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 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
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.
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: