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richardhutnik on 10 October 2012
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happydolphin said:
IvorEvilen said:

I'm not particularly upset, so I'm sorry if it came across that way.  I'm not particularly picking sides on this issue either, but I did get frustrated by a number of individuals simply targeting Sony without much reasononing than Sony being the larger, more powerful party.

As for your loaded question, the burden of proof is on Sony, and I do not particularly think they can win that claim.  It doesn't change the fact that Bridgestone is trying to cash-in on Sony's success with Kevin Butler.  Jerry Lambert is a face many gamers/consumers would recognize and respect, which would psychologically project onto Bridgestone.  That is the argument that I would expect Sony is trying to make, the problem is that Sony would have prove that the character he is playing is similar or the same as Kevin Butler to win any sort of copywrite infringement, which I do not believe can be done, personally.

Ultimately what this comes down to is contract violation.  Did Lambert's contract include a non-compete clause or not?  Bridgestone might get in a little trouble for perpetuating the situation, but ultimately a contract violation is much more damaging for Jerry Lambert than a copywrite violation would be.

Okay, you may have misunderstood the situation.

There are two situations at hand.

1) The headline accusation:  "based on violations of the Lanham Act, misappropriation, breach of contract and tortious interference with a contractual relationship".

2) The supporting violations: "The company went on to allege: 'We invested significant resources in bringing the Kevin Butler character to life and he's become an iconic personality directly associated with PlayStation products over the years.'

 

'Use of the Kevin Butler character to sell products other than those from PlayStation misappropriates Sony's intellectual property, creates confusion in the market and causes damage to Sony.'

 

 

So item 1 has to do with violation of a contract and of an intellectual property (lanham act, misappropriation). The argument against that is should Jerry Lambert scrape off his face? The answer is no. What else about him makes him Kevin Butler? The maneurisms, but are those even purely Sony's creation, or did he use those maneurisms before? He used them with Geiko. What about his likeness (suit and tie)? Already used.

The thing you're talking about relates to item 2, where Sony makes a support accusation saying (in loose terms) that associating with competing products confuses consumers. Well this would be true if it were Kevin Butler playing Wii in the Bridgestone commercial, but it's not, it's Jerry Lambert. Bridgestone could be using the likeness of Kevin Butler to push the promotion of a video game console promotion FOR bridgestone, but that would not be against the law. Had Jerry Lambert played Kevin Butler and done that, that would have been against the law.

I have to wonder if Sony tried to build something into the Kevin Butler character that has them now trying to plead that Jerry Lambert can't show up with any other company.  Kevin Butler apparently left Sony for "Economy Flooring" and doing an ad for a fake flooring company.  If Sony is thinking that would lock down the Kevin Butler character, and make it so they didn't need to compensate or have Jerry Lambert on their payroll, they are freakin' daft.  This is the ad I am referring to: