Why is it okay for Clerks?

Chamber005

Chamber005

Carbonite Member
So I had a thread going about using original (as in your own) artwork in a film that's modeled after an intellectual property (e.g. you draw a picture of Spiderman and that picture appears somewhere in the background in your film). The consensus was that I should avoid having any original artwork in my film if it involves someone else's intellectual property (in my case I have a painting of The Gill Man in the background of one of my shots).

And then I was watching Clerks and noticed that in almost every single shot there aren't only trademarked images and logos, but often times cover art to VHS movies that display prominent actors. How was this movie ever distributed when by the general opinion on these boards if you show a friggin can of Coke in your movie you're going to be sued blue?

Has anyone ever read or heard anything on how the fallout from Clerks was handled (or if there was any fallout)?
 
1) There's a difference between trademark and copyright.

2) Miramax can afford to clear/license everything.
 
Funny thing about the rights/clearances for Clerks; the little song Dante sings at the end when Randall leaves the store while doing that goofy walk was a made-up a song looped in because they couldn't clear the rights to what he was originally singing: a jingle from a wrangler jeans commercial, I believe.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
Funny thing about the rights/clearances for Clerks; the little song Dante sings at the end when Randall leaves the store while doing that goofy walk was a made-up a song looped in because they couldn't clear the rights to what he was originally singing: a jingle from a wrangler jeans commercial, I believe.
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That's right.
 
Isn't there some kind of fair use thing for film festivals? So when Smith made Clerks, he assumed he wouldn't need clearances to simply screen at festivals?
 
Macphilia said:
Isn't there some kind of fair use thing for film festivals?
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No. There's only general "fair use" doctrine, and that's only for copyright, not trademark. As I said, trademark is an entirely different sphere from copyright. Totally different purpose and rules.
 
I don't remember what's going in the video store, but I do remember that they went to great lengths to cover up a lot of stuff in the convenience store. And not very subtly.
 
You could always go the Repo Man route. In that film when Emilio Estevez takes out a can of food from the cupboard, it has the word "food" printed on a plain white label. Although the director was probably doing it as a bit of a joke or little satirical jab.

Or you could look at it as an opportunity to satirize modern society by creating your own fake labels and brands. Kind of the idea they had in Robocop where they cut in those silly fake commercials advertising made up stuff like the nuclear war game based off of the game Battleship, for example.
 
I don't follow...

This looks good to me.

f4.jpg
 
Hey, Facebook pulled a video I put up because of possible copyright infringement.

The title was "Don't Eat The Bugs".

Morons. Of course, I disputed it. :)
 
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