"Playpen Magazine"? (1 Viewer)

[MarkHastings]

Cool! I've just ordered subscriptions to: "Latina Wedding", "Stroller World", "CompUMouse", "Backside", "Sports Limited", & "Celebrity Doggies".

 

[bobgk]

from Van Wilder: Freshman Year

 

[cr02]

The Earl Hays Press created Playpen as a series of movie props, along with dozens of other fake magazines, books, beers and other products.


Scroll about halfway down on this site: http://www.theearlhayspress.com/id1.html

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by nutan

Hi there,


In terms of the names of fake products that you see in TV shows and films they are not used to make the audience laugh or make reference to other shows. They are used for legal reasons. Productions cannot just use whatever product they want without permission from the trademark or copyright holder therefore we make up fake names and sometimes the person who makes them up can have a little fun!

I've never understood why they need anyone's permission to use a physical object that is freely available for sale, especially if they aren't disparaging the product. I thought they used fake products to avoid giving free advertising to paid products.


What exactly would the charge be if they did it without permission and the company objected?


Wouldn't the magazine want the free publicity?


This makes me wonder about the whole product placement issue.

 

[John Stell]

Now that we're in the 21st Century they should update the name to PlayPal.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood





I've never understood why they need anyone's permission to use a physical object that is freely available for sale, especially if they aren't disparaging the product. I thought they used fake products to avoid giving free advertising to paid products.


What exactly would the charge be if they did it without permission and the company objected?


Wouldn't the magazine want the free publicity?


This makes me wonder about the whole product placement issue.

I must say I agree. It gets even more bizarre when dealing with non-scripted shows, e.g interviews on the street or with celebs, or "reality TV"; even paintings in the background of, say a hotel room where an interview is taking place, gets pixellated out, or the logo or slogan on the T-shirt of a passer-by being interviewed.


In some respects I can understand not wanting to give free publicity, but sometimes it gets ridiculous, e.g. the Audi 4-ring logo is blocked out, when it's blindingly obvious that the car being driven is an R8 and it can't be anything else. But if not giving free publicity is the reason, it strikes me as being a bit petty. And is it really cost-effective to have some tech go over all your footage pixellating the logo?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I've never understood why they need anyone's permission to use a physical object that is freely available for sale, especially if they aren't disparaging the product.

Because things are covered by copyright and trademark and may only be licensed for certain uses. Even things like cover photographs my be license by the photographer to a magazine solely for that use, with the photographer retaining all other rights. And if Ford is helping to sponsor a show, or is paying to have its cars featured in a show, it won't want Audi's logo showing up. Sometimes shows do it to avoid running into problems when they air in other markets where there a given station may have a promotional agreement with a competing product.

Regards,


Joe

 

[Malcolm R]

Originally Posted by Yee-Ming

I must say I agree. It gets even more bizarre when dealing with non-scripted shows, e.g interviews on the street or with celebs, or "reality TV"; even paintings in the background of, say a hotel room where an interview is taking place, gets pixellated out, or the logo or slogan on the T-shirt of a passer-by being interviewed.


In some respects I can understand not wanting to give free publicity, but sometimes it gets ridiculous, e.g. the Audi 4-ring logo is blocked out, when it's blindingly obvious that the car being driven is an R8 and it can't be anything else. But if not giving free publicity is the reason, it strikes me as being a bit petty. And is it really cost-effective to have some tech go over all your footage pixellating the logo?

I was watching a cooking show on Food Network the other day, Sandra's Money-Saving Meals, and they had blurred out the graphics on the host's T-shirt for the entire show. It must have cost them a pretty penny to essentially CGI the entire show (though apparently it was less than shooting the whole thing again from scratch). Hard to believe no one on the production team caught it before the episode taped if it was going to be a that big a problem.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino


Because things are covered by copyright and trademark and may only be licensed for certain uses. Even things like cover photographs my be license by the photographer to a magazine solely for that use, with the photographer retaining all other rights. And if Ford is helping to sponsor a show, or is paying to have its cars featured in a show, it won't want Audi's logo showing up. Sometimes shows do it to avoid running into problems when they air in other markets where there a given station may have a promotional agreement with a competing product.

Regards,


Joe

Thing is, wouldn't a random appearance on a TV show be covered by fair-use laws? It's not as if the TV show is literally copying the magazine, or the cover photograph, for the purpose of selling the program. Or for that matter, say a case of a reporter interviewing someone who happens to be wearing a Nike shirt, why the need to block the Swoosh logo? I'm pretty certain Nike would have no problem with it, free publicity after all.


As for a Ford-sponsored show blocking Audi's logo, fair enough, that makes perfect commercial sense. But one then wonders why they don't take more effort to avoid having competing logos show up in the first place; on the other hand, is the tech now so advanced and so good now that it's relatively cheap to pixellate something even for an entire show?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yes, the pixelating tech is cheap and easy. Mark a section of an object and the software can follow it with relative ease. It is hardly "CGI". And there can be reasons other than advertising for blocking a logo. In the Food Network case, maybe it was a slogan that seemed innocuous to the production crew, but which the lawyers decided might offend somebody, so they blocked it out. There's currently a commercial for a new disposable diaper from Huggies that looks like denim shorts. The tag line is "the best you'll look pooping your pants". Some stations are running an alternate version of the ad with a different tagline because they think some of their viewers would object. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Or maybe Sara was wearing a t-shirt from a brand that was a sponsor when they shot they episode, but which had since dropped out.

Finally, you're assuming they were pixelating a logo of some sort. Maybe it was just cold in the studio that day and the S&P folks got nervous.

wouldn't a random appearance on a TV show be covered by fair-use laws?

Not necessarily.

Section 107 [of Title 17, United States Code - the Title that defines copyright law] contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

News reporting, yeah, other uses, no.


Also don't forget that things like the Nike "swoosh" aren't copyrighted, they're trademarked - and trademark law is a whole different animal.

Finally it isn't always the trademark/copyright holder who has the issue. Sometimes the station or network just decides it doesn't feel like providing free publicity for brand "x" when it is in the business of charging for advertising. If brand "x" wants to get its logo in front of WXYZ's viewers, it can pay like everybody else.

Regards,


Joe

 

[Yee-Ming]

^^ Many thanks for a comprehensive answer.

Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino
Also don't forget that things like the Nike "swoosh" aren't copyrighted, they're trademarked - and trademark law is a whole different animal.

For trademarks, don't they have to be "used as a trademark" to constitute infringement? So when a TV show shoots someone wearing an original Nike T-shirt, the appearance of the Nike swoosh is not being "used" by the TV show as a trademark, in the sense of them having applied it to the DVD packaging or in the credits, but it simply showed up on a genuine Nike article.

 

[realj009]

I've personally seen the "Playpen" magazine in the new Fox tv show The Good Guys, and also the animated show Futurama. Of course that one was animated, but it still used the same name.

 

[yelopq]

I love catching stuff like this in television shows

 

[bassplayer6669]

Originally Posted by Jesse Skeen

this same issue is in that 70's show season 3. the episode where the guys walk into a bar and find out hyde's dad is the bartender. also i've seen issues of playpen in family guy. the episode where peter runs for mayor or something and he gives chris a box full of girly mags and chris gives them to everyone at his school. except i've also noticed that in that episode they fucked up on one of the mags and it says playpan on it.