Mel could negotiate with this person for a small piece of the pie and probably should do so.
I am betting the attorney’s are on autopilot filing against anyone who even remotely uses Gibson’s name.
They do this to protect the brand- because in the past some courts have ruled that you must not care because you didn’t fight to protect it.
Mel should make this go away and help out this poor woman.
Trademark laws.
Women and children hardest hit.
I am going to package manure and sell it to feed my starving family.
I am going to label it “New York Times”
Why didn’t she call it Winnie the Pooh honey. I’m sure Disney wouldn’t mind. /sarc
The actual honey that Mel Gibson puts in his tea, then slathers his body with and rides naked on horseback screaming “FREEDOM!”
Ernesto Londoño seems to feel if your ‘pity party story’ hits all the right notes, you have the right to steal another person’s name... and brand.
How creepy.
This is a case of crooked journalists stirring up sympathy for a crooked business.
Mel Gibson is on the right side here. He spent years building his brand, so why should any random person be allowed to piggy back on it without his benefit? If this principle isn’t enforced then when will it all end?
The MSM doing what they do best. Making a victim out of someone who was doing something wrong.
She is completely in the wrong here. You can’t use someone’s likeness to sell a product without their permission (and lots of paper from the lawyers). She should’ve known that.
The McCloskeys also had a honey problem.
She wasn’t sued by Gibson guitars..............
If the woman’s honey was so good, why did she stick a picture of
Gibson on the label? She should have included her picture on her label.
First things first:
‘not guilty.”
Second, it’s an innocent pun on a widely known public character; are puns subject to copyright restrictions?
Popularity at some point reaches a level where the trade name becomes the common designation, “xerox,”for example—a bit of a gray area.
Third, I like the sentiment behind the name.
Fourth, she’s in the wrong despite all this, so let me suggest another name, one embodying all the virtues of the previous, and better looking to boot: “tsomer”
Oh boo hoo. Change the name sweetie.
Problem solved.
A real life example of this stupidity.
Fraternities and Sororities signed up with the same company that protects colleges and university trademarks. If you have never gone through the production that is getting licensed, you are fortunate.
We looked into getting licensed for an “internal” agreement with the local collage. We would be “allowed” to produce items for employees and staff, but not for retail sale.
We were presented with a 24 page application, replete with demands - $10 million in liability insurance, joining a labor association that costs $200 a year, attending classes put on by that labor association every year for about another $500, a $250 non-refundable application fee, requiring submission of any item/design to be sold to a committee for approval (2 to 4 week wait for each submission), 12% of the gross sales and an annual fee of anywhere from $1500 to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the scope of the license.
In our 12 years of existence we have done work for two sororities. In both instances, chapters of those sororities approached us with artwork they wanted put on shirts. The latest one was Chi Omega - they wanted those words - Chi Omega - printed on the front of 50 white t-shirts, each letter a different color. It was a less than $400 order.
Eighteen months after the fact we get an email from the company that oversees their licensing. I did not know they were part of any licensing agreement - besides, it was just the words...not their colors, heraldry, etc.
The email said that they had documentation that I had violated the trademark of Chi Omega and wanted me to contact them to discuss joining the licensing group. I ignored the email.
A few weeks later some soy boy calls me and chastises me for ignoring their email. This is very serious and I could be facing strict financial penalties, he says. They don’t want any money for this first instance, but they want me to apply for the license to avoid future penalties.
I asked if he knew what we were supposed to have produced. All he knows, he said, was that it was a sale for about $400.
This went on for several minutes, mostly a robust discussion of the extent of the “trademark”, and ending with me hanging up on the limp dick.
I received a follow up email confirming that I would no longer produce any garments that infringed on the trademark of Chi Omega or any other sorority or fraternity.
So why did the girls come to me in the first place? Well, it seems that custom t-shirts from “authorized” companies cost $20 to $25 each and take 4 to 6 weeks. The girls had neither the time (their fall rush was in 3 weeks) nor the money to go that route.
So the net effect of them protecting their trademark is to make t-shirts far too expensive for the girls to afford.
Even if Gibson grants rights, will she also have to get rights for using the movie Braveheart? I doubt Mel Gibson is the sole owner of those rights.
laws are laws