Jump to content

New wrestling figures!


King Pitcos

Recommended Posts

5 hours ago, Jon-Carr_92 said:

I'm surprised they'd have his Offspring logo tattoo in that photo. It's not tricky to make an original design based on it like how they'd make something for CM Punk to replace his Pepsi Globe and Cobra logo.

Mattel don't tend to do placeholder tattoos on figures - with Punk they always left those spaces blank, and they put barely any tats on modern Chris Jericho figures because it's all band logos/copyrighted stuff. I dunno what the craic is with Ellsworth there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Slightly off topic I suppose, but would the majority of bands be against their logos being applied on toys like this? I mean, barring bands like KISS who would claim a licensing fee from someone who smelt a Gene Simmons fart, wouldn't a lot see it as a bit of free advertising and a chance to get kids into listening to their music? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
On ‎22‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 9:32 AM, Cod Eye said:

Slightly off topic I suppose, but would the majority of bands be against their logos being applied on toys like this? I mean, barring bands like KISS who would claim a licensing fee from someone who smelt a Gene Simmons fart, wouldn't a lot see it as a bit of free advertising and a chance to get kids into listening to their music? 

The bands might think that on a personal level, but chances are there'd be all sorts of legal wrangling with lawyers, record labels, potentially the designers of the logo, whoever else has a claim to the copyright. Way more hassle than it's worth for Mattel, and for the band when the only possible upside is, "an eight year old buying a James Ellsworth action figure might research one of his tattoos, discover our music, and buy our new album".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Nailed it @BomberPat. Copyright laws have full dictation over this. 90% of the time it will be a record label if it's for an established act, it purely depends on the contract they have in place with musician. As Pat also mentioned, some contracts have 3rd party ownership/license agreements in place. It's effectively the one area in which WWE can't own in regards to a characters likeness. They can add face paint, cut hair, change names and own the product/gimmick, but if the wrestler has tats of Pepsi etc, can't do much about it other than create an attire which hides such tats from the get go.

Saying that, I'm not sure about how this rule works with video. For example, the Pepsi tattoo... WWE have produced a number of recordings/DVDS/live broadcasts in which that logo has been visible. They will be making profit from the event (much like they would an action figure), but it would seem they don't need to jump through the same hoops.

Am I missing something obvious here, or is it a case of they have just 'gotten away with it'. If Pepsi clocked on and had an issue, will Vince have to get the blurs out for punk that were required because of WWF and the pandas?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
51 minutes ago, Kaz Hayashi said:

Nailed it @BomberPat. Copyright laws have full dictation over this. 90% of the time it will be a record label if it's for an established act, it purely depends on the contract they have in place with musician. As Pat also mentioned, some contracts have 3rd party ownership/license agreements in place. It's effectively the one area in which WWE can't own in regards to a characters likeness. They can add face paint, cut hair, change names and own the product/gimmick, but if the wrestler has tats of Pepsi etc, can't do much about it other than create an attire which hides such tats from the get go.

Saying that, I'm not sure about how this rule works with video. For example, the Pepsi tattoo... WWE have produced a number of recordings/DVDS/live broadcasts in which that logo has been visible. They will be making profit from the event (much like they would an action figure), but it would seem they don't need to jump through the same hoops.

Am I missing something obvious here, or is it a case of they have just 'gotten away with it'. If Pepsi clocked on and had an issue, will Vince have to get the blurs out for punk that were required because of WWF and the pandas?

Could it be something to do with it being on the performer's skin before any contracts etc were signed? Or could it just be that the copyrights don't extend to tattoo's? Again, I've no actual idea and just throwing these out there, as it seems that WWE in particular have had loads of folk with band/brand tattoos over the years and nothing has ever come back on them as far as I am aware?

Strowman is the latest I have noticed, with that Superman tattoo on his arm. With the company having experience of dealing with comic book trademarks from back the the Hulk/Marvel days you would think they would know if his "S" would cause an issue...

P.S. I know that it isn't actually supposed to be a letter "S"...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, BomberPat said:

The bands might think that on a personal level, but chances are there'd be all sorts of legal wrangling with lawyers, record labels, potentially the designers of the logo, whoever else has a claim to the copyright. Way more hassle than it's worth for Mattel, and for the band when the only possible upside is, "an eight year old buying a James Ellsworth action figure might research one of his tattoos, discover our music, and buy our new album".

I may have this arseways but I recall when Pretty Fly came out, Offspring were the most illegally downloaded band of the year.  They didn't mind as their concert sales, merch, and legal sales were sky high too.  I have nothing to back this up of course except my frazzled, drug hazed forty something mind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

As far as the Pepsi logo. There's a difference between the tattoo ( which they could claim falls under fair usage as part of a new, original artistic piece) and the company knowingly using the logo for profit. In theory Pepsi could attempt to sue but would have to prove that WWE or Punk have specifically tried to draw attention to the logo and profit from its use. The only other avenue they could go down would be that by association Punk or WWE have defamed or cost Pepsi money by a characters negative actions, although it would be almost impossible to prove. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Kaz Hayashi said:

Nailed it @BomberPat. Copyright laws have full dictation over this. 90% of the time it will be a record label if it's for an established act, it purely depends on the contract they have in place with musician. As Pat also mentioned, some contracts have 3rd party ownership/license agreements in place. It's effectively the one area in which WWE can't own in regards to a characters likeness. They can add face paint, cut hair, change names and own the product/gimmick, but if the wrestler has tats of Pepsi etc, can't do much about it other than create an attire which hides such tats from the get go.

Saying that, I'm not sure about how this rule works with video. For example, the Pepsi tattoo... WWE have produced a number of recordings/DVDS/live broadcasts in which that logo has been visible. They will be making profit from the event (much like they would an action figure), but it would seem they don't need to jump through the same hoops.

Am I missing something obvious here, or is it a case of they have just 'gotten away with it'. If Pepsi clocked on and had an issue, will Vince have to get the blurs out for punk that were required because of WWF and the pandas?

There must be a difference with video, because a lot of Punk's promo pictures in WWE - especially earlier in his run - had the shoulder tattoos (the Pepsi on one shoulder and the GI Joe thing on the other) photoshopped out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...