Excerpt from a Dec. 20 2010 post:
"In the real world comic book characters and their likenesses have been made into toys, video games, movies, television shows, lunchboxes, bed sheets, and innumerable other things. All of these secondary uses are mediated through intellectual property rights, particularly copyright and trademark rights. But if Superman were a real person, how might the situation be different? Could just anyone slap his image or iconic S shield on a lunchbox? What about uses that suggest that Superman endorses a product or service? (“Try Metropolis Brewery Beer, the choice of the Man of Steel!”) Or worse, what about revealing a superhero’s secret identity?
I. The Rights of Publicity and Privacy
Future posts will address copyright and trademark, but first we must address something that real people have that fictional characters do not: the rights of publicity and privacy. Unlike copyright and trademark, these rights are not intellectual property rights per se but rather rights derived from common law torts. In the United States the rights of publicity and privacy are primarily matters of state law. As you might imagine, much of the law is driven by the interplay between celebrities and the media, and the two states with the most well-developed case law are California and New York, although those are not the only states with right of publicity statutes. Nineteen states have general right of publicity or privacy statutes (CA, FL, IL, IN, KY, MA, NB, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI). J. Thomas McCarthy, 1 Rights of Publicity & Privacy § 6:8 (2d ed.). Arizona has a specialized statute that applies to active and former members of the US armed forces, which may be useful for the many superheroes that are or were part of the military. Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 12-761...."
Read the full post & more:
Excerpt:
"...According to a new report released by Forrester research on Monday, the technology behind augmented reality apps has improved enough so that these apps may well become an integral part of using a mobile phone, augmenting real life with broad strokes of information and commentary.
The report, complied by Thomas Husson, a Forrester senior analyst, acknowledges that until now augmented reality apps have been fun, but entirely impractical because technology limitations often rendered information slowly and inaccurately.
But the report predicts that this will soon change as information becomes “ultra-accurate and delivered in a perfectly seamless way.”
And so we can expect to see more augmented reality apps in consumer shopping, the report says. You could, for example, hold your phone over a blouse you want to buy, and see comments from other shoppers, get a product coupon or a price deal, or even find out what kind of fabric the blouse is made of.
The Forrester report also predicts that content providers will start to offer paid add-ons to consumers of books, magazines, newspapers and television programs, so that people could download games or additional content directly to their mobile phones, or experience richer narratives — like information about a movie they’re watching — through a tablet computer...."
Excerpt from original article:
“All Good Things,” which cost about $20 million to make, performed in spectacular fashion on V.O.D., selling over $4 million in rentals priced at about $10.99, according to Magnolia, which is a division of 2929 Entertainment, a media company co-owned by Mark Cuban. Eamonn Bowles, Magnolia’s president, said that total makes “All Good Things” one of the top nonstudio V.O.D. releases of the year. (Unlike box-office statistics, video-on-demand sales are not closely tracked by independent sources.)
When “All Good Things” finally arrived in theaters, including prominent independent places like New York’s Angelika Film Center, ticket sales averaged about $19,000 a theater — a strong performance by specialty film standards. To date, “All Good Things,” playing in 35 theaters nationwide, has sold about $200,000 in tickets, according to Magnolia. The film, an awards contender, will expand to a much wider release in the weeks ahead.
“The idea is to turn V.O.D. almost into a paid word-of-mouth campaign — early adopters and people interested in the subject matter will find the film and hopefully tell their friends it is worth seeing in a theater,” Mr. Bowles said.
Could that sort of word-of-mouth campaign also power a Hollywood blockbuster?