Twilight Film Saga Provides Lesson on Unauthorized Documentary Dos and Donts

If you’re a fan of the Twilight books and films, you probably already know that the second Twilight movie, New Moon, will be available on dvd on March 20.

March 20 is also the scheduled release date for two related documentaries: The first is Twilight in Forks: The Saga of the Real Town. It is an “authorized” documentary to be released by Summit Entertainment, the company that produces the Twilight films. The second documentary, Forks: Bitten by Twilight, is to be released by Topics Entertainment, a large multimedia company that normally produces educational videos.

Summit is not thrilled by the “unauthorized” Topics documentary and has filed a lawsuit alleging false designation of origin, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, copyright infringement, and unfair competition.

Your Right to Make Documentary Productions about Popular Films and Books
Topics or anyone else can permissibly distribute a documentary offering commentary about a culturally popular phenomenon like the Twilight saga books and films. Under certain circumstances, the producer of such a documentary may even use excerpts from the books and films under the copyright fair use doctrine.

In this dispute, it’s not the content of the Topics’ Bitten by Twilight documentary that’s bothering Summit. It’s the dvd packaging that Topics plans to use. Summit claims Topics has designed the packaging to confuse consumers into thinking the “unauthorized” Bitten by Twilight documentary is actually authorized.

Topics Potential Wrong Turns
If you accept everything alleged in Summit’s complaint as true, Topics made a series of wrong turns and turned what could have been a completely legal documentary into a dvd project facing an injunction:

• The word “Twilight” on the dvd packaging mimics the very stylized format in which Twilight is written on the films, dvds and other Twilight merchandise.
  
  
• The Topics Bitten by Twilight dvd cover features a quote attributed to Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight books, that “. . . And there right where I wanted it to be, was a tiny town called ‘Forks.’” Summit alleges that Ms. Myers did not consent to use of the quote on the dvd cover.
  
  
• Topics is aggressively planning its release date to coincide with the dvd release of New Moon and the Summit Twilight in Forks documentary. This is not per se illegal but may suggest some bad faith on Topics’ part to confuse consumers.

Comments

[Twilight Soundtrack]

I just finished the Book Te itwilight. And I love it very much. There is detailed description of each and every point. I also love the movie "Twilight" . Now I am thinking "New Moon" of it. I wish I will watch it very soon.