Talking about products/people w/o getting in trouble

K

Kugar13

Well-known member
Can you mention and/or talk about products and people in your projects without getting in trouble? I know I can't have a coca cola can in my project without product placement permission, I can't have music without copyright clearance, etc, but what about discussing these things. Could I have a person say Star Wars is the best thing sinced slice bread? Can you bash people? What are the rules on these kinds of things? Is there a rule of thumb, a book, a law, anything I can use to help govern what I am writing?

Thanks!
 
Script

Script

It's for things I'm going to shoot myself, so I'd like to keep from getting in trouble. I'd like to spoof a few things in a series of comedy shorts I'm doing, but wasn't sure if I could do so without getting in trouble, or having permission first.

Thx
 
Public figures can be bashed.

Coca-cola or any product can be talked about/shown if it's informational.

A coke can being in the background on a desk in your shot isn't illegal.

Then again, if it's something you're shooting for yourself/friends... it's not really a problem to shoot anything you want, or even upload it to the internet. If you sent it to a film festival though, I'd take precautions.

http://microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue26/LegOnSet.html
 
If your spoofings show products in any derogatory manner then i think you could get into legal trouble. Imagine if you owned a company that made widgets and then filmmakers put films on the net or theaters showing your product in negative ways, that would affect your sales, and you would want to sue them. now if the widget just happens to be in the scene, no derogatory association, i do not think that would be a problem, but i am not a lawyer so that is just my opinion.

Kugar13 said:
It's for things I'm going to shoot myself, so I'd like to keep from getting in trouble. I'd like to spoof a few things in a series of comedy shorts I'm doing, but wasn't sure if I could do so without getting in trouble, or having permission first.

Thx
Click to expand...
 
Like what others said, it depends on what the 'purpose' is of your video, are you making a short film you plan to put in festivals? are you putting something together on YouTube? MySpace? or something fun for family and friends?

There is so much bashing on YouTube that you couldn't keep up with it all. Not so much bashing however on short films in film festivals, but definitely some spoofs.

So what is the ultimate goal of your project, that will determine your leeway.
 
Well, I don't exactly have any bashing planned, but I'd like to know how far something like that could go. I'm doing a series of shorts like a sitcom that makes fun of various things. I'd like to put them in festivals. If I can't make fun of them directly I plan to spoof/parody them.

To best explain the kind of humor it's like Fmaily Guy. Like one of those moments where Peter says something like "Gee, I haven't felt this bad since that one time on Bespin" and show a clip of Peter in Boba Fett armor lodaing Carbonite Han into the Slave I, hitting Carbonite Han on the hull of the ship, knocking a chuck of his hand off. It's funny, but can someone do something like that without clearance?

I'd like to know the boundaries before I test them.

Thanks
 
If it's satire, no worries. Hell, even if it's not, we have something called the first amendment, which in 90 percent of instances trumps just about every other concern.

You already know you generally can't use a commercial song or painting or other work of art without permission, because that's copyright infringement, but this is a completely different thing. When a company puts it's logo on a blimp, it loses any right to protect it from being shown. It's still a copywritten object, and you can't claim it's public domain or that it's yours, or try to compete with them using their own designs, but you can put a frickin Coke can in your movie without asking anyone's permission. They put thier logo everywhere else without asking you, don't they?

If your spoofings show products in any derogatory manner then i think you could get into legal trouble. Imagine if you owned a company that made widgets and then filmmakers put films on the net or theaters showing your product in negative ways, that would affect your sales, and you would want to sue them.
Click to expand...
They might want to sue, if they want to waste the money, but the "legal trouble" you could get into has been highly overstated.

You can go as far as to create a fake commercial for a real product telling people how awful it is, as long as it's clear that you're not trying to fool people into thinking that the original company hired you to make it, and that you're not intentionally misleading people. If you make earnest but unfounded claims (ie: Coca-Cola is made of people!) you'd be at risk of civil action, but if it's a spoof whose underlying message is negative, then you can joke that Coca-Cola is made from dog shi* and you'd be fine. It doesn't even have to be funny ("whew!" says the entire internet).

And if it negatively effects sales, well, maybe that was the point! It sucks for the company who's being targeted, but too bad, that's the cost of freedom.

If a company doesn't like it, the first thing that they'll do is send you a threatening but mostly toothless letter telling you to stop, so you all have a chance to avoid paying lawyers. Then, it's up to you then if you how seriously to take the threat, and if you want to incur their wrath.

