Imperial Storm Troopers Skirmish in Latest IP Battle

fm6 writes "According to guardian.co.uk, George Lucas is suing the designer of the Imperial Stormtrooper armor. Andrew Ainsworth took the original molds he used to make the props for the movies, and has been using them to make outfits that sell for up to £1,800 (US$3,600) apiece. Ainsworth has countersued for a share of the $12 billion that Star Wars merchandise has generated since the first movie."

Ungrateful Lucas?

[Izabael_DaJinn]

Lucas Licensing called the prop designer a "fan" even though he created the Stormtroopers!

A spokesman for Lucas Licensing said: "We would never want to discourage fans from showcasing their enthusiasm for the movies. However, anyone who tried to profit from using our copyrights and trademarks without authorisation ... we will go after them."

This guy made one of the really cool things about Star Wars!! We all see the sort of nonsense Lucas came up with without this guy :-( Nothing in the newer 3 movies was there anything as memorable as Stormtroopers. Am I wrong??

TFA doesn't really say anything about the details of the original contract, but it seems ridiculous for someone with the money of God to come after a little guy who did so much to make his movies distinctive.

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[NeverVotedBush]

I think that holders of copyrights and trademarks are obligated to protect them or else risk losing the copyright or trademark.

On the other hand, Lucas could make a sweetheart deal to license the trademarks and copyrights and not be at risk of losing the rights while also doing what sounds like the right thing by the person that contributed a huge amount to the Lucas "empire".

Re:Biter bitten

[TooMuchToDo]

RTFA: A california court ruled in favor or Lucasfilms, but since the designer lives in the UK, Lucasfilms has to sue there. Good luck getting a UK court to go along with the same tort bullshit the US passes off as civil law/justice.

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[King_TJ]

I thought it was pretty blatantly obvious by now that George Lucas is out to milk the Star Wars franchise for every dollar he can squeeze from it. This sort of thing would be par for the course, coming from him.

To an extent, that's not even necessarily a "bad thing". One of the moves Lucas made in the beginning which he's often admired/noted for was his shrewdness in securing the rights to royalties on all the toys and products (which Hollywood thought was worthless).

I think the information we're lacking here is the legal contract made between him and the set designer.... If it's clear that Lucas didn't allow the guy to go off and make money duplicating Stormtrooper outfits, then Lucas is in the right to sue him. Otherwise, I'd say he deserves to lose this case.

Whats in the contract?

[mckinnsb]

If the contract signs over all work to Lucas Film, this guy may be in a bit of a bind. If it doesn't, Lucas Film is in a bind.

I bet you two different contracts are presented.

Logical mode off: Its a goddamn Storm Trooper Costume! He was making them for 3k! You make millions of dollars! Go home!

Re:Biter bitten

[belmolis]

That's a bit too cynical. We don't have all the information here. If Lucas went hired Ainsworth and told him what he wanted and Ainsworth developed the detailed design and the molds, then the basic idea was Lucas's and the design was a work for hire, the rights to which belong to Lucas. It's just like when an engineer designs a chip for Intel - the design belongs to Intel, not the engineer.

It is possible that the arrangment was different, e.g. that the designer came up with the design and offered it to Lucas, in which case the rights would depend on what sort of contract they entered into (that is, whether Ainsworth merely licensed Lucas to use the design or whether he sold the rights outright), but the fact that a court has already ruled in Lucas' favor suggests a scenario like the one above. If so, it isn't a case of the courts screwing the little guy - it is a standard case of work for hire.

Re:He was hired to do a job

[Dun Malg]

He was hired to do a job.

The particularities of employment contracts vary. Unless you are privy to the specifics of the agreement, you, an uninformed goof on Slashdot, aren't really in any position to say.

Re:Merchandising Rights

[The MAZZTer]

Ugh I'm tired. A correction.

Obviously the prop designer is not bound by that specific contract, but he might have had an employee contract or the prop/mold he used might still technically belong to the studio or Lucas or something. Obviously the courts in California found something but the article is light in this area.

Re:Why pay 3600$ fo this...

[TubeSteak]

I hope this can be the beginning of a new /. meme.

Re:Biter bitten

[davmoo]

Believe it or not, and even now as well as 30 years ago, quite a bit of business is conducted without formal contracts. And for big dollar amounts. In the UK I can't say for sure, but in most US states, a verbal agreement is binding...but it then boils down to who what to who and when they said it. But as this case points out, its always best to get paper. And that's true even when all parties are "friends"...its amazing how fast money can change that friendship.

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[dougmc]

I'm not sure it's quite that cut and dried.

If I ask you to design some futuristic looking armor for some soldiers, and you do so without much more input from me beyond `I like it!', then you'd own the copyright on that. If we both worked on it equally, we'd probably both own the copyright.

If I paid you to design and make the design for the armor, then the contract would probably say who owned the copyright. If there's no written contract, then there's probably some law (`work for hire') that covers the situation, but I'm not so sure about that.

In this case, I would have expected that Lucas paid to have the design made, and there was probably a written contract and it probably assigned complete ownership of the final work (including the copyrights) to Lucas. But perhaps Lucas didn't fully lawyer up and there's some holes in this theory ...

Re:I'm sure this guy has done just fine

[Tacvek]

I've read above that this guy was paid "just" £30,000 for his work. Now, even if that's adjust for inflation and he was paid less than that, I still wouldn't feel sorry for him. If the only thing you put on your resume for the rest of your life is "Designed Storm Troopers Costume", then your career is made! I'm sure he's been reaping the benefits of his work indirectly ever since. Sure, it's not as much as Lucas himself, but he's gotten his share of the pie. He shouldn't be allowed to sell something that's not his, and when he sold the design to Lucas, it stopped being his, end-of-story.

