User:Bearcat223/sandbox

Proposal

Mockbusters are low budget films that ride off the publicity of blockbusters such as Transformers, Ratatouille etc. They use a popular technique known as “sound alike titling” supposedly to confuse customers into buying their version and thus profiting from this venture. There have been a few cases recently where major production houses have sued the makers of these movies. E.g. Warner Brothers versus “The Hobbit”. The Wikipedia page on Mockbusters at present discusses the history, sound alike titling, foreign knockoffs and pornographic content. My plan for this Wikipedia page is to link the idea of Mockbusters back to intellectual property. This would be done by adding subsections that address the following issues:

Plan for Editing

Artistic License

Artistic license is the freedom to reinterpret existing works of art, from new perspectives and using new visual techniques.The Asylum notably has made movies with titles similar to the originals. However, rare mockbusters use artistic license to adapt "Out of Copyright" works (works that are now in the Public Domain such as Popeye, King Arthur etc. ). The notion of "artistic license" is limited when countries outside the US attempt to change the plots of major American blockbusters to a plotline that better fits their national sentiments. For instance, The Indian Superman mockbuster - Ultraguy, has Superman getting his powers from a god.

Asylum CEO David Michael Latt responds to criticisms about lose plot lines by stating that "We don't have spies at the studios. We have a general sense of what the film is and we make our movie completely original, just based on that concept." Mockbusters are extremely low budget, and the revenue they gain is based entirely on the sales of their DVDs. . Low budgets also mean that directors need to think of creative yet cheap ways to achieve the endings that they desire. A case that best illustrates this point is the mockbuster of Snakes on a Plane. There was much online hype about 'Snakes on a Train' and consumers wanted what they saw. Latt said, ‘With only four days left of shooting my partner called and said everyone is really excited about ‘Snakes on a Train’, but they’re more excited about the poster, which showed a snake swallowing a train. It was meant to be, you know, metaphorical. But the buyers wanted it, so I was given the mandate that the ending had to have the snake eat the train.’ At the same time another representative of Asylum, David Rimawi, says that while a handful of their movies do have "artistic elements," that's just not something they're concerned with. The Asylum does not purport itself to be an "artsy" production house.

Intent to Deceive

Mockbusters have been particularly criticized for releasing these movies "direct to DVD" (D2D). The D2D concept is especially notable because the mockbusters are often placed side by side with the DVD releases of the originals in the store. Apart from the titles, producers have complained that the cover art is also too similar to that of the originals. A case that explains this is Disney's Brave versus Brightsparks Braver. The lawsuit between the 2 firms cites the cover art and the close plot lines as copyright infringement. Some film fans said the Brightspark DVDs were good value for money, but others expressed their disappointment with the DVDs on film websites.

On Lovefilm, Richv from Barnsley said of Braver: "The contents bore NO relation to the actual film, in fact I would say the packaging is meant to fool you into thinking you were buying the soon to be released 'Brave'. Stylistically I would say this was made about 20 years ago, very cheaply."

In customer reviews on Amazon someone called Flossie said: "This is the worst DVD I have ever purchased, as all the reviews state below. I don't know about Disney taking a law suit but I shall be contacting trading standards myself for such a misrepresentation of any film."

The judge in the Warner Brothers v. Global Asylum case is quoted to have said that: “The release date of December 11 — three days before the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — provides additional evidence that Asylum intended to profit by associating its film with Plaintiffs’ work. The close proximity of the release dates demonstrates a clear intent to capitalize on the extensive attention that the Hobbit Marks will receive leading up to the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. At oral argument, counsel for Asylum admitted that the temporal proximity of the release dates was ‘not a coincidence’.”

In fact most of the other mockbusters seem to follow the trend of releasing their movies very close to the release dates of the original:

"Jack The Giant Killer" came out on March 12 2013, "Jack The Giant Slayer" on March 1, 2013. "Hansel & Gretel" came out January 8 2013, "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" came out January 17 2013. "Grimm's Snow White", "Snow White & The Huntsman" and "Mirror Mirror" were all released in 2012. 2009's "Sherlock Holmes" was followed by 2010's "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes" from The Asylum.

Asylum, which has been mentioned previously defends their claim by stating that it isn't their intention to dupe customers.The Asylum cites reports from both Blockbuster and Hollywood Video that show that customers asking for returns was less than 1%. The fact that the returns to their films hasn't been very large purports has been used to argue that consumers are not being duped. "There's a segment of people who watch them because they know they're bad and they're funny, and they're fun to make fun of with their friends," says Kyle Ryan, the managing editor of The AV Club, a sister publication of The Onion.

