🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <PREECE.92Apr21093425@neptune.urbana.mcd.mot.com> preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece) writes:
>Does anybody know the details of the Webster's dictionary and Bette
>Midler cases -- were they based on overall look and feel or on specific,
>quantifiable points?

I don't think the Bette Midler case was really a "look and feel" case;
it was more like a case of fraud.

The advertising agency asked Midler to perform one of her best-known songs
for a commercial.  She refused.  They then hired a singer who had worked
as Midler's backup singer and asked her to do a Midler impression, which
she did very effectively.

Now, if the commercial had run a disclaimer in little white letters saying
"This is not Bette Midler singing, Ms. Midler has refused to endorse our
product, this is a Bette Midler imitator" it would have been one thing.
But when I first heard the commercial, I assumed it was Bette Midler.  This
is more than copyright violation; it's fraud.  There was a time (before
everyone sold out) when it was considered disreputable for popular
musicians to make commercials (but now we have M.C. "how low can you go"
Hammer).  No person should be put in the position of appearing to endorse
a product without giving consent (but now Diet Coke is exhuming the dead
and sticking them in the commercials.  Disgusting).

As I recall, the judge used some language in his decision that appears to
support a "look and feel" interpretation (stuff about "unique vocal
stylings" and all), but I think that the fact that the agency attempted to
give the impression that it was actually Midler, and not someone who
sounded like her, in the commercial, is the real reason to rule against
them.



--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu