Thursday, September 06, 2007

The law of the goldfish

When I was searching for a good picture to go with the previous post, I came across a commercial photography site offering to license this picture:
From the description: "This is a high definition [picture] of a bunch of generic goldfish crackers laid out on a black background."

Generic? Are you sure?

Review questions: does selling this stock photo infringe Pepperidge Farm's trade dress rights? Dilute them? What about the description of the crackers as "generic" -- does or should a cause of action exist for genericide?

Sample property release form from the Stanford Libraries' fair use site here.

(Post title adapted from The Law of the Horse -- which, by the way, produces an awesome targeted ad result on Google.)

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous2:18 PM

    Famously to those of us who read the book review section rather than the legal news, Tom Perrotta's Little Children had to remove an image of Goldfish crackers from the cover design of the hardcover edition after Pepperidge Farm complained. Interestingly, to tie it back to your set of images, the paperback cover has an image of a live goldfish in a plastic sack!

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