In 1986, Federico Fellini's film "Ginger and Fred" was released, and set for distribution in the United States; however, Ginger (the REAL one) was NOT amused. She sued distributor M-G-M and Italian film producer Federico Fellini on the grounds of defamation, right of publicity, and her 'trademark rights', which is known as the Lanham Act (which was somewhat ironically signed into law by her fellow Independence citizen, President Harry Truman).
The case did spawn a new 'legal term', The Rogers Test; in general, one must show that the use of an image, name, or other 'feature' of an entity is of a 'minimal nature', such that the entity would not be adversely affected by said use. OK - it's getting pretty tedious in here, so, I'm gonna go all Huey on y'all...
The image shown above for the film in question is QUITE misleading as to whether this is actually Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, at least to someone who isn't all that familiar with Ginger and Fred (at least they got the name billing right ;-) ) - of course, there's no question for Gingerologists as to the 'phony' pic above, but... how about someone who is looking for new films, with no idea about what Ginger and Fred looks like (pretty hard to believe, but... work with me here), and assumes this is a true Rogers - Astaire film? Anyway, Ginger lost the case, which doesn't sit well with me... HOWEVER... the general concept of 'how much can one use an image before it is either confusing to the public, and/or defamatory to the person's public image' is not quite as easy as it seems... the Ol' First Amendment comes into play...
...There are quite a few instances where it makes sense that an image can be used in a 'general' sense without citing copyright infringement...otherwise, it would be purt near impossible to produce ANY movies, books, music, etc. - Lord knows that blogs would be in BIG trouble... An interesting example from right here in South Gingerville is that of the University of Alabama v. New Life Art, who produced paintings of 'great plays' in Alabama football games... ultimately, the paintings were not considered a 'trademark infringement'. Check out around halfway down the case study, where it cites The Rogers Test. (BTW, the owner of New Life Art (Daniel A. Moore), had his kids graduate from the same school (private) as the one mine go to... so... cool, eh?)
So, the Olivia suit also generally fell victim to The Rogers Test - here's the Variety article on it, which, while not specifically citing The Rogers Test, looks to have the same reasoning described for the dismissal of the case. Even though Olivia claims she was portrayed in a demeaning manner by the FX Networks production "Feud!", it appears that unless one makes false claims against you (which IS kinda what happened here), the First Amendment overrides any grievances... in Olivia's case, the character is specifically HER, whereas the character(s) in the Ginger and Fred film were not actually supposed to be Ginger (or Fred), but a couple who 'emulated' the pair...
With that... that is THAT.
hope y'all are having a great week... and Keep It Gingery... oh yes, be certain you also pass The Rogers Test as well... ;-)
Hu
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