Pop culture sells. But who owns it?
Common sense and the law often provide an easy answer. It appears obvious that Paramount Pictures Corp., for example, owns the rights to all the characters in its movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Any business would implicitly understand the need for permission from Paramount to trade on the likeness of one of the movie’s characters, such as Burgundy himself. But what about Sex Panther, a favored cologne of one of the movie’s characters, to which he attributes his success seducing women? Sex Panther is a made-up brand in the movie. Could an enterprising retailer sell its own brand of Sex Panther cologne in the real world without infringing on Paramount’s property? Here, the law and the legal principles surrounding it are not so clear.
