Sony sues Kevin Butler actor for breach of contract

What?

So, by this reasoning he can never work in the industry for anyone else but SONY for the rest of his life? Surely his likeness is HIS IP, not SONYs and he's not even playing the character or claiming to be the character!

Stupid companies... Clever lawyers...

Posted:8 months ago

@James Prendergast
His contract most likely stated that he cannot appear in commercials using a competitors product during the time in which he is active as the Kevin Butler character for Sony.

Sony probably has a suite of Christmas commercials with Kevin Butler in that have already been produced and are ready to go out - hence why they've got a bit touchy with this one

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Scott Davis on 8th October 2012 9:44am

Posted:8 months ago

"tortuous interference with a contractual relationship"

Edited 2 times. Last edit by John Bye on 8th October 2012 10:02am

Posted:8 months ago

You're right, John. I'm blaming autocorrect for that. It's almost as if those John Grisham books aren't enough legal training for me.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Matt Martin on 8th October 2012 10:08am

Posted:8 months ago

@Scott, that would be fair enough if he has an exclusivity agreement in the contract... but that's not what the statement they released says, is it?

"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," said Sony [snip]
"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."

This statement appears to conflate "Kevin Butler" with the actor who plays him.

Posted:8 months ago

I'm sure he has a non-compete clause in his contract. It's rare to NOT have one in a major advertising job like that. Still, this is sad. The end of the Kevin Butler era.

Posted:8 months ago

It's a shame really. Sony's probably not throwing him enough bones for him to make a living. The Verizon "Can You Hear Me Now" guy or Jared the Subway sandwich guy probably made more than him to not have to look for other opportunities.

Posted:8 months ago

I understand Sony and I also think the actor would have had a clause in his contract that he cannot appear in an advertisment, which has products in the same line as the playstation line, for an ammount of time after the Kevin Butler character is retired (propably a few years). Were it a bridgestone commercial solely about tires, I don't think Sony would have sued..
I personally still think they should reinstate the Kevin Butler character as it is one of the best advertisementgadgets EVER.. There are many brands that use one kind of actor for their productline, so why not use Kevin Butler..

Posted:8 months ago

It's probably also a case of an actor having to work regularly and a good offer coming his way. Residuals (which I think diminish over time, as they did when I did my one TV commercial back in the 90's - I really need to try and track it down, as the tape I got vanished during a move) don't last forever, that's for sure.

Granted, it also doesn't bode well for Sony when your most popular fake spokesperson is doing ads for the competition's product.

Posted:8 months ago

The argument could be made that he isn;t competing with Sony as the add is for a tire sompany that just happens to have a free Wii as part of the add.

Posted:8 months ago

And once again the Kevin Butler character makes me laugh....but for a different reason entirely. Sony should be glad that he didn't appear in a Microsoft commercial lol. But still he has become pretty popular for them so I think they should cancel the lawsuit and try to work this out so that he can still appear as their spokesperson. Because if they don't work it out you just know he's going to start doing regular Nintendo or Microsoft commercials and probably for much more money.

Posted:8 months ago

Sony is justified in suing, they paid him to pretend to be a company executive in commercials, he can't go on and work with competitors.

But what I'd really like to know is how much better off Sony would be as a company if they promoted this actor into a real executive with them. It's not like he could do much worse than the actual Sony executives...

Posted:8 months ago

>But what I'd really like to know is how much better off Sony would be as a company if they promoted this actor into a real executive with them. It's not like he could do much worse than the actual Sony executives...

Ha-ha. Good point and totally agree, that company wouldn't be worse with him as an exec.

To me it look stupid that they didn't resolve this in private manner and went on to sue him - that doesn't do any good publicity for the company at all.

Posted:8 months ago