CASE REFRESHES THE PARTS OTHER COPYRIGHT LAWYERS CAN'T REACH

On Sunday, the Sunday Business Post reported that the Irish company Sonarstate is contemplating suing Heineken and its advertising agency, McCann Erickson, for copyright infringement. Sonarstate claims that the Speakerhead character used in Heineken’s “Where’s your head at?” campaign infringed its copyright in the Speakerboy character that Sonarstate used in its marketing campaign which involved Eircell and Sony Music. It is thought that Sonarstate was planning to use the Speakerboy character in its next round of advertising.

The IPKat is interested to see how this one goes. In particular, he will be interested to know whether there will be any discussion of whether fictional characters can be protected by copyright – always a controversial issue.

Past Heineken advertisements of note here, here and here