Posted on 08/25/2020 3:55:23 AM PDT by gattaca
It was a venture born of desperation. Four months into quarantine, Yohana Agurto, an unemployed teacher in Chile, was scrolling through social media to take her mind off her dwindling savings and the four children she had to feed. Inspiration struck when she and her boyfriend came across a post with a photo of the American actor Mel Gibson. Agurto remembered she had a large stash of organic honey in the pantry. Mel sounds quite similar to the Spanish word for honey, miel. So on a whim, Agurto had a graphic designer friend sketch out a logo with a scene from the movie Braveheart, printed a handful at home and glued them onto glass jars.
That was the origin of Miel Gibson, the tiniest and scrappiest of businesses, which catered, according to the label, Only to the brave. She advertised on social media and by word-of-mouth, picking up enough orders to keep her reasonably busy and the familys bills paid. Then last week a most unwelcome email popped into Agurtos inbox with the subject line: Cease and Desist/Miel Gibson.
We are counsel to Mel Gibson, said the letter, which was sent by a Los Angeles attorney whose firm represents several celebrities. It has come to my attention that you are illegally using Mr Gibsons name and/or likeness and/or biography to market or sell honey products.
At first Agurto entertained the possibility the whole thing could be a cruel joke, but when it became clear it was a real legal threat, she panicked. I realised I was up against Goliath, she said in an interview. Some friends told Agurto she should ignore the letter, arguing that no American lawyer would waste time shutting down a woman selling honey from her home in Santiago during a pandemic. But others warned her that Americans are tremendously litigious, Agurto said, which led her to delete the email account she had created for the business, hoping the whole thing would go away. I was terribly anguished, Agurto (40) said in an interview. I thought I could end up facing fines. What would happen to my family, to my finances? Im a single mother of four and they depend on me. Chiles quarantine has been among the longest and strictest in the world, and the country is still reeling from one of the highest per capita rates of infection. The government recently authorised Chileans to dip into their pension plans early to provide a lifeline to millions who are struggling to make ends meet as several sectors of the economy remain paralysed.
No buns, no sauce, no fries, no wedges: How to make the perfect chip butty Tomatoes: To skin or not to skin? Sabrina Ghayour: I dont have a bee in my bonnet about authenticity Yohana Agurto in her home in Santiago, Chile, where she packs her honey with her team. Photograph: Victor Ruiz Caballero/The New York Times Yohana Agurto in her home in Santiago, Chile, where she packs her honey with her team. Photograph: Victor Ruiz Caballero/The New York Times After a couple sleepless nights, Agurto decided she had invested too much time and effort in her artisanal honey brand to simply shut it down. She reflected on how much she admired William Wallace, the Scottish warrior Gibson played in Braveheart, and decided to go public about the legal threat.
Her plight got plenty of sympathetic press coverage in Chile and beyond, free legal advice and a torrent of new orders. On Monday, Agurto said messages from would-be customers were streaming in by text message and on her social media accounts faster than she could read them.
The bulk sellers where she gets her honey are nearly out of stock. Im sleeping three hours a night, she said. I have hundreds of messages I havent responded to. María José Arancibia, a lawyer in Chile who represents Agurto, said she had reached out to the actors attorney, hoping to negotiate a compromise. Arancibia said Miel Gibson intends to keep its name but plans to lose the actors image from the label.
Businesses and celebrities routinely send cease-and-desist letters to people who are profiting from copyrighted images, names and logos without authorisation. Gibsons lawyer, Leigh Brecheen, said that her client is not seeking to put Agurto out of business.
None of this is meant to prevent anyone from earning an income or creating a business, she said in an emailed statement. But there are proper channels to contact and clearances you need to go through to make sure you have the approval for such usage.
Regardless of how the matter gets resolved, Agurto said she would love to send a courtesy sample of Miel Gibson to Mel Gibson. She wants him to know, she added, that the ordeal has not made her any less of a fan. My motivation was not to profit by using the image of a famous person, she said. I was selling honey to survive. New York Times
Lol.
Bull. First, the article is a hit piece on Gibson. If she was only using her name, it wouldn't be an issue, and Gibson wouldn't have sued. She put Mel Gibson's picture on the label. It looks like a still from Braveheart.
She was deliberately using the name similarity to create a false impression that Mel Gibson was affiliated with her.
She's selling a food product. There's no way Gibson should allow his image to be affiliated with someone who entered into business using deceptive practices. If he continues to allow his image to be affiliated with her, what happens if someone sues, claiming there were pesticides in the honey that made them sick. They'd immediately go after the deep pockets.
As an aside, the photos, particularly the second one of her as the "sassy business woman with her arms crossed" are pure psyops.
I think Mel should have presented her with written permission to use his likeness and stuff in person, and made a publicity coup out of it for both of them. This is shortsighted, destructive, and unnecessarily selfish.
I’m on the west coast and we could partner up. We could sell brand name the Horseshit headlines, Spread the News, or The Roadapple Reader.
If the womans honey was so good, why did she stick a picture of
Gibson on the label? She should have included her picture on her label.
There is an issue with “derivative” branding.
My copyright experience is with images, not branding. But I know if you used one of my copyrighted photos, in its original form or a derivative form, I would have the ability to sue you and collect “treble” damages.
Of course, there are all sorts of rules in place and its been years since I’ve had to do any of this stuff.
