Rozier is being sued for selling Scary Terry merchandise

[CelticsElite]

According to McCann, a law professor at the University of New Hampshire, the New York-based store’s lawsuit alleges that Rozier’s clothing line will be confused with their own and the Celtics guard willingly tried to “dupe consumers into believing that they are buying goods legitimately associated with Fun World.”

I understand that in law things don't necessarily need to make sense, but that just seems like a REALLY weak claim.

Obviously if Fun World has the 'Ghostface Killer' mask trademarked, then things could get a little dicey in the Rozier camp, but it's not like they would even be an entity without the Scream franchise...and that was a long time ago. If anything, 'Scary Terry' has made them relevant again. Perhaps they are just using this as an opportunity for people to remember them.

you can’t be serious...

Scream masks are some of the most popular masks there are


I don’t get why people have such a hard time believing what’s happening here. If you make a shirt with the McDonald’s logo and sell it, expect a lawsuit. This ghost face mask lawsuit is no different. People always have this “indifference” when a lesser-known trademark owner tries to protect their property

[Big333223]

I don't know. Can a company trademark something that is a replication of a hundred year old painting? If so can I go out and trademark pictures of many other paintings and then sue anyone who tries to make money of those paintings likeness?

Well, it's not a straight replication of a painting.  They took something that was presumably in the public domain, and then added their artistic spin on it.  The ghost face Halloween mask has become iconic in its own right, above and beyond Munch's painting.

One of the silly things here?

Rozier ... trademarked his Scary Terry clothing line in July 2018.

Shouldn't his attorney mentioned that trademarking something that was already trademarked might pose a problem?

Put, I know very little about intellectual property law.  I know the general defenses tend to be fair use and/or parody.  I think there's at least good faith argument that this is parody.

Does responding to this count as studying for my law school finals?

I don’t know if we can say it’s a parody. Courts have been all over the place with it but it seems like his purpose is commercial gain, which isn’t going to help his case.

Ha. I still remember the parody hypotheticals from law school. One involved a local company making an ad playing off Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Production values were poor, and it had some level of humor (intentional or not).  I thought it was clear infringement due to the financial gain aspect, and because the new company hadn’t really changed the formula, they just copied it in an inferior way.

But, my professor disagreed, haha. Her view of parody was expansive.

When Weird Al parodies a song, he's also doing it strictly for commercial gain too, right? Sometimes he'd use another artist's music to make fun of the artist (like Smells Like Nirvana) but more often he'd just use recognizable music to sing about food or something silly.

Weird Al almost always has permission and he always pays royalties

He doesn't need permission but I guess you're right he does have to pay royalties.

Bad example.

[nickagneta]

I don't know. Can a company trademark something that is a replication of a hundred year old painting? If so can I go out and trademark pictures of many other paintings and then sue anyone who tries to make money of those paintings likeness?

Well, it's not a straight replication of a painting.  They took something that was presumably in the public domain, and then added their artistic spin on it.  The ghost face Halloween mask has become iconic in its own right, above and beyond Munch's painting.

One of the silly things here?

Rozier ... trademarked his Scary Terry clothing line in July 2018.

Shouldn't his attorney mentioned that trademarking something that was already trademarked might pose a problem?

Put, I know very little about intellectual property law.  I know the general defenses tend to be fair use and/or parody.  I think there's at least good faith argument that this is parody.

Does responding to this count as studying for my law school finals?

I don’t know if we can say it’s a parody. Courts have been all over the place with it but it seems like his purpose is commercial gain, which isn’t going to help his case.

Ha. I still remember the parody hypotheticals from law school. One involved a local company making an ad playing off Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Production values were poor, and it had some level of humor (intentional or not).  I thought it was clear infringement due to the financial gain aspect, and because the new company hadn’t really changed the formula, they just copied it in an inferior way.

But, my professor disagreed, haha. Her view of parody was expansive.

When Weird Al parodies a song, he's also doing it strictly for commercial gain too, right? Sometimes he'd use another artist's music to make fun of the artist (like Smells Like Nirvana) but more often he'd just use recognizable music to sing about food or something silly.

Weird Al almost always has permission and he always pays royalties

He doesn't need permission but I guess you're right he does have to pay royalties.

Bad example.

Actually I think he does need permission. Lots of rap acts samplec music from other people and needed to get permission to use it. Then there's the famous case of Vanilla Ice stealing the rift he used from David Bowie and Queen and had legal action taken against him.

[mmmmm]

I don't know. Can a company trademark something that is a replication of a hundred year old painting? If so can I go out and trademark pictures of many other paintings and then sue anyone who tries to make money of those paintings likeness?

Well, it's not a straight replication of a painting.  They took something that was presumably in the public domain, and then added their artistic spin on it.  The ghost face Halloween mask has become iconic in its own right, above and beyond Munch's painting.

One of the silly things here?

Rozier ... trademarked his Scary Terry clothing line in July 2018.

Shouldn't his attorney mentioned that trademarking something that was already trademarked might pose a problem?

Put, I know very little about intellectual property law.  I know the general defenses tend to be fair use and/or parody.  I think there's at least good faith argument that this is parody.

Does responding to this count as studying for my law school finals?

I don’t know if we can say it’s a parody. Courts have been all over the place with it but it seems like his purpose is commercial gain, which isn’t going to help his case.

Ha. I still remember the parody hypotheticals from law school. One involved a local company making an ad playing off Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Production values were poor, and it had some level of humor (intentional or not).  I thought it was clear infringement due to the financial gain aspect, and because the new company hadn’t really changed the formula, they just copied it in an inferior way.

But, my professor disagreed, haha. Her view of parody was expansive.

When Weird Al parodies a song, he's also doing it strictly for commercial gain too, right? Sometimes he'd use another artist's music to make fun of the artist (like Smells Like Nirvana) but more often he'd just use recognizable music to sing about food or something silly.

Weird Al almost always has permission and he always pays royalties

Weird Al is so good, original artists should be paying HIM to parody their songs.

[Moranis]

I don't know. Can a company trademark something that is a replication of a hundred year old painting? If so can I go out and trademark pictures of many other paintings and then sue anyone who tries to make money of those paintings likeness?

Well, it's not a straight replication of a painting.  They took something that was presumably in the public domain, and then added their artistic spin on it.  The ghost face Halloween mask has become iconic in its own right, above and beyond Munch's painting.

One of the silly things here?

Rozier ... trademarked his Scary Terry clothing line in July 2018.

Shouldn't his attorney mentioned that trademarking something that was already trademarked might pose a problem?

Put, I know very little about intellectual property law.  I know the general defenses tend to be fair use and/or parody.  I think there's at least good faith argument that this is parody.

Does responding to this count as studying for my law school finals?

I don’t know if we can say it’s a parody. Courts have been all over the place with it but it seems like his purpose is commercial gain, which isn’t going to help his case.

Ha. I still remember the parody hypotheticals from law school. One involved a local company making an ad playing off Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Production values were poor, and it had some level of humor (intentional or not).  I thought it was clear infringement due to the financial gain aspect, and because the new company hadn’t really changed the formula, they just copied it in an inferior way.

But, my professor disagreed, haha. Her view of parody was expansive.

When Weird Al parodies a song, he's also doing it strictly for commercial gain too, right? Sometimes he'd use another artist's music to make fun of the artist (like Smells Like Nirvana) but more often he'd just use recognizable music to sing about food or something silly.

Weird Al almost always has permission and he always pays royalties

He doesn't need permission but I guess you're right he does have to pay royalties.

Bad example.

Uh no it is the perfect example.  If you use someone's trademark you owe them royalties.  Weird Al almost always gets permission because he doesn't want to truly offend, but also because he can negotiate a better royalty payment deal. 

[kraidstar]

I don't know. Can a company trademark something that is a replication of a hundred year old painting? If so can I go out and trademark pictures of many other paintings and then sue anyone who tries to make money of those paintings likeness?

Well, it's not a straight replication of a painting.  They took something that was presumably in the public domain, and then added their artistic spin on it.  The ghost face Halloween mask has become iconic in its own right, above and beyond Munch's painting.

One of the silly things here?

Rozier ... trademarked his Scary Terry clothing line in July 2018.

Shouldn't his attorney mentioned that trademarking something that was already trademarked might pose a problem?

Put, I know very little about intellectual property law.  I know the general defenses tend to be fair use and/or parody.  I think there's at least good faith argument that this is parody.

Does responding to this count as studying for my law school finals?

I don’t know if we can say it’s a parody. Courts have been all over the place with it but it seems like his purpose is commercial gain, which isn’t going to help his case.

Ha. I still remember the parody hypotheticals from law school. One involved a local company making an ad playing off Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Production values were poor, and it had some level of humor (intentional or not).  I thought it was clear infringement due to the financial gain aspect, and because the new company hadn’t really changed the formula, they just copied it in an inferior way.

But, my professor disagreed, haha. Her view of parody was expansive.

When Weird Al parodies a song, he's also doing it strictly for commercial gain too, right? Sometimes he'd use another artist's music to make fun of the artist (like Smells Like Nirvana) but more often he'd just use recognizable music to sing about food or something silly.

Weird Al almost always has permission and he always pays royalties

He doesn't need permission but I guess you're right he does have to pay royalties.

Bad example.

Uh no it is the perfect example.  If you use someone's trademark you owe them royalties.  Weird Al almost always gets permission because he doesn't want to truly offend, but also because he can negotiate a better royalty payment deal.

The "parody" aspect complicates the Weird Al example, but yeah, for any published cover you need to pay royalties. That's because of copyright though, not trademarking.

Sometimes I wish there were royalties for live covers. Maybe then all the crappy blues rock bands at every bar in my area would stop covering overplayed Skynyrd and Clapton songs. 

[Big333223]

I don't know. Can a company trademark something that is a replication of a hundred year old painting? If so can I go out and trademark pictures of many other paintings and then sue anyone who tries to make money of those paintings likeness?

Well, it's not a straight replication of a painting.  They took something that was presumably in the public domain, and then added their artistic spin on it.  The ghost face Halloween mask has become iconic in its own right, above and beyond Munch's painting.

One of the silly things here?

Rozier ... trademarked his Scary Terry clothing line in July 2018.

Shouldn't his attorney mentioned that trademarking something that was already trademarked might pose a problem?

Put, I know very little about intellectual property law.  I know the general defenses tend to be fair use and/or parody.  I think there's at least good faith argument that this is parody.

Does responding to this count as studying for my law school finals?

I don’t know if we can say it’s a parody. Courts have been all over the place with it but it seems like his purpose is commercial gain, which isn’t going to help his case.

Ha. I still remember the parody hypotheticals from law school. One involved a local company making an ad playing off Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Production values were poor, and it had some level of humor (intentional or not).  I thought it was clear infringement due to the financial gain aspect, and because the new company hadn’t really changed the formula, they just copied it in an inferior way.

But, my professor disagreed, haha. Her view of parody was expansive.

When Weird Al parodies a song, he's also doing it strictly for commercial gain too, right? Sometimes he'd use another artist's music to make fun of the artist (like Smells Like Nirvana) but more often he'd just use recognizable music to sing about food or something silly.

Weird Al almost always has permission and he always pays royalties

He doesn't need permission but I guess you're right he does have to pay royalties.

Bad example.

Uh no it is the perfect example.  If you use someone's trademark you owe them royalties.  Weird Al almost always gets permission because he doesn't want to truly offend, but also because he can negotiate a better royalty payment deal.

It's a bad example because lifting the music directly isn't the same thing as making a cartoon version of a physical piece of merchandise. I'm not saying I understand anything about this kind of law (or law at all), but there are plenty of examples (a bunch given in this thread) or how easy it is to alter something like that slightly to avoid this kind of situation.