this applies to a term becoming used to describe everything in a category. Examples include Kleenex being used to describe all facial tissues, or Google being used as a verb to describe all web searches ("why don't you just google it?").
As for protecting their rights, it is not necessary for a trademark owner to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential. This is why it's actually suggested that trademark holders ignore small uses - because not only is it not worth paying a lawyer to send a C&D, nor the bad publicity, but that it sets a precedent that you are aware of their existence and considered events of that size to be of consequence (i.e. fighting small festivals makes you more likely to lose your trademark).
If they allow a festival of a certain size to use their trademarks, the another slightly bigger one will want to do the same, then a bigger one, and I think you are smart enough to know where this is going.
That more and more people are going to be buying Harry Potter merchandise, and getting more and more of a fan fervor worked up for their upcoming series of movies? Oh dear, how horrible for them!
This actually beings up one of the other fair use provisions that trademarks are bound by: positive identification usage. You cannot use trademark to sue someone for using your trademark to correctly identify your product. It's the same reason why McDonald's can use Burger King's trademark in commercials where they compare their burgers to the other company's. It's the same reason stores can advertise what they're selling without having to get permission from the manufacturers. So, if you want to advertise a "Harry Potter Festival" there is no legal standing to sue you if you are indeed having a festival centered around official Harry Potter products.
Re: (Score:2)
Because trademark law offers no "fair use" provisions, which means that a company has to aggressively hunt down anybody who uses their trademarked characters or risk losing the trademarks altogether.
So offer to license the trademarks to the festival for $1.00 with some mild restrictions, such as not using the characters in adults-only media / performances. Companies like to hide behind trademark law like it forces them to be jerks, but the reality is it would cost them very little to turn an unsanctioned use of a trademark into a santioned one and win them a bunch of free positive PR.
Re: (Score:2)
Warner is not a startup with little brand recognition.
That same, "Think of the exposure," defense didn't work with the Disney franchise, either.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
IIRC Rowling signed over everything but the copyright on the books to WB. I think there's a statement in the closing credits saying something like "all characters, placenames, etc,etc are copyright warner Brothers. All books are copyright J.K. Rowling"
She has rights to create new works in the world, but not to exploit the original books any further than to promote their sales.
Re: (Score:2)
Studios don't care about this kind of negative publicity. Fans stay fans.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Great business decision.... (Score:2)
Pirates of the Caribbean rule ok.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah your stupid little fandom is cute. But hollywood is in the business of money. You're not currently giving them any so you don't matter.
And don't even pretend you'll boycott their movies. We all know you won't. You'll take every turd they push your way and dress up like it anyway.
So sit down and shut the fuck up. Your fandom is built around a corporate product. Now be good little sheeple consumers and go buy something.
captcha: comply (see. even it knows.)
Yeah that kind of attitude has worked real well for Disney & Star Wars.
Hows that Solo movie doing at the box office?
About time (Score:1)
Stop those guys selling unlicensed pot!
Two words: normative use (Score:4, Informative)
Gahhh. Typo. I meant "nomative use" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll see myself out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're confusing trademark and copyright. Derivative use isn't a concept that applies to trademarks in the first place. As long as nothing is misrepresented as official or endorsed, there's no trademark relevance. Copyright OTOH is what they're running afoul of.
Re:Two words: normative use (Score:4, Informative)
All they need to do is both assert normative usage rights and to expressly indicate that they are not endorsed by or affiliated with the owners of the Harry Potter franchise, including but not limited to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers.
Ask the Prelude to Axenar folks how well that “Nomative Use” argument worked for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your original “all they need to do” statement didn’t mention profit potential at all, nor any qualifiers other than a willingness to state “we’re not affiliated with J. K. Rowling and Warner Brothers”.
I would expect many of these festivals could potentially run afoul of “nominative use” in several of the same ways that Axenar did.
Re: (Score:2)
Do as WB says.. (Score:2)
..not as they do! Right Bethesda?
Paramount tried the same thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember being a Trekkie in the 80s and how draconian Paramount could be. Even threatening club newsletters, calling them "Fanzines" and accusing them of infringing on their copyrights. Every convention had to be licensed or really, really small with no commercial activity. The wonderful Filk songs on VHS with new music set to cuts of episodes were very creative but on the shit list of some lawyers. The bootleg bloopers were probably going too far... but hey, good times!
Wonder if the Tolkien estate harasses hobbits? GRRM might knight you if you have pizza with him, but I heard HBO has no such sense of humor, so watch out Brotherhood Without Banners!
Re: Paramount tried the same thing... (Score:2, Funny)
A representative of MGM denied restricting fans in a heavy-handed fashion saying, "We have to protect our precious."
Re: (Score:2)
"You cannot amass! I am a servant of the Almighty Buck, wielder of the extended copyright. You cannot amass. The fan's spirit will not avail you, cosplayers and pretenders. You cannot amass."
I wonder if NAMBLA is cracking down on them too (Score:1)
There is a solution (Score:1)
Just boycott any TV show or Movie coming out of WB Studios.
