Mind Candy defeated in Lady Gaga court battle
Moshi Monsters parody Lady Goo Goo upsets Poker Face pop star
UK MMO developer Mind Candy has lost a court case against the pop star Lady Gaga over its Moshi Monsters character Lady Goo Goo.
On Monday the courts granted an injuction preventing the company from "promoting, advertising, selling, distributing or otherwise making available to the public The Moshi Dance OR any musical work or video which purports to be performed by a character by the name of Lady Goo Goo, or which otherwise uses the name Lady Goo Goo or any variant thereon."
Lawyers for Lady Gaga argued that young children may have trouble differentiating the cartoon monster from the American pop star.
"This court ruling is a huge disappointment. It's pretty obvious that kids will be able to tell the difference between the two characters," said CEO Michael Acton Smith.
"The shame is that millions of kids fell in love with Lady Goo Goo's debut single on YouTube and now won't be able to enjoy her musical exploits. It was all done in the name of fun and we would have thought that Lady Gaga could have seen the humour behind this parody."
Lady Goo Goo, a moshling character from the children's MMO that has over 50 million registered users, scored millions of hits when a video for her song The Moshi Dance was posted on YouTube. The character will still appear in Moshi Monsters, but the songs The Moshi Dance or Peppy-razzi, will not.
"Tribute bands and parody songs have been around for years but what this case shows is the potential power of registered trademark law to put a stop to some of their activities," Alastair Shaw, counsel for law firm Hogan Lovells told The Guardian.
"This may be particularly important for tribute acts or characters with names which are similar to the original acts, as they frequently are, who want to comercialise a track parodying a well-known song."
Mind Candy's music division, Moshi Music, intended to release the track on iTunes, and as part of an album later in the year.
Back in July GamesIndustry.biz spoke to Acton Smith about his plans to expand on the MMO's huge popularity.
"Our objective is not just to build an online game, we want to build this massive new type of entertainment company," he explained.
"That does mean we need to everywhere that our audience wants us, and that does mean console, and magazines and books. I want our live show to sell out the O2 and have holograms and pyrotechnics and screaming fans."
Made me chuckle.
And if it's not parody... then wth is?
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Prendergast on 14th October 2011 4:44pm
Trying to make money from it, is what triggered this, I guess. It's one thing to have a funny character that's a parody on a famous popstar, it's another thing to try to monetize that parody, that's where you start capitalizing on someone else's brand, no?
still knowing this i reckon the hits for that song will go through the roof and they will work something out...maybe.
still overreacting a bit though.
I am pretty sure you missed the copyright class... Parody, is a complete separation, you don't ask someones permission to make fun of them, you have the right to make fun of them because it does not infringe upon their civil liberties to simply ignore you. That said, jurisdictions change, and the landscape of the law with them... so perhaps you did attend that class after all. As for this one, it looks like the prosecution went with a "slander" argument, for which the judge could go either way, depending on how he was feeling about the spirit of the law that day.
For this kind of stuff, you may as well just ignore it. Do what you can and if you get sued, deal with it... As for what the good Dr. said above, he is right, oftentimes you will be better off if you get sued by a much bigger fish. See, all originality is already taken at this point... if a bigger fish wants to pay a judge more than you can to take anything from you, you better be ready to take up a new project, because rights, and laws are a joke in the global economic arena. $ is all.
Priceless :D
Lady Goo Goo's music is trash as well, but I can definitely see the resemblance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re2lKxEH8...
I guess comedy shows should all be banned then? I can't count on my fingers the number of times they've had parody versions of the major artists and songs of the times as a sketch... Like they never made any money from that!
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Prendergast on 15th October 2011 3:59pm
This case in point is not related to parody or in the spirit of the life of brian. Thus the judge ruled accordingly. One has to read between the lines. Good calculated PR overall. Good Biz move (with money to back up, and legal to minimize any legal dispute/payoff presumably)
While I agree that she, of all people, should have had the good sense to have a chuckle and let it go (after all, she mocks high fashion almost on a daily basis) I can see where the judge was coming from.
You can't allow this thing to happen sometimes but not other times. It's just not right and ends up with people who benefit from these same protections then turning around and stopping other people from doing the same. Case in point the music industry and, as you mentioned, Juliet, Lady Ga Ga (not only with respect to her use of parody of fashion but her continued use of the Queen song title as a way for her to use that brand to cause recognition from her listeners).
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Prendergast on 16th October 2011 9:02am