Re: Coipyright in the Hollywood Sign

On 6/15/05, Richard G.McCracken <R.G.Mccracken[_at_]open.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> We've received a request to pay licensing fees for use of the photograph
> from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerc, claiming that the sign itself is
> protected by copyright.

My feeling is that the writer of the request, which I presumed to be a stupid lawyer, doesn't know the difference between copyright and trademark.

Here are the steps to find out what trademarks that Hollywood Chamber of Commerce own:

1. Go to http://www.uspto.gov/
2. Click on "Search" under "Trademarks" in the left side.
3. Click on "New User Form Search (Basic)" in the middle of the web page.
4. Enter "Hollywood Chamber of Commerce" in the box for "Search Term".
5. Select the field "Owner Name and Address" in the pull-down list next to "Field".
6. Click on "Submit Query".
7. You will get a list of 26 records. As a sample, click on the number 2118638 under the column heading "Reg. Number".
8. You will see the image of the mark showing "Hollywood" in shape and form similar to what is seen on the hill.

Based on the above, it is my feeling that the issue is trademark, not copyright. I don't know about your country but in my country, using trademarks in non-commercial ways is almost always legal. However, your case borders on commercial area (your university is in business selling education to earn profit to pay professors and so on) and I don't know how prominent is the picture of Hollywood sign in your education. Trademark is not my area and I better stop now.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com>
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 4,947

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain. Received on Fri Jun 17 2005 - 00:00:00 GMT