Sunday, March 9, 2014

The Oscar Selfie

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Ellen DeGeneres, the successful television host, had one of the greatest ideas during the broadcasting of the 86th Oscars Academy Awards. She gathered famous Hollywood actors and actresses, and they took a “selfie.” Ellen tweeted the photo, Twitter broke down because of the high traffic, and the tweet became the most retweeted post in the history of Twitter in the matter of hours.
The Oscar Selfie brings a lot of intellectual property questions. Who owns the Oscar Selfie? The parties involved in this case are Ellen DeGeneres, Bradley Cooper, Samsung, The Film Academy, and the actors and actresses that showed up in the photo. According to Saper Law’s Offices, “the owner of a copyright is the author of the work. In the case of a photograph, the author of the work is typically the person who actually took the photo, fixing the image in a tangible medium.” If we stick to this statement, the owner of the Oscar Selfie is Bradley Cooper because he took the photo. Don’t you think that this would be unfair? In the ceremony, Ellen DeGeneres was about to take the selfie and Bradley, in a gentle way, offered to take it so more people could fit in the photo. For this move, Ellen DeGeneres is no longer owner of the photo (although it was her idea). Cooper is supposed to be owner of the Oscar Selfie.
Intellectual property cases are always complex, and this case is not going to be different. The best shot that DeGeneres has is to work with Bradley in co-owning the photo because it was taken with her phone and was her idea. However, according to Saper Law’s Offices, she would have to prove to the courts that she made an independent copyrightable contribution to the work; and all the parties must intend to be co-authors at the time of the photograph was taken.
A very organic moment in the history of the Oscars could become a major intellectual property dispute. Would you imagine Bradley Cooper and Ellen DeGeneres fighting over the ownership of this Selfie? Cooper has a better chance of winning this, but don’t you think it is unfair?
Bradley gained his major success when he became part of the cast of Hangover, a good movie with very great reviews. Remember the tattoo that Mike Tyson had in his face in the movie Hangover? Remember “Stu” waking up with this same tattoo in his face in the movie Hangover Part II? The tattoo artist named S. Victor Whitmill sued Warner Brothers claiming that the company failed to get his permission for distributing his design for a face tattoo created in 2003 for the boxer Mike Tyson. According to a judge, arguments from Warner Bros. were just silly and the dispute ended with a mediation ordered by the judge. In a brief statement, the studio said, “W.B. and Mr. Whitmill have amicably resolved their dispute. No other information will be provided.”
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It is very likely that the two parties reached an agreement in which Mr. Whitmill received a certain amount of money for the infringement of distributing his art without permission. Sometimes the legal department of big studios forgets small details that ended in complex disputes that could have been avoided in the beginning.
That lawsuit over “Stu” face tattoo wasn’t the only dispute that Warner Bros had to confront. In the Hangover Part II, the character played by Zach Galifianakis carries a bag marked LVM, and in one scene he said “that is a Lewis Vuitton.” The big fashion empire Louis Vuitton sued Warner Bros claiming the infringement of its marks and creating consumer confusion. The lawsuit didn’t go through since the trademark wasn’t used to confuse the consumer. The use of the trademark was relevant to the film’s story and to show ignorance and disinformation of the character. 
In my opinion, sometimes companies and individuals take shots suing other parties to see if they can get away with it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We could think that the scene in Hangover Part II could be taken in the wrong way by discrediting the brand. However, it was obvious that the purpose of the scene was to demonstrate lack of intelligence and general knowledge in Zack’s character.
A takeaway from these cases is that the supervision of the legal department is a must when it comes to intellectual property. Simple actions could turn into big lawsuits without knowing it. It is complicated to have everything under control when you produce a movie, song, album, and music video. However, an entertainment attorney helps in all the steps of making productions to avoid future conflicts.

2 comments:

  1. Product placement, everything was decided before the selfie.
    It was a marvelous marketing plan from Samsung.

    Saludos Alejandro,

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  2. Thank you for your comment Dario! I agree with you, it sounds like a Samsung move. But do you have any link where it says officially that Samsung was behind all this?

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