My Dad created and sold organic honey for years (not sure what the “organic” meant for a product naturally generated by bees...) Why it is even a market is beyond me.
But since she is not the US, I would tell him to screw until I received something from a Chilean lawyer.
That is the way I read the article too.
This is a total hit piece on Mel Gibson because he is not a Hollywood Liberal.
About two miles down the street from my office in NH WAS an antiques dealer called “Needful Things”. It was a total rip off of the name of the same type of shop/business in the book by Stephen King. However, this antique shop was open for several years with that name until they were sent a cease a desist letter threatening legal action by Mr. King’s attorneys. They have since changed the name of their business to something else.
Mel Gibson should use this as an opportunity to promote this as good publicity. Let her use his image for X percent of her profits. Then donate that to some charity in Chile. It would make him look great. Right now this article is trying to make him look bad.
She is not making the honey herself. She is buying honey in bulk. The pictures show them ladling it out of 5 gallon buckets and into glass jars.
Most honey sold in the USA actually comes from Argentina. There are huge producers there that undercut the cost/gallon of everyone else. Next time you are in the supermarket, look at the label on a jar of honey.
I was told once that you should try to get honey from local producers IF you have seasonal pollen allergies. This being a homeopathic cure. You should ingest a tablespoon of this local honey everyday. Therefore, developing an eventual immunity to the same pollens that effect you seasonally when they are floating around in the air.
Read the story.
The woman is in Chile. The COUNTRY in South America.
NOT California.
Mel Gibson is probably only dimly aware of this, or perhaps unaware of it at all. He has a law firm on retainer to seek out and react to violations of his intellectual property rights. They do so more or less on autopilot.
Braveheart as a character does not belong to Gibson. Does the picture on these jars of honey resemble Gibson? That is going to be the issue at hand.
SO. MANY. HEALTH. VIOLATIONS!!!
First things first:
‘not guilty.”
Second, it’s an innocent pun on a widely known public character; are puns subject to copyright restrictions?
Popularity at some point reaches a level where the trade name becomes the common designation, “xerox,”for example—a bit of a gray area.
Third, I like the sentiment behind the name.
Fourth, she’s in the wrong despite all this, so let me suggest another name, one embodying all the virtues of the previous, and better looking to boot: “tsomer”
Odd don't you think that this poor woman trying to figure out how to feed her family just suddenly remembered she had this huge stash of honey?
My comment about disrespecting Nicki Haley was addressed to the author of the article who seems to think that the GOP only brings her out as a ‘token’.
That is very disrespectful considering she was actually given a very important job in the Trump administration.
I don’t agree with Nicki Haley always but the GOP is certainly NOT the party that has token people they being out. they do not have a ‘token black’ or a ‘token woman’ or anything. Democrats do that.
The freepers here immediately jumped to “BUT SHE’S A RINO...” and missed the point of the article, which was a dig at the GOP party.
Oh boo hoo. Change the name sweetie.
Problem solved.
A real life example of this stupidity.
Fraternities and Sororities signed up with the same company that protects colleges and university trademarks. If you have never gone through the production that is getting licensed, you are fortunate.
We looked into getting licensed for an “internal” agreement with the local collage. We would be “allowed” to produce items for employees and staff, but not for retail sale.
We were presented with a 24 page application, replete with demands - $10 million in liability insurance, joining a labor association that costs $200 a year, attending classes put on by that labor association every year for about another $500, a $250 non-refundable application fee, requiring submission of any item/design to be sold to a committee for approval (2 to 4 week wait for each submission), 12% of the gross sales and an annual fee of anywhere from $1500 to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the scope of the license.
In our 12 years of existence we have done work for two sororities. In both instances, chapters of those sororities approached us with artwork they wanted put on shirts. The latest one was Chi Omega - they wanted those words - Chi Omega - printed on the front of 50 white t-shirts, each letter a different color. It was a less than $400 order.
Eighteen months after the fact we get an email from the company that oversees their licensing. I did not know they were part of any licensing agreement - besides, it was just the words...not their colors, heraldry, etc.
The email said that they had documentation that I had violated the trademark of Chi Omega and wanted me to contact them to discuss joining the licensing group. I ignored the email.
A few weeks later some soy boy calls me and chastises me for ignoring their email. This is very serious and I could be facing strict financial penalties, he says. They don’t want any money for this first instance, but they want me to apply for the license to avoid future penalties.
I asked if he knew what we were supposed to have produced. All he knows, he said, was that it was a sale for about $400.
This went on for several minutes, mostly a robust discussion of the extent of the “trademark”, and ending with me hanging up on the limp dick.
I received a follow up email confirming that I would no longer produce any garments that infringed on the trademark of Chi Omega or any other sorority or fraternity.
So why did the girls come to me in the first place? Well, it seems that custom t-shirts from “authorized” companies cost $20 to $25 each and take 4 to 6 weeks. The girls had neither the time (their fall rush was in 3 weeks) nor the money to go that route.
So the net effect of them protecting their trademark is to make t-shirts far too expensive for the girls to afford.
Yep. Inversely, they're also good at making villains out of people who were doing nothing wrong.
Even if Gibson grants rights, will she also have to get rights for using the movie Braveheart? I doubt Mel Gibson is the sole owner of those rights.
laws are laws
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