Lugz sends Apple cease-and-desist over Eminem spot - Page 2

But...it's not illegal. Just bad form.

Are you a lawyer? I'm not.

Someone on this forum must be a lawyer. Everyone seems to talk as if they know a tort from a hole in the ground. I'd be rapt with attention to learn from, say, melgross as he/she cites the relevant case law.

No, no legal judgmens here. I'm saying that Apple, Chiat, Romanek (can't forget him) and Logan should rightly be publicly embarrassed for crossing the line by a couple hundred miles. And I'm not saying the line is clear, but when something crosses it by this distance, it's clear that the line is no longer in front of them.

It hardly matters if the industry remembers it. It wasn't done to impress the industry. It's an ad.

If the public doesn't remember it, then it wasn't memorable to begin with.

When I was at McannEricson in the early '70's I saw many great, innovative ads. Few caught the imagination of the public. They were failures.

The purpose of an ad is to win sales. Winning a Clio is nice, but in the end it means nothing. I don't know if the Lutz ad did or not.

I finally saw the ad recently, and there are similarities to be sure. There are enough differences as well.

It's a tempest in a teapot anyway. You don't actually know if Apple was aware of this. They could have found out later. That could have been why the ad was taken down from their site shortly after it was put up. It was put back probably because their lawyers said it was all right.

There's a difference between what they should have done, and what they are allowed to do.

I'd like to hear the relevant law from you as well.

In my business (look up my profile) I dealt with copyright problems all of the time. It isn't always easy. There is a fine line between violation, and poor judgement, but legal similarities.

Please don't tell me that you haven't seen close copies of campaigns over the years because I certainly have.

Some of the biggest splashes are the ones most quickly forgotten. I know that I've forgotten far more ads than I remember.

If the Eminem ad wasn't for Apple and had such publicity surrounding it, I probably would have tuned it out. The way I likely tuned out Lutz's ad. Most people do the same.

In asking around I've found only one person who remembers Lutz's ad. You know the expression "old things are new again"?

These days the public has a short memory.

I'm not either, but even a lawyer's opinion doesn't necessarily matter much. What matters to them is whether they can convince a judge or jury that their view of the situation and their interpretation of the law is right.

And you've just succinctly described why being an Attorney is great. That hazy gray area between caselaw is the area that Legal Beagles love.

It's all about the money.

No, first they have to convince a judge that an actual civil law was broken. Bad form does not equal broken law. Since style is not copyright-able, patent-able or trademark-able it's going to be really hard to find anything that actually goes down as a violation of a law concerning copyright, patent or trademark.

How many years did the Apple/MS look-and-feel lawsuit go on with Apple trying ever more desperate ways to get the judge not to dismiss the whole thing outright? Eventually that one settled out of court because MS needed Apple alive to avoid certain loss in the DoJ monopoly probe, rather than Apple actually having a winnable case.

^%#%&^% wrong button!

melgross, you're now in the position of claiming that it's not relevant if something is stolen, as long as the public didn't know the victim owned the item stolen in the first place.

That's very deft legal ballet. Or is it comedy. Wait, I'm kinda laughing, so I guess, yep, it's comedy. It's law and comedy together--it's Lawmedy!

For the second time in 30 minutes I'll repeat that I'm not a lawyer. What I'm calling for is a different kind of remedy: for the perpetrators to be be figuratively crushed with large stones in the court of public opinion, following by the metaphorical pulling-out of their fingernails, with a dessert of 1,000 x-acto blade cuts while bathing in Great Salt Lake. This would apply, primarily, to Duncan Milner, Eric Grunbaum, Krista Wicklund, Demian Olivera, Cheryl Childers and Mike Refuerzo, the Chiat team, who I can state with great confidence were 132.392% likely to have known of the psyop Lugz ad, simply because, as I've stated, it's about as famous a piece of motion graphics as there ever has been.

But wait, I'm being unfair. You were making some kind of ethical point, melgross, not a legal point. So it's more properly Comethics, an underappreciated subcategory of silly-ethics. Ethical absurdity--Sartrean / Beckettian ethics combined with the brains of Laurel and Hardy.

You keep saying that it was "stolen". That's a harsh word.

Copyright is complex when a work has been almost, but not quite copied.

I remember a case some time ago when an ex assistant to Hiro (the photographer) "copied" a photo he took. The case went to court. Hiro won that case. The "copy" was so close to the original you needed a double take to see that they weren't the same (it was an arranged studio shot). I've seen less publicized cases where the photographer lost because it was deemed to be "inspired by" rather than "copied".

When there is a case like this where the latter isn't exactly the same as the former, the originator must show several things. One is that it was deliberate. Two it could be mistaken for the original. Three that there were monetary damages, or damage to the reputation etc. of the originator. If the industries are different, that makes it even harder, because it is an ad.

And no, I'm not a lawyer. My wife is a senior vice president of CitiBank. She is an attorney who is responsible for their advertising, and other product release statements.

