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Warner Bros Is Cracking Down On Harry Potter Festivals (apnews.com)
Warner Bros is cracking down on local Harry Potter fan festivals around the country, saying it's necessary to halt unauthorized commercial activity. From a report: Fans, however, liken the move to Dementors sucking the joy out of homegrown fun, while festival directors say they'll transfigure the events into generic celebrations of magic. "It's almost as if Warner Bros. has been taken over by Voldemort, trying to use dark magic to destroy the light of a little town," said Sarah Jo Tucker, a 21-year-old junior at Chestnut Hill College, which hosts a Quidditch tournament that coincides with the annual suburban Philadelphia festival. Philip Dawson, Chestnut Hill's business district director, said Warner Bros. reached out to his group in May, letting them know new guidelines prohibit festivals' use of any names, places or objects from the series. That ruled out everything from meet-and-greet with Dumbledore and Harry to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. Related story, from 18 years ago: Harry Potter Sites vs. Warner Brothers.
Google the term if you don't know what is. All they need to do is both assert normative usage rights and to expressly indicate that they are not endorsed by or affiliated with the owners of the Harry Potter franchise, including but not limited to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
All they need to do is both assert normative usage rights and to expressly indicate that they are not endorsed by or affiliated with the owners of the Harry Potter franchise, including but not limited to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers.
Ask the Prelude to Axenar folks how well that “Nomative Use” argument worked for them.
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This recent article indicates the opposite: Kraft Heinz (owners of the Country Time Lemonade brand) set up a fund to help pay for lemonade stands fees & fines: https://qz.com/1300935/country...
IIRC Rowling signed over everything but the copyright on the books to WB. I think there's a statement in the closing credits saying something like "all characters, placenames, etc,etc are copyright warner Brothers. All books are copyright J.K. Rowling"
She has rights to create new works in the world, but not to exploit the original books any further than to promote their sales.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Because trademark law offers no "fair use" provisions, which means that a company has to aggressively hunt down anybody who uses their trademarked characters or risk losing the trademarks altogether.
Absolutely false, and people need to stop repeating this crap. First off, US law definitely has "fair use" protections on trademark usage, such as those related to 1st Amendment protections. Secondly, you cannot ever lose a trademark just because someone else uses it and you don't sue them. To be blunt, there are only two ways to lose a trademark: (1) Non-use; and (2) dilution (i.e. becoming generic).
Someone else using your mark without permission theoretically could be considered contributory evidence that you've abandoned your mark, but that's also going to require a lot more evidence (basically, extensive non-use, typically meaning your company doesn't do anything with the mark for 5+ years).
The other risk (dilution/becoming generic) is not a concern for something like "Harry Potter" - this applies to a term becoming used to describe everything in a category. Examples include Kleenex being used to describe all facial tissues, or Google being used as a verb to describe all web searches ("why don't you just google it?").
As for protecting their rights, it is not necessary for a trademark owner to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential. This is why it's actually suggested that trademark holders ignore small uses - because not only is it not worth paying a lawyer to send a C&D, nor the bad publicity, but that it sets a precedent that you are aware of their existence and considered events of that size to be of consequence (i.e. fighting small festivals makes you more likely to lose your trademark).
If they allow a festival of a certain size to use their trademarks, the another slightly bigger one will want to do the same, then a bigger one, and I think you are smart enough to know where this is going.
That more and more people are going to be buying Harry Potter merchandise, and getting more and more of a fan fervor worked up for their upcoming series of movies? Oh dear, how horrible for them!
This actually beings up one of the other fair use provisions that trademarks are bound by: positive identification usage. You cannot use trademark to sue someone for using your trademark to correctly identify your product. It's the same reason why McDonald's can use Burger King's trademark in commercials where they compare their burgers to the other company's. It's the same reason stores can advertise what they're selling without having to get permission from the manufacturers. So, if you want to advertise a "Harry Potter Festival" there is no legal standing to sue you if you are indeed having a festival centered around official Harry Potter products.
It was in Dragon Magazine, Issue #84. The comic was "What's New with Phil & Dixie!"
You can find a PDF of the issue at: https://annarchive.com/files/D...
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Country Time Lemonade is actually helping kids with stand related legal issues...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11...
Awesome photo!
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