And The Oscar Goes To: Logorama

Some have hailed it as “the movie no lawyer should see.” The Pringles man mascot propositions an Esso girl. Ronald McDonald takes a hostage and sparks a gunfight with Michelin Bibendum cops. With almost 3000 coporate logos, spectacular car chases, and wild animals (including Lacoste crocodiles and the MGM lion) rampaging through a city, what more could an audience ask of a film?  Perhaps 3D.  What more could a production lawyer ask? You can imagine. Insert the raising and furrowing of legal eyebrows.

After winning awards in Europe and making a splash at Sundance 2010, the movie Logorama garnered the support to win this year’s Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.  The film was produced at Autour de Minuit Productions by French collective H5.  The movie website and trailer are here. This author has not seen confirmed reports of whether permission was obtained from the owners of any the trade-marks shown in the film. However, a quotation from Logorama producer Nicolas Schmerkin in Première, March 2010 suggests it was not:

“Depuis le début, on marche sur des oeufs avec la pointe des pieds, poursuit Schmerkin. Chaque étape, de la sélection du film à Cannes, pour la Semaine de la critique, jusqu’à sa diffusion sur Canal+, a été décisive. Nous n’avons reçu aucune plainte.  Aujourd’hui, les Oscars constituent un peu la dernière ligne droite: il serait idiot pour une marque de s’attaquer à un film sélectionné.”

In theory: trade-mark, copyright and production clearance issues raised could keep many an IP, production and E&O insurance lawyer up at night, given among other things the number of marks included, and the varying laws in different jurisdictions (some of which allow for satire and parody exceptions, and others – not).  In Canada, so far the Michelin Bibendum and BCAA cases have shown that even if trade-mark related claims encounter problems when “use” of a mark cannot be shown,  courts may not see “parody” as a form of criticism that is permitted as fair dealing under the Canadian Copyright Act. In practice: it will be interesting to see if any of the trade-mark owners attempt to enforce trade-mark and/or copyright rights.

The film has an extra, real world coda.  Logorama is available for purchase on iTunes. It appears from a number of internet blogs and sites with links to full video of the Logorama film, that the video postings were required to be deactivated or taken down. For example, at pages on YouTube purporting to post the film in two parts, one is greeted by a large red exclamation mark, and the warning: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Autour de Minuit Productions.”