Use of company names in movies

[jetliner2]

Hey everyone - TPAjet is back - I couldn't get logged back in after all the passwords changed a few months ago (I don't have my old email any more).

Anyway, after recently watching a couple movies something came to mind. One move was called The high cost of low prices, the other was Food, Inc. The first is all about the dark side of Wal-Mart, the other about our food system, and mentions the dark side of lots of companies from Monsanto (seeds) to McDonalds, to you name it in between.

My question is, what is the legal fine line that a movie maker is able to use these company's names, even show the front of their stores and headquarters, and not get sued? Is it because they can claim the movie as educational?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

If this is TPAjet (and welcome back!), all you have to do is send a request to support. We also can mere accounts without a problem too.

I saw Food, Inc. - an interesting film. I thought it was good although I had my suspicions that it was sponsored by the organic food lobby. There were some moments that were honest and a little comical, such as when the organic farmer is explaining how much they care about having improved conditions for the animals while at the same time, slaughtering some of them. Brutal to see but there is much to be said about having decent and humane conditions for animals before we make a decision to eat them.

With regard to the use of company names, the quintessential example of trademark infringement should not present an issue since there is no likelihood of confusion as to the origin of the film. Are there issues of trademark dilution or other legal concerns?

Some of the exceptions include the freedom of speech and here is an interesting article about a documentary made about a martial artist:

Defense of Documentary Filmmaker's Fair Use and Free Speech Right

With regard to "fair use" exceptions to copyright, here is a best practices guide for documentary films:

Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

This should provide a good start to discussion.

 

[jetliner2]

Yeah - reading material. Thank you for the links. Also the service ticket is in.

It's amazing how copyright and trademark laws can be confusing at times for something that should be so simple.

About Food, Inc - I kind of disagree with you on the point of the farmer they showed. His whole point wasn't really be humane then slaughter. It was more of just getting back to how nature intended. He is more humane in the fact that his animals are not mass produced and living in their own wastes. But also his point is, for example, he grass feeds his cows instead of corn feeding, which corn is what causes so much e-coli in the food system. That was his point when he was slaughtering the chickens and he said the FDA wanted to shut him down for doing all his work in the open air, until they did bacteria tests and found out his levels were significantly lower than the average food processing plant.

 

[jetliner2]

Actually, let me ask another related question. Something else that I had come across in looking some of this up. This was in regards to video producers having to clear music rights, etc. It was mentioned about often times a cease and desist letter will be sent, but that the wording of the c&d is important - if the c&d says that the client may exercise their legal rights, then that's kind of that, but if they say the client WILL sue if you don't take this down then it becomes subject matter jurisdiction and the video maker can actually sue the client. This was from Duke University.

How can that be? Just because you say I WILL sue you instead of I MIGHT decide to sue you, you can come out ahead?

They also mentioned about a documentary film that was made, where 4 seconds had to be chopped out because The Simpsons were on the TV in the background. Apparently Matt Groening (created of The Simpsons) gave his OK, but FOX demanded $10,000 for use rights. What they are saying is there are cases like this where the film maker should have ben OK since the show was not part of the movie he was making - it was incidental. It's kind of like another point that was brought up in Food Inc, that a large company will send the C&D letter demanding payment and maybe even sue, even though they know that in court it would never hold up. But the defendant usually will comply anyway and maybe even pay up because it's the cheaper way to go.