Techdirt. Stories filed under "costumes"

Questions About Copyright On Stormtrooper Costume Hit UK Supreme Court

Mike Masnick — Wed, 9 Mar 2011 21:58:14 PST

Over the past few years, we've covered the ongoing legal battle between Andrew Ainsworth -- the prop designer who created the original Stormtrooper costumes for Star Wars -- and George Lucas. Ainsworth had been selling Stormtrooper costumes, and Lucas claimed it was a copyright violation. In 2008, a UK court tossed out a ruling against Ainsworth, pointing out that movie props are utilitarian, rather than works of art, and thus not covered by copyright in the UK. Of course, Ainsworth is being a bit silly too. At one point he countersued Lucas, saying that Lucas owed him money for all the merchandising he had done involving the Stormtrooper outfits.

Either way, the case is finally going to the UK Supreme Court. Apparently, Lucas is claiming that there was an implied term in the agreement between Lucas and Ainsworth that Ainsworth wouldn't be able to have any rights to sell the works he created. So the question really may come down to whether or not the court really believes in such "implied" terms, or whether it prefers contractual terms to actually be explicit before people can agree to them.

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Another Lawsuit Over Costume Copyrights: Gorilla Holding A Cage

Mike Masnick — Wed, 7 Apr 2010 03:21:27 PDT

Following our recent story about copyright on Mardis Gras costumes, it seems that now we're hearing more and more about costume copyrights. THREsq points us to the news of a lawsuit involving the maker of those "gorilla holding a cage" Halloween costumes (pdf) claiming that a competing gorilla-holding-cage costume maker was violating its copyrights:

While there may be arguments over the copyrightability of the costume itself, notice that the lawsuit takes this even further, and throws in the claim of copyright inducement in asking retailers to sell the costume, with the argument being that the maker of the costume is now "inducing" the retailers to infringe.

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Motion Picture Academy Threatens Costume Shop For Offering An Oscar Costume

Mike Masnick — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:14:00 PDT

The Motion Picture Academy is notorious not just for its incredibly aggressive stance when it comes to copyright, but also to trademarks -- especially when it comes to the Academy Awards, better known as The Oscars. I've heard stories of them threatening/suing people for holding Oscars parties with mock Oscar statues. So it comes as little surprise to see the following story, sent in by Lawrence D'Oliveiro, that the Academy is threatening a small costume shop in New Zealand for daring to offer costumes that look like the Oscar statue. As if they don't have anything better to be focusing on? The Academy and misguided trademark lawyers will of course chime in and insist that they must do this or risk the statue becoming "generic" such that the trademark goes away, but it still seems like a bullying approach. Why not just work with the shop to offer a "licensed" version? It's not like having such costumes around the world causes any actual harm to The Oscars. In fact, it helps to promote them...

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Mardis Gras Indians Claim Copyright Protection Over Outfits

Mike Masnick — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:40:15 PDT

A bunch of folks have sent over the recent NY Times article about the "Mardis Gras Indians" -- a group of folks in New Orleans who create elaborate costumes that they wear to a few events each year (with Mardis Gras being a big one, obviously). With the costumes being so elaborate, they're often photographed, and the Indians are so pissed off that these photographs are then sold that they're trying to claim copyright over their costumes, in order to threaten any photographer who does anything with such a photograph.

As the article notes, this is a pretty questionable copyright claim. As we've discussed at length, there is no copyright protection on clothing, but the lawyer who's been pushing this copyright plan is claiming that these outfits aren't really clothing, but sculptures -- which can be covered by copyright.

Of course, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous. These costumes are designed to be worn in public and shown off. At some point you have to simply expect people to photograph them. The costumes were created to be noticed, and it's pretty obnoxious to then get upset that they actually did get noticed. Furthermore, let's look at this from the perspective of what copyright law is here for: it's to create an incentive to create. Being able to copyright these outfits doesn't change the incentives to create. Already there are strong cultural and community incentives for this group of folks to create these outfits (apparently, each year they create a new one). What becomes clear in reading the article is that they're not using copyright law as an incentive, but simply as a way to prevent others from doing things with the photographs. This seems to go against the very purpose of copyright law.

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Costume Designer Claims Riverdance Needs To Pay A Royalty For Every Performance

Mike Masnick — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 06:08:00 PST

In the latest sign of bizarre and ridiculous lawsuits brought about by the belief that every concept and idea must be owned and licensed, Richard alerts us to the news that the folks behind the infamous Riverdance show are being sued by the costume designer who created outfits for the show in the mid-1990s. While the original agreement had the show paying royalties to the clothing designer to the tune of 60 euros per performance, that deal ran out in 2001. Now, the designer, Jen Kelly complains that Riverdance continues to "use and modify his designs without licence or payment." Frankly, it seems pretty silly to think that a stage show should need to pay the clothing designer for every performance and that it would be some sort of violation of that designer's rights to "modify" the designs. Next, will designers start demanding that people pay a royalty fee every time they wear the clothes outside the home? After all, isn't that a "public performance"?

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Disney Sues Party Store For Costumes Looking Like Disney Characters

Mike Masnick — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:26:19 PDT

You all know the history of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, right? It all started with a train crash in 1900 killing one engineer named Cayce Jones. That crash inspired the fireman on that train ride to write a song commemorating Jones. That song became popular, passed along from railroad to railroad, and some others took it and turned it into a popular song about "Casey Jones." That was so popular, that some other songwriters basically remixed the song into one about a Steamboat captain: Steamboat Bill. That became so popular that Buster Keaton made a silent film called "Steamboat Bill Jr." And, finally, that inspired Walt Disney to take the idea of a mouse named Mickey (which some believe he got from a popular toy named Micky Mouse sold by an entirely different company) and created a parody video called "Steamboat Willie." That launched Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney into a world of fame and fortune -- all based on this creative passing on of songs, names, characters and content -- all of which Disney now believes should be illegal.

Remember that when you read this story, sent in by ehrichweiss, about Disney suing a married couple who own a party supplies for a million dollars, because they happened to buy some costumes from a supplier in Peru that look like the Disney owned Winnie-the-Pooh characters Tigger and Eeyore. The couple claims they didn't realize the costumes were of the Pooh characters, thinking they were just a tiger and a donkey. As soon as they received the lawsuit, the couple immediately sent the costumes back to the supplier in Peru. Turns out this was a mistake, as Disney is demanding they hand over the costumes.

Apparently, all creative innovation needed to stop once Disney took over.

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