Technically, he was not an employee, nor did he have any contract. The whole thing hinges on verbal agreements made so long ago neither could possibly remember the details. Under the circumstances any sane court would need to assume no assignment was made in the verbal agreement, but bar the counter-suit under latches. Lucas may well have a valid trademark case though, as the storm-trooper design may be subsumed into to overall storm-trooper visual trademark, but base design itself it almost certainly not owned by Lucas. A possible end result may be that neither may produce merchandise featuring the storm-trooper design without each others consent from this point forward. The obvious solution toi that would be cross-licensing the design rights for the rights to produce the storm trooper outfits.

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[ecavalli]

Certainly, but the guy's attempt at countersuing is either designed to point out how idiotic the whole suit is or he's exactly as greedy as Lucas.

I've been trying to see things from his point of view, but no matter how hard I try, there's just no way to justify giving the guy any part of the merchandise profit from Star Wars just because he's created some replica armor.

It's akin to a fan fiction author suing for royalties on a series he feels he somehow made more popular by writing a vaguely related piece of literature.

Appears that Lucas doesnt own the rights.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article,

Ainswoth said: 'As far as I am concerned I am the original maker and I'm using the original moulds.'

The prop designer was recruited to design the outfits in 1976 and sold the firsts 50 helmets to Lucas for £35 each.

It would appear that Lucas was buying a product, if he had intended to retain the rights to this product why didnt he purchase the molds?

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[ecavalli]

Sigh.

This is what I get for learning due diligence from /.

Since the guy was the one who originally created the armor for the films, it all depends on what the original contract said. If it isnt specifically stated that Lucas owns the design of the whole thing, I think the guy does deserve a bit of the royalties, at least as far as they relate to the actual Stormtrooper armor.

That said, I'd be surprised if Lucas wasn't clever enough even then to write in bits of the contract that state that he owns the whole thing.

I'd be shocked if this actually goes anywhere.

Re:He was hired to do a job

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true, in the UK employees also own the copyright to all their work unless signed over beforehand, usually a clause in your contract of employment (but not mine).

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[Saint Fnordius]

That's the problem right there. The designer as artist also has unalienable rights, and most likely he signed a boilerplate contract selling Lucas' production company the suits without addressing the issue of derivative designs or casting new suits. Such a thing was probably not even considered a possibility all those thirty-odd years ago.

The article states that a California court already ruled in favour of Mr. Lucas, but that ruling doesn't apply since Mr. Ainsworth is a Briton and most likely signed his contract under British law. That suggests to me that there may be some merit to the claim, possibly hinging on Ralph McQuarrie's concept design drawings/paintings, but Mr. Ainsworth is also a designer, and I think he could successfully argue that his designs are a derivative but separate artwork, and his counter-suit could have merit.

I think the real reason for Mr. Lucas' suit is as a warning shot to all of those prop designers who worked for the original Star Wars movies, in an attempt to maintain total control over his merchandising empire. It's not about the money, but keeping control, and I personally feel that it's a very selfish act.

Re:Ungrateful Lucas?

[RiotingPacifist]

Not sure whether this is +1 funny, or +1 insightful given the recent scandals.

Re:Correct!

[electrictroy]

IMHO

George Lucas showed unusual intelligence when he asked FOX Studios for the rights to the merchandise. Prior to 1976, virtually no other filmmakers did that, because it was believed by both directors and studios that "toys" were worthless, and the real money was in the film.

FOX was more than happy to sign that contract, because they thought Lucas was a fool. Well Lucas turned-out to be smarter than everybody else. And the fact that Andrew Ainsworth in 1976 failed to request payment for post-movie merchandishing is HIS OWN FAULT, and he has no one to blame but himself.

George Lucas' contract with Fox gives him the right to make money off the merchandise.

Andrew Ainsworth's contract does not; he could have requested a share, but he chose not to. His own dumb fault.

I will NOT thank Lucas

[elrous0]

I will *not* thank Lucas for starting the Hollywood "backend" phenomenon. It's just this sort of thing that led to increasingly out-of-control budgets for "blockbuster" movies that have made them increasingly annoying over the decades. Now we're stuck with droves of movies that are filled with how-do-we-top-ourselves special FX, overpaid celebrity-of-the-moment-actors, extensive audience testing that relentlessly strips anything worthwhile from the original script, product placement that's gone beyond distracting and well into the realm of the surreal, multiplexes that have 800 screens all playing the same 5 movies, shameful tie-in promotions, and many other evils.

Guys like Lucas and Spielberg sucked the creativity right out of mainstream movies. Back in the 70's, movies like the Godfather could play in a mainstream cinema and even command a big budget. Now those kinds of movies are relegated to the arthouse, with tiny budgets, and with no room for them in multiplexes (that cater only to the Michael Bay movie of the moment).

Re:Does anybody know what the armor does?

[kalirion]

To remove the blood and dehumanize the enemy so that we don't feel like real humans are being killed by the hundreds and the movies can be rated PG.

Re:Correct!

[immcintosh]

Now, maybe I'm missing something here, but when a person manufactures some artistic creation, that person by default has the right to profit from said creation. The real question here, it seems to me, is whether the terms of this costume designer's employment specifically gave those rights up. If not, my guess is he has every legal right to sell storm trooper armor to his heart's content.