ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

9 years, 11 months ago - Oliver Krimpas

Thanks Marlom, that's really kind of you. It is a film, small budget, but still a proper film, so I obviously wouldn't be happy without a document. I just wondered if there was a template that most people use. I haven't had much trouble getting people to agree to sign something, it's the something I'm not sure of...

9 years, 11 months ago - Marlom Tander

BTW, disregard the above for a film with a proper budget. For that you need the full works paperwork because an injunction isn't just annoying, it's fatal to the business plan, even if overturned.

9 years, 11 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Plain English is the way forwards - much of the motor racing industry has moved to plain English contracts to save on the huge costs of lawyers translating everything into obfuscated legalese, then more lawyers to translate it back again!

Getting releases for brands is a huge effort, though, which is why we spend real money disguising recognisable design elements whenever there's a real question of whether an item/brand is going to be incidental or could be taken as a part of the narrative.

9 years, 11 months ago - John Lubran

Whilst I'm always trying to stress just how perverse and unbalanced legalese (babble) has become within the context of actual Law (there is only one form of actual Law, and being entirely Constitutional it does not stem from statute legislation) and that much so called practice has evolved from false premise and unlawful statutes, we still have to deal with the challenges on the ground though, namely that it remains a tough call asserting the actual Law when powerful forces are arrayed against you. Tony Franks useful link to the Screen Daily article reminds us of this but it's worth noting that the author of the article is a lawyer and by definition a businessman selling legal advice. There's nothing in the article that has not been said already within this conversation or in other similar conversations on these lists. Plain English ought to be used in all law, legal babble is mostly about keeping lawyers in Armani suits and Range Rovers.

Often a Plain English letter of intent with an agreement to have any argument settled according to English Law is far better than a convoluted contract and much clearer to everyone including the judge if need be. Less is often more. A letter of intent should make the spirit of the agreement the primary issue because in Law it’s the spirit of an agreement, which is a definitive term in Law, that's supreme. Many a convoluted contract has been shot down, whilst enriching teams of lawyers, on that basis. Furthermore ALL AGREEMENTS in Law must be ‘reasonable’ to be valid.

In any event branded objects and logos can be freely presented in a factual films without any nonsense based hindrance provided than no unwarranted harm is done to their owners, but fundamentally, in the same way, they are not prohibited from being in a fiction film either, there is no underlying law that says that. It’s all about defamation, misrepresentation and harm, none of which is of a statutory nature but of the Law of Torts in Common Law. I’ll keep reiterating this theme until the ‘cows come home’ until people get it. When you buy or otherwise lawfully gain title to most consumer products, whether bearing a logo or not, you don’t get presented with a contract as to how you are limited in its use, even if playacting with it in public, which is what a film is.

The lawyer who wrote the article in that Screen Daily article makes a useful reference to the difference between things appearing ‘incidentally’ and those things that are especially focused on. There’s not a chance in hell that an incidentally appearing item can be prohibited and therefore requiring a licence, unless it can somehow be argued that that item is being harmed according to Law. But even if an item is focused upon, such as with Marlom’s imaginatively exampled weaponising of Ebola with an iphone, I doubt a well defended argument asserting that Apples reputation and product was not harmed could be defeated in Law. It is all about minimising hassle, however it’s long past time that film makers and the whole community in general started to push back against these erroneous tyrants of the legal babble.

9 years, 11 months ago - Tony Franks

Just saw this article, it may be a help:
http://www.screendaily.com/5095872.article?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter78
It includes a bit stating:
"Logos, signs, trademarks and adverts are not covered by the same exception so you should avoid capturing them. If this is not possible, consider whether they appear in shot incidentally or prominently. Incidental use means that their inclusion is casual or of secondary importance and is not the focus of a shot.
All the best, Tony

9 years, 11 months ago - Marlom Tander

Template schmplate. It is highly dangerous to use random templates for this sort of thing, esp if they seem to be written in legal language, much of which can look like English. For example do you know that the terms "reasonable endevours", "all reasonable endevours" and "best endevours" have special legal meanings, and what the differences between them are? Would you spot these and other unexploded linguistic mines in any template?

If you get a document signed that looks "legal" then a court will treat you as if you had taken advice, and if you didn't understand the law well enough to write your own, that's dangerous. If you stick to plain english, the courts will apply common sense.

Wearing my practical manager hat, there is a huge difference between people agreeing to sign something, and them actually doing so. Are you sure that the document they imagine in their heads is the one that you are going to give them?

9 years, 11 months ago - Marlom Tander

If you want permission (and are not offering money) you have the following options :-

a) Ask nicely. The exchange of messages alone evidences the agreement. Make your final message "So, to be clear, Apple are allowing me to have my lead hacker character gleefully use his iPhone to pull off the heist and release the weaponsied Ebola" or whatever. So long as the film depicts as described, no probs. BUT if you move the phone from the Hero to the Bad Guy in a pre shoot rewrite, your previous email trail is no longer valid.

Something somewhere in law binds companies to agreements no matter who in the company made it so long as the third party could have reasonably thought they were dealing at an appropriate level. (E.G. if the manager of the Apple, Shop agrees that you can film there, you can, and use it, even if he shouldn't have let you. But your shop manager saying "of course you can shoot at HQ" isn't something you can run with)

b) Prepare some legalistic document and ask them to read and agree. You have just pushed your contact way outside their comfort zone. Unless they really love you and are pretty senior, you'll probably never get your release.

c) Ask them for their legal doc. Unless they get a lot of requests AND are set up to deal with them, AND generally say yes, they won't have one and they sure as hell won't write one just for you.

9 years, 11 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Talk to a product placement company about getting loan/free items. Easier for chocolate than cameras and phones, though!