not sure but nice room!

http://ezinearticles.com/?Trademarks-In-Film---Best-Practices&id=1954364

Used to use product logos/trademarked names all the time when I produced magazines - was never an issue, even when giving a product a bad review.

viperrwk

Yes, second on the nice room.

This really seems like something the TV production company should be familiar with, rather than expecting you to research. I can't imagine it's any different from showing any other copyrighted / trademarked material. Would they be willing to show a Coca Cola neon sign or your framed movie posters?

Over reacting. We shoot things all the time. It's fine. I own a production company and worked for CBS for 9 years trust me your fine. Nice play area by the way very nice!

As a serious TV watcher. Some things are blocked out, somethings are moved out of camera shot. Some improvement shows just blur the image of the item during the editing process. Older items do not seem to be edited. For example anything on American Restoration, or American Pickers. Current large posters or prints, like Movie posters would be a big problem.

Agree there are ways around this. However, they do not call Exxon every time they find an oil can. If that were the case there would be no reality TV.
Oh course A&E has money so you'll find some fruit loop that will try and suit looking for a free ride or do it for a power trip.

Izzy ... sometimes there are many unflattering ways to present a product, and I doubt anyone would want to be involved with that, which is why in the past wms has told me to pass that stuff on to them. I don't really care one way or the other, but was just trying to help. I think if you 'owned' something and someone wanted to put it on TV, you would probably want to know the context, I certainly would ... that is why production companies usually call me up looking for who to talk to at wms to get permission to use this game or that game ... they do make money on these shows after all ... they came to you concerned about getting permission, so it seems that as they are in the business they are doing what they think they should ... I would not expect wms to see this as a big deal, but probably are glad that they have headsup on this.

rick

This is the real reason things are blurred. If you don't pay, you don't get shown. Productions don't want to give Nike free advertising in their show. It's not Nike that has a problem with someone wearing their hat or shirt, they love making those impressions. Would be a shame if the Funhouse doesn't get on tv but oh well.

This would be the best route, find out what the law allows. The production company should know these laws already. If producers called Exxon every time an oil can was shown, of course the Exxon lawyers would run you around the field. But if you don't need to call them in the first place, why bother?

Very nice collection!

Gottlieb did sue a movie over a game being displayed with their trademark, they ultimately lost . . .

. . .if the use of the third-party mark is incidental or de minimis, such use may be deemed fair. Gottlieb Development LLC v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 590 F. Supp. 2d 625 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (use of the Silver Slugger pinball machine in the movie What Women Want was de minimis in that the machine featuring the trademark was shown as part of the background, among other furniture, and for three-second segments).

Ghostbusters they had a Star Gazer in their loft.

We had an idea for a movie about an up and coming pinball wizard (basically the Karate Kid with pinball) and one concern was audio/visual rights.

Indeed product placement in movies is a big business. Unfortunately there seems to be a small mind or mindless mentality that pervades the hobby of pinball regarding copyrights. If the auto industry had this mind set, you would only see horses in movies, photos, and utubes, -- generic horse breeds for sure.

Yeah, was just thinking about how many car shows you see. Modding cars, destroying cars, selling, reviewing, etc.

If you need a slightly dorky competitor who gets his ass kicked at pinball, give me a call. I can be LOSER KID # 3.

Slightly OT, but did you guys see all the cool Bally pins in Anchorman 2 ?

It goes both ways... brands don't want to 'give away' something that would look like an endorsement and have the right to control publicity when it falls outside of fair use. The owners may not want there theme song played during a porno.. and a production company doesn't want to give away advertising it might otherwise sell.

Yup. Couldn't tell you what they were talking about in that scene. I was busy checking out the pins!

Back on topic:

Normally I don't think it'd be an issue, but since these machines(pins and other stuff) were all originally commercial, money making machines, I can see how they'd want to tread lightly.

Personally, I don't think it's about rights to show logos and product images. I just think they don't want to give anybody any free advertising.

What a bunch of crap. lawyers playing lawyers games.

And poor old Rudolph still can't play a game of No Good Gofers!

If you watch some of the early episodes of Ghost Hunters, Jason and Grant used to wear the North Face jackets. Due to some issue (probably not an advertiser of the show), they had to put a piece of duct tape on the logo.

Love that B9, I almost bought one but it was toooo much. It could be a problem if the show was about the pins, but it is about the room they are in .

Man I am still drooling over the 2 robots in the first pic. and the gunfight.

Nice stuff you have there. I am not a lawyer so I could not give any legal advice about showing games on TV.

Good luck with the show taping.

every item will need a release from the manufacturer or Trademark/Copyright owners

The production Company will have a standard for that needs to be signed by a representative of the Trademark owners.

IE Legal at WMS gaming to avoid such legal action, normally it's free and the company is happy to comply

In 2012 I contacted Williams (specifically WMS) about getting them to release Black Knight 2000 for use in a show I was working on. They said their "standard rate for use of a game as a prop is $2500 and will need to see script pages for the scenes the game will be used in". They had no interest in lowering the rate.. it was a very "corporate" dealing.

I was baffled. I thought they would jump to release it for the exposure. I went into it thinking it was a slam dunk. Unfortunately, it was docu-reality and didn't have the money to be paying $2500 for a pinball machine nor scripts to be sent in!

I can see how an entire room of machines could add up for the clearance.

So...

Does the same thing apply for everything you have in your house?

Like...."Oh.. that sink there in your kitchen is made by Aqua-source. We're going to have to run that past their legal department before we can show it on TV"...

"Someone check with the Art Van lawyers before we shoot the scene on the couch."

That Billy bookcase came from Ikea, better call Sweden.

You're wearing a Casio watch, better call them up.

Obviously their lawyers would love to get that call, the question is despite their preference whether it is needed. In this case the question should not be to them, but to a 3rd party authority on the law and fair use.

You are rightly worried about this.

To be safe, you should remove all those risky pinball machines from the room before filming....

I will send a shipping address under separate PM...

GREAT looking room!!!!

Did nobody read this article viperrwk posted written by a 30 year veteran entertainment industry lawyer? As long as the product isn't slandered or used in a manner it wasn't intended you're fine.

I sold two EM's to the TV show "Nashville" and they expressed concerns over copyright stuff. They wanted pictures of the backglasses because they were thinking about making covers for them. I didn't really care because they were buying them so I was like whatever. In the end they only used one. Never showed much of it either.

1482891_10100672298068187_97170534_n.jpg

Nonsense.

As someone who knows a bit about this, During a 5 year period we received over 20 requests to use images of machines for movies and other Media.

There was a Standard form, a release to be able to use the copyright Images of the game, have you ever noticed electronic pinballs in movies have chime sounds????

That's another problem royalties like a musician, nobody wants to pay apra the fees to use the audio.

During my time WMS didn't charge as they probably received credits at the end of the movie or had working relationships with the movie studio or licensing dept for their gaming division.

There is a difference between a news story and a commercial venture.

In the movie The Accused, you probably noticed that the game Jody gets raped upon is repainted into "Slam Dunk", while the non-violated game next to it, remains a normal Scorpion.

maxresdefault.jpg[Movie]Accused, The (1988)_04-111.jpg

Did anything ever come of this?

Actually the Slam Dunk pinball in that scene was a modified Bally Space Invaders pinball-guess they didn't want to pay both Bally and Taito royalties I guess.

I heard that films legal team felt it would not be approved by Bally, so they came up with the clever name "Slam Dunk" for the prop.

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=4965

I think there is an issue but don't know the technicalities. There is a movie filming in my area and they wanted to rent some games. They insisted they cannot be themed and absolutely no Bally/Williams of any era. Crazy world - getting a bit ridiculous.

My game room was going to be filmed for a cable show last month, and the plug got pulled by the production company just a few days before filming for this exact reason. They had concerns about the games themselves, as well as the movie/music memorabilia displayed in my game room. Bummer

Hey guys... don't look at any of the games you OWN for fear you might see some copyrighted stuff and get sued.

Yes they had one for every character, I was pumped when i saw them.

So, I wonder if the porn producers paid WMS for the Black Knight the older broad got banged on?

And so at what time does YouTube start adding bots that look for copyright items like pinball machines and flag them for takedown...

I have seen movies where they have SS games but you hear EM sounds.

They also have to deal with sound / voice / music rights as well.