So I think that this whole section needs to become more subjective, and in order to do this make sure that any attempt to answer 'if mock busters have a legitimate claim..' has to come from sources, not from your own (even well informed) views. Remember to try and make it feel less of an essay and more like an encyclopedia entry. Atavel (talk) 22:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Legality

Mockbusters that are made after popular animated films are known as a "drafting opportunity." For example, Kiara the Brave (a mockbuster of Pixar's Brave) or Puss in Boots "a furry tale" (a mockbuster of Puss in Boots) use sound-alike titling to "draft off" the marketing success of popular films. "Can you trademark an actual noun? The idea of a battleship?," asks Boxoffice magazine editor Amy Nicholson. The original "Puss in Boots" was made by DreamWorks by 300 people working for four years at the cost of $130 million. The Mockbuster, with nearly the exact same name was made by 12 people, in six months, for less than $1 million. For these large production houses, it wasn't just a question of free riding on the marketing success of these more popular films, Mockbusters have become a source of bad publicity. Customers who had accidently bought the mockbuster Puss in Boots - a furry tale but weren't aware that it was a mockbuster gave the original movie bad reviews. . Mockbuster producers have had no legal troubles with drafting off as a result of a Disney case against Good Times Entertainment which had made different versions of Aladdin.

Mockbusters have also had legal complications with false advertising. They supposedly tweak the plot lines and the titles just enough to skirt legal trouble and yet ride on the publicity of major blockbusters. Until the Hobbit case, mockbuster production houses have been able to achieve sound-alike titling to such an extent that even actors in the movies have been confused about which movie they are starring in. Some actors starring in the original have gone on to become fans of the mockbuster model. Kel Mitchell was the star in the mockbuster Battle of Los Angeles, the mockbuster to the original Battle: Los Angeles. His friend was in the original and they began promoting both movies together. Kel has since then became a fan of the studio's formula: "I laugh out loud when I see that a film is coming out; I wonder what The Asylum is going to do with it. They're going to remix that name and put it out."

A Recent Case

In 2012 The Asylum was sued by Warner Brothers and SZC for trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution, false advertising, and unfair competition. Unlike fairytales which are in the public domain, the J.R.R Tolkein novels have been exclusively licensed to Warner Brothers and The Saul Zaentz Company(SZC)for production and film adaptation. Interestingly, the court (where this case was heard), described Global Asylum (the defendant in this case) as a low budget company that makes parodies of popular movies with similar titling. Warner Brothers and SZC also brought evidence to suggest that consumers would be confused by the sound alike titling and that they would lose not only ticket sales but also DVD revenue. The evidence presented was survey showing that 47.75 percent of 400 randomly-selected respondents associated the term “Hobbit” with SZC, d/b/a “Tolkien Enterprises” and Tolkien properties. A separate survey conducted by Nielsen National Research Group showed that approximately 30 to 40 percent of survey respondents were confused about the source of “Age of the Hobbits.”

The Asylum claims that they are justified in using the word "Hobbit" because it protected under the fair use of scientific terminology after scientists coined the term a few years ago to describe a human subspecies in Indonesia. The Asylum has also provided sufficient warnings on their cover art stating that this is not the Tolkein creature. Furthermore, there are some major plot differences between the two movies: "In an ancient age, the small, peace-loving Hobbits are enslaved by the Java Men, a race of flesh-eating dragon-riders. The young Hobbit Goben must join forces with their neighbor giants, the humans, to free his people and vanquish their enemies."

The Federal Court found that Warner Brothers had a protectible ownership to the word "Hobbit". Firstly, while it had not been patented specifically for the use in movies, it had multiple trademarks and patents related to its use. In reference to the movie industry, the court cited Plaintiff's evidence of what the Hobbit had come to mean among the public. The evidence, an interview with 400 randomly selected individuals, showed that about half of them associated the word Hobbit with Tolkein's work. The court rejected Asylum's scientific fair use claims since there was no evidence to suggest that the movie was indeed about prehistoric group of people who lived in Indonesia. The court thus rejected all of The Asylum's claims. Namely, (i) that it was permitted to use “Hobbits” in the title of its film pursuant to the test articulated in the Second Circuit’s decision in Rogers v. Grimaldi, (ii) that its use of the mark constituted nominative fair use and (iii) that the “Hobbits” mark was sufficiently generic – had any merit. They had to prove according to Rogers v. Grimaldi that their title had sufficient artistic relevance to the original and that there would be no customer confusion. Artistic relevance requires that Asylum use the word Hobbit in reference to Tolkien’s works or characters while also using the mark in a way that was artistically relevant to defendant’s own film. Thus, the court believed that the Asylum had failed to meet those criteria and on December 10, 2012, found in favor of the plaintiffs and entered a temporary restraining order. This restraining order was to delay the direct to DVD release of Global Asylum's movie "Age of The Hobbits".

This is an excellent contribution Atavel (talk) 22:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

So overall, looks like great progress and some awesome contributions. As far as the class goes, you're right where your should be. After fleshing each of these sections out, and adjusting the language in some of the more objective sounding parts, go ahead and post your ideas in the article Talk Page. Atavel (talk) 22:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Notes

Sources

"Outcome of the Warner v Asylum Case" "Legal Opinion of Hobbit Case" "IP issues in Hobbit Case" "Defending Mockbusters" "Summary of the Issue in Hobbit Case" "Legal Contentions in Hobbit Case" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearcat223 (talk • contribs) 18:06, March 11, 2013‎