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Lucas Loses Star Wars Stormtrooper Copyright Case
An anonymous reader writes "A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars has won his copyright battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. The five-year saga, which ended in the highest court in the land, has stakes of galactic proportions."
This may be hard for a lot of younger people to believe, but there was actually a time in Hollywood when George Lucas was considered an incredible up-and-coming young director. Coming off of American Graffiti, a lot of people were thinking he would be the next Francis Ford Coppola. He was widely regarded as being in the same league (maybe an even better one) as Martin Scorsese coming off Mean Streets.
But then the greed got him. An afterthought merchandising deal on Star Wars meant that his big money-maker from that point on was toys and merchandise, not movies. He stopped directing and let his best years pass him by. The ten-year-rule for directors is that, give or take, most directors have about 10 years of truly creative energy. And with the mountain of money he was sitting on from toys, he just sat back and let his expire. Now we'll never know what he might have done if he had to struggle, if he had kept working.
That's a great lesson for you young creative types out there. Careful what you wish for.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
....responsible for any other SW helmet designs? [slowly caresses credit-card]
facepalm, ow
From the article, a list of people that supported Lucasfilms in the lawsuits: Spielburg, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Jon Landau, Brian Henson (Jim Henson's son). These guys just saw a lot of their monopolistic merchandising rights in the UK disappear.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I have mixed feelings about it, but I like the way the decision went. I think the "implied contract" BS is just that... BS. That this ruling might "hurt" artists in Britain because movie makers will not want to use them is also BS - all they have to do is have, you know, an ACTUAL contract.
That what this artist is doing is "piracy" is also BS... he's actually making physical objects... the same physical objects he created over 30 years ago. Calling it piracy is like a record label calling their own artists pirates for doing live performances, even though there was no clause in their contracts not to.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
... as if millions of voices suddenly cried out "F*ck you, Jar Jar Binks!" and were suddenly smug.
Apparently, the UK case hinged on whether the stormtrooper armor was a sculptural work of art(entitled to copyright in hahaha-not-quite-perpetuity) or a merely functional design(15 years). The court decided the latter.
However, as a nerd and pedant in good standing, I cannot allow this ridiculous assertion to go unchallenged: can armor that fails to protect its wearer from being clubbed to death by mere teddy-bears, and reduces the accuracy of the Empire's finest to one notch above slapstick truly be called "functional"? Absurd.
Seriously does Lucas not have enough money? I can understand he is worried about the Logo, because let's face it Star Wars is a brand name.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
If any of the judges have ever seen Jar Jar, Lucas will never win a court case.
Some are born to move the world
To live their fantasies
But most of us just dream about
The things we'd like to be
Sadder still to watch it die
Than never to have known it
For you, the blind who once could see
The bell tolls for thee...
-- Rush
The writeup suggests that Lucas just bought a load of armour from a supplier. No contract to indicate this was a work for hire. The artist designed and manfuactured the armour and then sold it. They were just sold as props. I seem to agree with the supreme court here.
What I don't see is why Lucas has rights for those first 15 years. If I use any other commercial product in a movie do I have full rights for 15 years to explit it? If I have my hero drive a Ferarri does this mean I can refuse to allow Ferarri to make their own cars for 15 years?
Also it's a bit rich for the spokeswoman to say "We believe the imaginative characters, props, costumes, and other visual assets that go into making a film deserve protection in Britain." I didn't see anything in the article about the artist getting royalties for the millions of stormtrooper figures sold.
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I'm not sure if I agree with this verdict. The decision basically said that the helmets were not works of art or sculpture, but instead 'industrial props', meaning that it only gets 15 years of copyright protection. I think that's an odd distinction to make since props can be very artful and creative. I'm more curious about the 'implied contract' that the Court found to exist, which would distinguish a work for hire from an independently created work. I'd have to see the details of exactly how he was hired to actually say much about this though.
and yet, it seems the fans/fanboys (and girls) keep throwing money towards him - in the hope that something new will capture the spirit of the original trilogy (I believe). Unfortunately, George seems bound and determined to fill all the roles of director, producer, main grip, scriptwriter, lighting, and so forth (except music and sound). Everyone who was around for the original trilogy when it first came out all know that Lucas should _NEVER_ direct another movie -- hell, not even a commercial! -- in his life. Ever again.
I'd like to clone Irvin Kirshner (may he rest in peace) and let him re-shoot Episodes 1, 2, and 3 as the director with Lucas bound, gagged, and drugged out in the trailer with his name on it. Maybe then they would be better acted since Kirshner was famous for character development.
Personally, I'm glad the little guy won this round. Lucas doesn't deserve to sit on his "creation" for eternity+90 years. No one deserves to sit on a patent or design idea for that long. All we are doing is stifling innovation in the long run -- not preserving the benefit for the creator of "insert cool thing here".
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
You are so correct. And make money he did--during the late 70s and 80s, George Lucas and 20th Century Fox made millions off this movie. Apparently, that's not enough though, nosiree. In spite of the piles of cash in both of their respective bank accounts--and the piles of cash that are still flowing into their respective bank accounts because of the franchise--they're going to begrudge this schmo living a very modest life a few thousand dollars for physically making something that he originally designed that helped contribute those millions to their bank accounts.
And then they have the unmitigated gall to accuse the guy of piracy--the guy who designed and built the things to begin with!
You know, I could understand this if it was some jerk who has no relationship to Lucas or the movies making them and selling them as "Authentic Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmets," but that's clearly not the case. What should have happened is that George Lucas should have said, "You know, even if he's technically breaking copyright law, I'm going to give this guy a pass." Or if he were worried about holding onto his IP rights (even though there's a snowball's chance in hell of him losing them if he chooses not to pursue one single guy because of personal reasons), then he should have called the guy up and said, "Hey, how about giving me a token cut of the profit of each one sold for legal reasons, like say, one penny, and you can even tell people that they're authentic and authorized by George Lucas?" Oh yeah, because that would mean that their piles of millions of dollars would be shorter by a few thousand dollars, which is antithetical to the principle of being so damn greedy that it's not enough that you succeed, but everyone else must fail.
Watching the Star Wars is one of the most cherished memories of my childhood, and I've always wanted to share those movies with kids growing up today. This crap makes me sick, though. It makes me wish that I had never seen the damn movies to begin with and stop sharing them with other people.
Personally, I wish that they would restore the copyright length here in the U.S. back to its original 28 years. 28 years seems like plenty to make money off of your creation, and making it any longer stifles creativity and innovation of others and takes away from the public domain that which belongs in it. I know this case took place in Britain, and I wish that they would enforce a similar copyright period, which would have made this whole case a non-issue. The way I'm reading the article, although the outcome was fair to Mr. Ainsworth, it's still not a best-case scenario. He really only scraped by because the court found that his creation was an "industrial prop," not a work of art. Still, whatever, I'm glad the guy won.
How much money Lucasfilms has is irrelevant. This is yet another strike against business by government. The sculptor was hired by Lucasfilms, therefore any creations of his during employment are the property of Lucasfilms forevermore. The sculptor did not take any risks with his money, he was getting a paycheck, Lucasfilms bear all the risk in the production of the film and thus should bear all the profits. Unless there are prearranged royalty or profit sharing contracts, which I have no idea why there would be as sculptors are a dime a dozen, then he is entitled to nothing. One day soon people will wake up to the fact that government can not provide everything for you and businesses takes risks and therefor must be compensated for it, the good news is that day of economic reckoning is coming much sooner than everyone thinks.
Nothing makes my eyes water more than stories about working people getting a slice of the pie despite having filthy rich cock suckers attacking them. If I were British I would sing God Save the Queen. What the hell, I'm singing it anyway.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
While this certainly is a victory for this guy, things will change in the movie industry. No longer will props be bought without huge contracts that take away every single right of the people who design and build them. I foresee this causing the elimination of most independent shops designing and developing props. Movie studios will instead go to (or create their own) industrial prop houses and hire cheap talent to crank out props. The really good artists will be replaced by wage slaves just showing up for a paycheck. Sadly, winning this battle may eventually cause the war to be lost.
Does this mean that I as an engineer may at some point in the future be able to make millions off of my inventions instead of having to hand them over to my employer?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I downloaded and watched a blueray rip of Crystal Skull, and I'd like to point the movie out as a good example of why I don't pay for this garbage anymore. Didn't even finish it. Thankfully I didn't pay for it.
So does copyright in this instance pay the Artists?
Wasn't this guy at least one of them? I know he didn't do the sketches, but he did the interpretation. He sold instances of his work. He never assigned his copyright formally.
And Lucas gets billions, and he gets sued? And makes from his art just enough to cover this legal fight?
And so why do we care about extensive copyright again? For the Artists? HA!
Anyone else find that ironic???
ridiculously bad prequels, im convinced the judge acted in the interest of protecting the entire franchise.
Good people go to bed earlier.
George Lucas has a slashdot account?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Poor Mr Lucas, I wonder how sleeps at night knowing he let his talent go to waste.
On soft pile of 1000 dollar bills while a fountain of liquid gold softly murmurs.
And I would trade a 100 American Graffiti for a single Star Wars. So called great directors that nobody actually want to watch are a dime a dozen. The number of Star Wars movies can be counted on the fingers of Yoda's hand (3).
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/52
If I read that right, by making a copy under license using an industrial process ( like, say, toys) and marketing it in the UK then you lose the copyright after 25 years ?
Did Star Wars have many toys before 1986 ? Ooops.
Sounds to me like a lot of you didn't rtfa. Ainsworth didn't win the copyright to stormtroopers. The judge ruled the copyright was expired and ANYONE can make stormtrooper helmets and sell them. Ainsworth just has the original mold in his possession with which he can make perfect helmets.
Hopefully he'll be able to counter-sue for court costs, which sound like they're pretty massive.
I do see the stormtrooper costume as art or at the very least, a critical component of art creations such as video and images. How is a prop not art?
But you know? Still glad Lucas lost in this case.
But one argument I didn't read and kind of expected to read at some level is that these costumes are COSTUMES. They are CLOTHES. And guess what? Clothes are not eligible for protection under copyright or trademark. Logos and branding on clothes are eligible, but for hundreds of years, this has been the case and courts have held this up for nearly as many years.
I would have argued that the helmet and armor are clothes and are simply not eligible for that kind of intellectual property protection. I wonder how that argument, if made, would have fared through the courts?
If the guy isn't hired and produces it for his employer as part of his employment contract that states all products are considered works for hire, then he retains the copyright.
Lucasfilm paid for and got use of the products. That was the original extent of Lucasfilm's interest. This guy created a product and sold some of it to Lucasfilm. He is free to sell it to others, too.
It boils down to this: Lucasfilm paid for the uniforms, not the right to the design of the uniforms. They are two very separate things. You pay a photographer and get pictures. You have to pay a lot more if you want that photographer to hand over the copyright for the pictures too.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Lucas' real Star Wars stormtroopers will take care of this little problem.
...Episodes IV-VI, with the original stormtrooper helmets replaced by Genuine Lucas Approved (TM) helmets. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past him.
And Han will still shoot second, of course.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You know, the fat cats are just abusing the word now. Perhaps we should redefine "Piracy" to mean "Whatever the Big Guy doesn't agree with". Looks like too much money really does make idiots out of us.
Colorado/Denver has major group of them (I am not a participant). Besides showing up at every major scifi convention, I've seen them at other public events. They added a bit of green and marched in the St Pats parade this year.
There, fixed it fer ya.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If I sell a sculpture to someone now in the US, am I forbidden from ever making another without their permission if we don't have a contract?
Remember this gem? What's there to prevent Lucas Art from seeking one for "Willful Infringement" just to ruin the guy?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Work for hire only applies if there is an employee employer relationship (at least in the UK). In the case of work under contract (even verbal) the copyright for a work vests in the contractor, not the person who hired them. If you employ a contractor to build something, you have to get an explicit transfer of copyright. In this case copyright is irrelevant anyway because it was ruled a "design" rather than a copyright. Design rights expire after 15 years, so who owned them is moot.
I'd have settled out of court. Really, that's most of what you pay lawyers to do: keep you away from high stakes showdowns in court.
If it were me I'd say, "Mr. Lucas, we can probably win, but there's a small chance that the court will rule the armor isn't a sculpture. That would threaten licensing income streams, which would be huge. So what we should do is sign a licensing agreement that allows him to sell the armor, as long as it's made by him personally using the original mold. That will have just about zero effect on your revenues, but look like a bonanza to this guy. In fact, we'll draft a nice little letter of appreciation he can send out with every piece over your signature. You'll look like a mensch, but what you're really doing is protecting your interests at essentially no cost to yourself."
I've dealt with lawyers in business deals, and that's how they think, at least the good ones. They prefer that future events be governed by minutely specified agreements rather than by winner-take-all courtroom drama. I can only suppose that Lucas himself is a lousy, headstrong client.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
a safe haven for piracy."
once again.
eagerly await mass production of star wars storm trooper costumes!
No more shall fans have to buy off some some dude on ebay with a vacuum press!
I think that you make a very good point here. Props and clothing are "Art" from a philosophical perspective, just as everything else can be. Ultimately, however, not everything is "Art" from a legal standpoint. A restaurant cannot put coconut on a hamburger, call it art, and claim copyright for X number of years.
I can't help but think of the sale of faux or replica designer handbags (the ones without the actual designer label) but I can't find much on the legality of this. Otherwise, clothing falls under the category of something that is useful or having a utilitarian purpose and typically not subject to copyright.
I read into it a little more as well and found there is a "separability" rule. This rule, frequently described as a painting on a truck does not make a truck copyrightable. However, in another example, a decorative belt buckle would be copyrightable as its form is not an inherent part of its function.
So, a Star Wars Stormtrooper costume... where between those two obvious points does this fall? One could say that the helmet is not copyrightable, but the form or design of the stormtrooper helmet isn't fully inherent to its function as a helmet. The same might be claimed of the armor's form or design.
Frankly, it's an area I do not feel 100% certain about. I know which direction I would want such a decision to go, but it would be unclear exactly how the decision would go if someone else were making it... or even if I were making the decision for that matter. When I try to opine about something, I try to discard my own wishes on the matter and focus on the reality of the situation. (I like free ice cream, but I wouldn't rule that selling ice cream is illegal.)
The argument has been made that the reason clothing and other utilitarian items are not eligible for copyright is because of the problems that would inevitable occur from them. Utilitarian items most often take a form which is determined by their function. So by making clothing copyrightable, it would most certainly impede the market for clothing.
On the other hand, the singing cowboys from the early movies are wearing costumes with a distinct look about them. Those movies are still in copyright... pretty sure anyway as I am pretty sure my grandchildren's grandchildren haven't died yet since they I don't have any grandchildren yet and isn't that the current "limit" on copyright terms these days? In any case, today's "cowboy" dresses in a way most similar to that of the fictional singing cowboys from the old movies. So if Star Wars Stormtroomer costumes would be infringing, so too should the "costumes" we see frequently in Texas, Tennessee and similar locations.
It's an ugly and murky grey area that just boggles the mind. I should hope the next time such a case comes about (and there will be, I am sure) a supreme court ruling says "if you wear it, it's not copyrightable damnit, now shut the hell up and get out of my court room!"
Doesn't this mean that any yahoo in the world can start making knock offs?
Uh, what? The #1 rule of screenwriting is show, don't tell. This is extended to dialogue, where terseness is a highly valued characteristic across the entire medium's history.
If you are valuing terseness then you are guilty of the Cargo Cult mentality.
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."
Strunk was right that this applies equally across all mediums and Hitchcock's application of this is a key part of what made so many of his movies great classics.
I think everyone owes Germany copyright money, These helmets resemble world war 2 German Army Helmets and I think Lucas should be forced to give Germany a lot of money, I mean a lot too.
Frankly, it's an area I do not feel 100% certain about.
IMO conceptual seperability for purposes of the utility doctrine in copyright is a total gut decision on the part of the judge, and then some sort of explanation gets devised to cover that up. I've yet to see a good rule for it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The worst thing to happen to movie special effects.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
this is incredibly confusing... do you have a blog or a web page or something where you break all this down?
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.."
I think people are just waiting for George Lucas to die so they can have the original trilogy back, unmodified and in Hi-Def. It saddens me that Peter Jackson and others who should know better supported this greedy legal crusade.
. When really they're no stupider than the original trilogy if you're going to take the movies that seriously. Yeah, Ep. 1 had Jar Jar, but Ep. 6 had Ewoks. What's the difference? No matter what someone thinks of the dialogue in the prequels, lines like "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy" are no better. The space battles and the lightsaber/blaster duels are all of it. The dialogue, the story, the character development are all nonsense in all 6. And i say this as a 30 year SW fan. I like'em for what they are. People just take this shit too seriously. It's not like we're talking about the Godfather trilogy here. If you expected more out of the prequels than you got, then you simply hadn't taken a hard enough look at the OT and it's failings.
Some of you just plain take movies too seriously, instead of enjoying them for what they are, light entertainment. This especially goes for SW. Always I see this in SW threads, "the OT was amazing, the Prequels sucked." Jesus Christ, people. The dialogue was just as bad in the OT as in the prequels ie "traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy". The ewoks were no more a brilliant concept than Jar-Jar (who was put in for the kids, and the kids actually liked him even if the voice was annoying). The lightsaber battles were infinitely better in the prequels, and the blaster fights were about the same. There was no Harrison Ford in the prequels, and Jedi characters are always going to be largely dry and tasteless. Then again, there was no brother and sister kissing each other in the prequels either. Honestly, you tolerated all the shortcomings in the OT that film critics would point out and forgave them, but when they repeated it in the prequels, THEN you were bitching about it. Lucas is a lousy director and writer, but he was consistent through all six movies. Why are so many of you so unable to see that? With action films, you really need to leave the critic thing at home. This ain't Shakespeare on the stage.
Does this mean I can finally order a Stormtrooper Che costume online now?
"clothes [are] simply not eligible for that kind of intellectual property protection"
Ah, that explains Jean Paul Gautier's poverty.