Interesting discussion on the BSD license

[cooldan]

I'm a member over at the TPA Fans forum (as are many of you) and their next table is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Very interesting thread here about who owns rights to what on that table here:

Bram Stokers Dracula Table http://pinballarcadefans.com/showthread.php?t=8699

I don't understand licensing at all. For example, I know that on the BTTF table there is someone else pretending to be Marty McFly - but I think he is intentionally nothing like Michael J Fox, to avoid some copyright thing as Michael apparently said no to his image being used for it (FFS WTF why? why would someone do that unless it was about being greedy for more than they were offering? I just think it was petty and mean of him)

How does it all work, with licensed themed pins? Does the manufacturer eg Stern have to pay the studio? Even though the film is also getting promoted? What if the actors' faces are used, do they also have to pay eg Arnie? Is it cheaper to make a pin with a cartoon Batman rather than one that's got a picture obviously based on Christian Bale versus one with a photo of Christian Bale.

I'm rambling. Sunstroke I expect

 

[Calimori]

I would wonder if the request to use MJ Fox's face even got to him or an agent/lacky said that MJ does not allow his face to be used.
I believe that if you paint a picture, you own it so if you paint a likeness of someone then you have the rights to use it. I would expect that for most films, the production company would have bought the rights to use the film images and sound however they choose though, for promotions etc but probably short of other commercial ventures such as action figures and tea towels.

 

[Sam C]

I don't think it helps that in BSD I'm sure they used the actual actors to record their lines so Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves etc etc so they would have to get permission from them to use them or contact estates to get permission if the person had passed on. With games like JM and BTTF etc these games used voice actors who did a likeness so it would not be as difficult to get permission to use them.

This sort of thing is the reason that when BSD came out for real way back in '93 it lost those plastics above the slings that feature a number of the actors, because they wouldent give their likeness over. Of course these plastics are now fairly common because Williams kept them on replacement plastic sets, so all you had to do was order the replacement plastics set from Williams and bam, free set of the removed plastics.

 

[Paul]

View attachment 9786

Nice improvement there Mr Ood.. (Dr Who fans will see the similarity...)

 

[replicas]

I thought it was a clip from Alien

 

[Rus121]

The only similarity I see here is the uncanny resemblance to an old ladies beef curtains. (Are those things they holding up pleasure balls of the larger variety?)

OH how I love the mad sh*t that comes from dans far eastern posts......

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

The only similarity I see here is the uncanny resemblance to an old ladies beef curtains.

Oh dear

 

[johnwhitfield]

With the license question it all depends on what you sign. I had a piece of music in the Truman Show. They paid us to sync it to a specific scene. If they had produced a pin of the film then they wouldn't have had the rights to use the tune. I suspect Actors have similar image rights as its a different medium so a new license would be required.

DE were crap at getting these rights sorted, BTTF shows this, so does Hook although I think in Hook's case they obtained the rights to the call outs but forgot the image rights until it was too late.