We have discussed this after seeing both ads (the Lutz ad is somewhere on the internet). She says that while they are very similar, she doesn't see a copyright case, but that she would have to see all the relevant facts.

That's pretty childish.

It makes your other arguments seem less valid.

There is some amount of interpretation to whether a law is broken. Very often, intent to infringe factors in, as well as many other factors.

Childish? Yep, I read Sartre and Beckett at nine years of age, so forgive me for falling back on it.

Or, perhaps, was it satire, holding up to ridicule what was, pretty clearly, a ridiculous argument on your part. You haven't seen fit to defend your logic, I've noticed.

In general, you, Xool, Elixir and a few others were essentially caught talking like you were bigshots and knew something. I found your self-assurance repellant. You found my chastisement of you a little harsh, well, sorry. It would be helpful and less hurtful for you and your cohorts in the future if you'd, perhaps, try learning a few things before going off at such length and with such vehemence. I mean, for Chrissakes, you just admitted you don't even KNOW the Lugz ad! What kind of fool are you? It's easy to find with a 5-second google, but apparently that was too difficult for you. Here, I'll help you--go here: http://www.psyop.tv and click on Projects>Lugz. While you're there check out their other work--as I've said it's pretty much the best there is.

The Eminem idea was stolen, and I mean that in the colloquial sense. I've seen stolen ads (you want chapter and verse? I can quote you from my time at Hal Riney, when creatives stole from each other, let alone from others). This is the single most blatant I've ever seen. The minute I saw it, I thought 'Lugz.' In that regard, I joined hundreds of other people in my field. It was shameless and low on the part of dozens of people. I don't give a rat's ass about the legality because I remember the George Harrison case and have the vague feeling that the bar is set high. My suspicion is that Lugz sent the letter to Apple as a way to continue the public shaming of Apple, which seemed to be dying away, rather than to get any legal remedy. And in that regard, I wish Lugz well, because they and psyop were robbed blind.

Wow, and now you come off as an arrogant prick! Nicely done.

Hi Flounder.

Read your own sig line.

Thanks
govinda
mograph.net

*sigh* now i remember why a few months in the past few years of freelancing at marketing/ ad agencies was the worst and most traumatic time in my life ever, especially after working hard for many years getting my graphic/ art/ multimedia skills up to speed. i appreciate and enjoy the technical and intellectual and emotional joy of good design, eg. motion graphics (particularly imaginary forces at the start... when kyle cooper actually cared about the work)

but govinda, it was people like you that ultimately made me very very sad

nonetheless perhaps on more techniical discussions and with less attitude you'd be a welcome addition to powermac discussions, etc

I make you sad, how?

By standing up for the wronged party? By dealing sharply with people who have zero clue and yet go on at length with spin in defense of the bad guys? By presenting relevant facts? By a sarcastic manner towards people who traffic in idiot's logic delivered with maximum smugness (if you need any reminder of that, click back to the previous page where some pompous idiot detailed a point-by-point 'refutation' of this ad being a ripoff).

The guy I'm mocking plainly states that he doesn't even know the ad he's talking about. Hilarious. I'll mock forever in such a case--be my guest to be as sad as you like.

heh. my emotions aside, i think it is interesting that you apply your wit with equal vehemence and vitriol as the people you're trying to correct. fighting fire with fire i suppose, but everyone gets burned \

if you wanted to make a point (and many people here are capable of seeing the flip side to things), your knowledge of the motion graphics industry could be presented in a much less abrasive manner, and *gasp* that would make it more palatable to people outside the industry, for example the posters on this thread...

if we strip out the nasty attitude from your original posts there is actually and interesting and relevant point about the ad being well-known in motion graphic circles and this would have contributed to our discussion. but your chest-beating along the way would have obscured any salient points you might have had.

edit: also, just because you feel psyop is the best out there, doesn't automatically make it so. in any case are you suggesting that the higher quality an artwork is, the more necessary it is to protect such artwork?

No, because you claim high moral ground when you aren't standing upon any.

You apparently aren't able to deal with people who disagree with you.

I said that I saw it. But you can't read very well so you didn't notice that.

You obviously have a very big axe to grind. Don't grind it over us please.

Lugz has EVERY RIGHT to sue!

Look at this!

http://www.lugz.com/timeline/subevent/2002/video.html

Its basically the iPod ad for crying out loud!

I've seen it, and I'm not convinced. The main theme is still the "hot" color.

I'm not denying that it was "inspired" by the ad.

But other than there is a single performer, it's not that similar.

The iPod ad acutualy has a great deal of difference from the Lugz ad.

First of all, the backround in the Lugz ad is not only moving many times, but also has a different look and feel. In addition, the Lugz ad portays a more real backround whereas the iPod's backround is more abstract

Next, the silhouette looks very different. More animated and less real, Just take a look yourself.

Last, the texture, precise color scheme, and use of symbols is different.

The performance is also very different.

The guy in the Lutz ad spends his time showing us his shoes. Eminem is performing a song in a much more animated way than the other guy is moving.