I haven’t had much time to post on it but I am digging local band Small White’s debut record Career. The rock duo has soaked up a lot of rock/punk influences and have crafted a pretty great sound. Check out their record release show this Saturday if you can, at the Kitty Cat Klub at 8pm.
Dorothy, Scarlett go public: Promo photos of films fair game for T- shirts, 8th Circuit rules
Missouri Lawyers Media July 5, 2011 | Scott Lauck A federal appeals court gave licensing companies some leeway in using public domain images from The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.
X One X Movie Archives and the Art & Vintage Entertainment Licensing Agency drew images from publicity photos and movie posters that MGM distributed before the films were released. Pictures of such characters as Dorothy, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler were printed on T-shirts, lunch boxes and other items. The companies also made three-dimensional figures of the characters based on the publicity images.
Judge Raymond Gruender, writing for the three-judge panel, said the publicity photos are in the public domain because they were created independently of the film and were released to the public for promotional purposes. this web site public domain images
Warner Bros. hadn’t objected to the companies’ reproducing the images in their original formats — for instance, using the original movie posters to make new posters. But it did object to putting the images on, say, a deck of playing cards.
The 8th Circuit, however, said “no reasonable jury could find that merely printing a public domain image on a new type of surface … adds an increment of expression of the film character to the image.” To that extent, the appeals court threw out part of the district court’s injunction.
The appeals court also said the licensing companies could use images of the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry from a single public domain poster for the 1940 film “Puss Gets the Boot.” Douglas D. Winter, an intellectual property lawyer with The Ball Law Firm in Los Angeles, said he was still digesting the opinion and declined immediate comment, though he said he was pleased that his clients were allowed to use some of the photos. He said it was important for the public to know which kinds of images can be used and which can’t. see here public domain images
“There are a lot of so-called, quote-unquote rights-holders, most often studios and affiliated entities, that really have done the best that they can to exclude the public’s use of these old-time materials,” Winter said Sondra Hemeryck, an attorney with Schiff Hardin who argued for Warner Bros. Entertainment, couldn’t be reached for comment.
The case is Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. et al. v. X One X Productions et al., 10-1743.
Scott Lauck
