Quote:
Originally Posted by Boomer
Dear Advertiser,
What I am about to say is not intended as a criticism of your roofing business — which I don’t know anything about.
This is about one part of your advertising………
It looks like you have given a lot of thought to your presentation of details about how you do business. You also have invested in having wraps designed to make your trucks into rolling billboards that look very nice. (I especially like the bright green color you have chosen to use. It looks good.)
BUT I think you could have been given bad advice by the company that did your artwork. They must not have known that Mickey and Minnie are intellectual property and protected from copyright infringement.
I also think “The” Villages is not supposed to be used in advertising by outside companies. That is why you sometimes see only the one word ‘Villages’ without the ‘The’ — as in that online tabloid-ish paper “villages-news.” There are several businesses around here who use ‘Village’ or ‘Villages’ in their names, but I am pretty sure TV owns the ‘The’ as part of their trademarked/copyrighted company name.
I would be careful with implying an official business association with TV. “The Villages” is a corporation. It is not only or strictly or exactly a geographical location for a map. In addition to borrowing the name, you could be borrowing trouble.
Anyway, I did not mean to try to rain on your parade this morning. You are obviously serious about investing in your business, and you are not running around with a magnetic sign on a truck. But….
I hope you will follow up on my unsolicited advice to check into whether you need to drop the ‘The’ in front of Villages — or maybe drop it all together because roofs and TV have had a sometimes sensitive history together and they might not want their name thrown around or implied. I think you might also need to let Mickey and Minnie go………unless, of course, you have been given legal permission to use these things in your advertising.
Btw, I checked on Mickey’s intellectual property status and found something that said Mickey’s copyright could be expiring soon — but it looks like that applies only to his Steamboat Willie image. (I am not sure of that though because I did only a quick search and not a deep dig.)
Those in the advertising business should be well aware of the potential for legal issues involving copyright infringement — but they don’t always know about those things.
I don’t like being the bearer of bad tidings, but you might want to ask some questions and decide if you need to make some decisions to tweak a couple of things in your advertising. I hope you will look into what I am saying.
Boomer (who is not a lawyer but who knows a little bit about a lot of things — and not a whole lot about anything)
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From "The Villages" Trademark website:
"Because “The Villages” is also the name of our community, we understand there are times when folks have to use “The Villages” to refer to our community, inform customers that they serve the needs of our residents, or are located convenient to the community’s boundaries. Such uses are “fair uses” so long as they refer to the community without implying any official connection with it or The Villages Companies or their licensees. Problems can arise, however, if third parties use “The Villages” as a trademark or in some way that makes it hard for consumers to tell whether or not they are affiliated with or endorsed by The Villages Companies."
Of course, there is more detailed info on the website below.
It's all spelled out for businesses to read. And, from what I can discern, they are completely within the Trademark rules.
And I'm
sure the roofing company appreciates your concern for their business...