Eventually, you *might* get sued, but you probably wouldn't lose, you'd just be out a lot of court costs. So you have to be sure before ignoring a "Cease and Desist" letter that whatever you want to say is worth any hassle that might come your way, but you are a human being and an artist, and you have rights too, for cryin' out loud.
 
Yes, there is a long line of US Supreme Court cases giving absolute First Amendment protection to parody and satire, and all forms of artistic expression. This is VERY broad. It even includes "fighting words" ie. offensive speech, if not directed at a specific individual who is not a public figure.

One of these cases involved Lenny Bruce; there was one involving George Carlin vs the FCC; NY Times v. Sullivan defined a public figure; the "fighting "words case involved a man wearing a shirt that said "F the Draft."

Basically you can say anything you want about ppl like Paris Hilton or Barack Obama, including really offensive things--incredibly difficult for these ppl to sue for libel, if the work is of an artistic/fictional/comedic nature, not represented as fact. This goes for semi-public figures like Drew "Ladykiller" Peterson or Joe the Plumber too. Feel free to parody them.

As for getting a letter from a lawyer--have a lawyer friend shoot a reply to them reminding them of the above. It will stop them in their tracks. Libel, etc suit not worth the paltry "nominal" or symbolic award of damages, usually a buck, that a public figure might get from false statements in a "factual" work, e.g. news story.

We have truly spectacular latitude when it comes to free expression. It is one of the greatest things about living in this country. :grin:

Good luck and happy bashing ! :beer: Jeff
 
Jeffrey Rice said:
...We have truly spectacular latitude when it comes to free expression. It is one of the greatest things about living in this country.
Click to expand...

Still have to be careful though. Although in the USA we have freedom of expression free speech rights, you still can not yell "Fire!" in a movie theater and such without getting into trouble legally. There are practical limitations with legal consequences. And then there is always the situation where you can be in the right legally, but if someone or a corporation with money goes after you you still get screwed by spending piles of hard earned cash on a defense lawyer.
 
Yes, there are laws about "inducing panic" i.e. "fire" in a theatre, calling in fake bomb threats, etc and "menacing" involving threats of direct violence against a specific individual.

As I read his posts, IMO he is not planning to do these kinds of things.

IMO, CREATIVE expression gets a tremendound amount of latitude, compared to many if not most other countries. You can say things here you can't in some other places.

I would be wary of bashing brand names. If shown without comment they should be fine.

Cheers :beer: Jeff
 
One of the weirdest and scariest laws on the US law books about free speech that I learned about this past year is the food disparaging law. Did you know in many states it is against the law to bad talk meat or food of almost any kind? Meant to protect the meat, dairy, agricultural industry. Thus the lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey when she tried to educate the public about the dangers of meat and mad cow disease (I have researched this disease extensively, talked to experts, talked with people at the National Center for Prion Research, printed out and read 400 pages from scientific journal articles on this). But you can not warn people about this, can not talk about the dangers, or you can get sued and spend your life savings defending yourself from a lawsuit, or pay out for bad mouthing food/meat. I could tell you some scary scientifically back things about this, but then I could get sued and lose my life savings, so I will pass.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
One of the weirdest and scariest laws on the US law books about free speech that I learned about this past year is the food disparaging law. Did you know in many states it is against the law to bad talk meat or food of almost any kind? Meant to protect the meat, dairy, agricultural industry. Thus the lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey when she tried to educate the public about the dangers of meat and mad cow disease (I have researched this disease extensively, talked to experts, talked with people at the National Center for Prion Research, printed out and read 400 pages from scientific journal articles on this). But you can not warn people about this, can not talk about the dangers, or you can get sued and spend your life savings defending yourself from a lawsuit, or pay out for bad mouthing food/meat. I could tell you some scary scientifically back things about this, but then I could get sued and lose my life savings, so I will pass.
Click to expand...

To be totally honest here, I think the only way that would stand up in court was if they could PROVE you had some serious influence on a large amount of people (in Oprah's case, alot of women in the United States.) As for just being an average joe, just another guy on the street, I'm not sure it would hold much weight. Just my $.02 !
 
'Stand up in court' is all fine and well, but the fact is that when a large corporation with lawyers on retainer decides to make an example of you, they can easily reduce you to financial ruin simply by bringing the case and forcing you to defend it, whether they even had a hope of actually winning, or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top