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Thread: Interesting billboard

  1. #1
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Interesting billboard

    Just got home from a week at Lake Huron and I noticed a billboard for the “Keewadin Casino” featuring a shot of a Gibson guitar headstock. About the third time I drove by it I got to wondering if that was “authorized use” of the corporate logo? Seems like that is the sort of thing the legal team might want to be paid for, don’t you think? Maybe they are but, it just gnawed at me a little.
    Timothy F. Lewis
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    Registered User sblock's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by Timbofood View Post
    Just got home from a week at Lake Huron and I noticed a billboard for the “Keewadin Casino” featuring a shot of a Gibson guitar headstock. About the third time I drove by it I got to wondering if that was “authorized use” of the corporate logo? Seems like that is the sort of thing the legal team might want to be paid for, don’t you think? Maybe they are but, it just gnawed at me a little.
    Yeah, and your avatar shows a headstock photo of a your Guild guitar, displayed in a public forum. Was this an authorized use of the corporate logo? Does it gnaw at you a little, I wonder? Methinks thou doth protest too much...

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    Pittsburgh Bill
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    I kind of see your issue with this. However, I have no interest in providing Gibson with more fodder for frivolous law suits in their effort to survive economic challenges they are confronted with.
    Gibson fans, please be sympathetic to my feelings regarding their instruments as it is only my nonprofessional opinion and with having no idea of their overhead costs vs. other builders of mandolins. I just feel that Gibson may have a more profitable mandolin division if they were to offer instruments of equal quality to other builders at a like price point rather than expecting people to pay more to have GIBSON written on the headstock.
    No offence to anyone's beloved mandolin. Just my humble opinion. (And yes, I have heard many and played a few Gibsons that I would have loved to own)
    Note: I do not believe Gibson is the only builder that adds $ or even 1000's of $ for their name on the headstock. True too, that if I were a builder I would probably charge whatever the market would bare.

    Wow, as I review my response it appears to me I strayed off topic. Sorry! Buyer beware and do not purchase based upon what is written on the headstock, be it Gibson or any other builder.
    Last edited by Pittsburgh Bill; Jul-31-2019 at 10:47am.
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Maybe I'm crazy - but if I owned an instrument company I would WANT people to show off my logo as much as possible. Hello: free advertising! Just think of Fender 50 years ago with their big headstock and big logos, so that you could see them clearly when some artist played one on television.

    Corporate mentality today sometimes leaves me scratching my head . . . .

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    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by sblock View Post
    Yeah, and your avatar shows a headstock photo of a your Guild guitar, displayed in a public forum. Was this an authorized use of the corporate logo? Does it gnaw at you a little, I wonder? Methinks thou doth protest too much...
    Not protesting, just curious.
    Besides, my headstock is not infringing, it is a Spencerian script interpretation of a logo which Guild never used. So, no, not the least bit of gnawing.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeZito View Post
    Maybe I'm crazy - but if I owned an instrument company I would WANT people to show off my logo as much as possible. Hello: free advertising! Just think of Fender 50 years ago with their big headstock and big logos, so that you could see them clearly when some artist played one on television.

    Corporate mentality today sometimes leaves me scratching my head . . . .

    I suppose, and they certainly are not making it something that it isn’t but, an ad for a Casino? What does that has to do with the guitar was a little more puzzling.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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    ************** Caleb's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    I was in an arcade yesterday playing pinball. I noticed on the AC/DC game the Gibson logo was blacked out on Angus’s guitar. Seems odd to me. Seems like it would be free advertising rather than infringement etc. But I’m no lawyer.
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  9. #8
    Registered User sblock's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by Timbofood View Post
    Not protesting, just curious.
    Besides, my headstock is not infringing, it is a Spencerian script interpretation of a logo which Guild never used. So, no, not the least bit of gnawing.
    Not quite. I'm afraid that defense doesn't necessarily get you off the hook, at least technically. Changing the Guild logo to something that they never actually used in their advertising could still be construed as "trademark appropriation," and "brand confusion," and it is still quite possible to sue for exactly this type of infringement. The appropriate defense, in your case, would be to claim that parody or satire is considered "fair use," and that you qualify for an exemption under that umbrella. And that legal theory would likely prevail in court. But you could not, for example, advertise or market some product that's musically-related with "The Guild" on it written in Spencerian script, even if it does differ from the typeface Guild uses. Copyright and trademark law is more complex than most folks appreciate. And, contrary to our best wishes, common sense does not always prevail in legal battles involving trademarks! Alas.

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    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    I’m not too worried.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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  12. #10
    Registered User sblock's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by Timbofood View Post
    I’m not too worried.
    Yeah, I totally agree -- I'm not worried, either, about possible infringements by your avatar with "The Guild" on it. I'm also not worried about that Kewadin Casino billboard, and don't think you should be.

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Companies pay to have their products and logos included in movies and TV (unless, by chance, every props person loves Mac computers), though they do have choice about what movies they place their products in. The disreputable "Trailer Park Boys" had to blur corporate logos -- usually on junk food containers. Still, I'd think most corporations wouldn't mind free publicity. The concept of ownership has become a bit silly in recent years. A friend of mine, who quilts, tells me that one woman designs and sells quilt patterns, then harasses people to pay her if they display a quilt made from a purchased pattern online. If I sold a mandolin design (a silly thought), I wouldn't expect you to pay me if you posted a photo of the finished mandolin on the Cafe.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Registered User John Rosett's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Now you guys have got me worried about wearing this T-shirt...Click image for larger version. 

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    "it's not in bad taste, if it's funny" - john waters

  16. #13

    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Remember getting cheap baseball cards in cereal boxes, where all the team names and logos were airbrushed out? Could never trade those for anything good.

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    harvester of clams Bill McCall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by Marty Jacobson View Post
    Remember getting cheap baseball cards in cereal boxes, where all the team names and logos were airbrushed out? Could never trade those for anything good.
    My baseball cards always came with nourishing bubble gum. Who'd want cereal?
    Not all the clams are at the beach

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    Registered User jim simpson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    I wonder if Gibson will come after me?
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Quote Originally Posted by jim simpson View Post
    I wonder if Gibson will come after me?
    Homer is more likely to.

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  22. #17
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    D’oh!
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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  24. #18
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting billboard

    Well, once again I seem to have opened a weird can of worms!
    Who knows what the company knows or does not know about the casino sign? It’s all up to them, or not.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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