Let them know right at the top what is going on.
Once it hits them in their profits they'll see the folly of their action.
Or you could have a 'Not a Harriet Potter Festival." Lets see them send a cease and desist for that.
Re: There is a solution (Score:2)
next thing you know (Score:3)
they need to disguise their product https://i.imgur.com/SauUao8.jp... [imgur.com]
Re:next thing you know (Score:5, Informative)
Re:next thing you know (Score:4, Informative)
Country Time Lemonade is actually helping kids with stand related legal issues...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11... [cnn.com]
Awesome photo!
Re: (Score:2)
oy (Score:2)
"It's almost as if Warner Bros. has been taken over by Voldemort, trying to use dark magic to destroy the light of a little town," said Sarah Jo Tucker, a 21-year-old junior at Chestnut Hill College, which hosts a Quidditch tournament that coincides with the annual suburban Philadelphia festival.
I didn't think anything could be worse than a Voldemort political metaphor.
I was wrong ...
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't think anything could be worse than a Voldemort political metaphor.
Really? Come live in Florida, where Voldemort is the actual governor. He did get his nose back, so at least he has that going for him.
Stupidest Company ever (Score:3, Insightful)
Warner Brother has proven time and again, that they are completely stupid and greedy.
o Let's merge with a DialUp company after the Internet has made them irrelevant.
o Let's close all of the Warner Brothers Stores in the malls because they don't earn a profit. YOU DON"T CARE IF THEY EARN A PROFIT! YOU ARE SELLING YOUR ADVERTISING!!! Mickey Mouse is still popular, but no kid ever heard of Bugs Bunny! Because Disney is still selling Mickey Mouse stuff to new kids, and WB killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
Why should this be any different? Instead of encouraging people to spread the popularity of their stuff, they shut it down, and slowly kill it. Years from now Star Wars will still matter because Disney gets this, and Harry Potter will be forgotten because Warner Brothers will have strangled it to death.
They even tried to extort money from people for singing happy birthday! Their own greed ultimately cost them $14 million dollars... the amount, by the way they thought they could extort from people by claiming to own it in first first place.
Re: (Score:2)
The books will live on and are much better than the movies. I saw the first three movies and they steadily went down the rat hole. At least the books allow you to use your imagination instead supplanting it by corporate imagination...the latter being above intelligence like a brick is above the Sargasso Sea (to reuse a phrase from Douglas Adams).
Not a X festival (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"peaceably assembled fans of X"
We used to call those "raves" back in the day...
Hey look! It's Captain Buzzkill (Score:2)
Jerks
Hasbro (Score:2)
Quidditch (Score:1)
1970s SpaceCon (Score:1)
While attending Silicon Valley Comic Con 2018 earlier this year, I was at the SpaceCon [youtu.be] panel. Bob Wilkins of Creature Freature fame borrowed a Channel 2 cameraman and several episodes of Star Trek to play at SpaceCon, a San Francisco Bay Area science fiction convention that ran through the 1970's. The early convention scene was wild because no one was concern about copyrights. That changed after Star Wars came out and Twentieth Century Fox started shutting down conventions in the early 1980s. Now we have th
Jobs for the boys & girls (Score:1)
They should... (Score:2)
... lock up those fans in cages. Oh wait....
Contrast between content and marketing (Score:2)
It's funny, how Warner is compared to the "dark forces" like Voldemort and the dementors in Harry Potter.
Obviously marketing is concerned with making money from the content using copyrights, trademarks, licensing and by employing the law to protect their business model, sometimes with heavy handed methods. OTOH the content often idealizes rebellious figures which accept no authority and make up their own rules according to their own morals. This contrast can also be seen in the success of "Pirates" while th
Re: (Score:2)
This contrast can also be seen in the success of "Pirates" while the movie industry tried to fight "Movie pirates"
If I had nothing to lose, I'd start a BitTorrent tracker specializing in works that that glorify pirates, such as One Piece and Pirates of the Caribbean. A notice at the bottom of every page: "Your claims against us are estopped by unclean hands until your legal department stops mistakenly referring to infringement as piracy."
This is like "Disc" golf... (Score:1)
This is how Frisbee ruined its name by sending lawyers around the country to sue anyone who mentioned they were going to play "Frisbee golf."
The university I was attending was the unfortunate recipient of one of those lawsuits, because "Frisbee Golf" was listed as an available intramural sport. They settled for an undisclosed amount and nobody there has ever purchased an authentic "Frisbee" piece of cheap Chinesium plastic ever since.
Typcial idiots (Score:1)
1) These people are your base
2) These people may or may not buy "non registered" goods from eachother
3) These people WILL buy your "registered" goods since they are they fanatics
Best case:
No damage
Worse case:
You alienated some of your core fans!
It's been taken over by worse than Dementors (Score:1)
This time it's LAWYERS!
A Patronus Charm cannot defend against LAWYERS!
Lawyers.... (Score:1)
Sometimes they have to do stupid ()%$@ to justify their existence.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, it isn't very pretty what a fan without pity [metrolyrics.com] can do!
Re: (Score:2)