Does mr P live in the same jurisdiction as Troy Gua?

If no: where does Troy Gua live?

Do they have a C&D type of procedure?

I guess mr P will have a hard case to explain why he has enough of his 'IP' in these dolls which have only a vague resemblance to a certain person of flesh and bones.

What if we take some voodoo dolls and have them wear PR-era stuff & a guitar?

Or a yellow assless outfit?

This is just as the Starwars litigation.

I see Troy Gua is from the USA.

Then he can have no real hope for a fair trial.

udo said:

I see Troy Gua is from the USA.

Then he can have no real hope for a fair trial.

Is it different in Europe?

Anyway, many many years ago we had a similar situation to Troy's. I remember vaguely. With Troy it's all the merchandise that caused the trouble, this was foreseable. Prince does not want anybody to profit off Prince, and also become popular as a person. I thought this was well known. The merchanidise was the last straw, and while I don't agree with Prince I can understand why he's doing this.

RIP 2 the sexiest wee doll I've ever seen! Such beautiful craftsmanship & artistic flair, I loved it. Shame that money started to cross hands That's what put the final nail in the coffin for LPP. It was beautiful while it lasted Troy! But it was really too good & u really shouldn't have made me fancy a plastic dolly man!

OzlemUcucu said:

udo said:

I see Troy Gua is from the USA.

Then he can have no real hope for a fair trial.

Is it different in Europe?

Anyway, many many years ago we had a similar situation to Troy's. I remember vaguely. With Troy it's all the merchandise that caused the trouble, this was foreseable. Prince does not want anybody to profit off Prince, and also become popular as a person. I thought this was well known. The merchanidise was the last straw, and while I don't agree with Prince I can understand why he's doing this.

Dunno.

The Anglo-Saxon influence is quite big but we're not like the USA yet.

NouveauDance said:

I didn't really follow the doll saga much, but thought they looked great - but did Troy ever mention trying to contact Prince's camp at all? I think sometimes it's a feeling like he's left out of the loop on this kind of thing that gets his back up.

Yeah, I believe he made several attempts to make contact. In his message today, he included this extract from his response to the C&D:

"I have, actually, attempted through modest connections to Mr. Nelson, to contact him to no avail. He is not an easy person to reach out to. I, on the other hand, am very easy to engage, and was actually, perhaps foolishly, hoping for contact from him regarding this project in a much more congenial form. If I had any possible way of reaching Mr. Nelson to ask him his thoughts on this matter or to propose a creative business venture, believe me, I would have. I would love nothing more, and would relish the opportunity to do so, still.”

Sad news, although not particularly surprising (which is perhaps sadder still).

I wonder if this "infringement" issue would apply to any other artist?

I'm familiar with the dolls, but don't know the whole story.

Does he make little Madonna or Bieber dolls as well???

Like many have said...you could see this coming.

But rightfully so.

I wouldnt want someone making dolls and merch of me without my involvement/permission....money aside.

NouveauDance said:

Scrooge McNelson don't like nobody else taking a swim in HIS moneypit!

Brilliant

Chiquetet said:

NouveauDance said:

I didn't really follow the doll saga much, but thought they looked great - but did Troy ever mention trying to contact Prince's camp at all? I think sometimes it's a feeling like he's left out of the loop on this kind of thing that gets his back up.

Yeah, I believe he made several attempts to make contact. In his message today, he included this extract from his response to the C&D:

"I have, actually, attempted through modest connections to Mr. Nelson, to contact him to no avail. He is not an easy person to reach out to. I, on the other hand, am very easy to engage, and was actually, perhaps foolishly, hoping for contact from him regarding this project in a much more congenial form. If I had any possible way of reaching Mr. Nelson to ask him his thoughts on this matter or to propose a creative business venture, believe me, I would have. I would love nothing more, and would relish the opportunity to do so, still.”

Sad news, although not particularly surprising (which is perhaps sadder still).

Do you know how many people try to contact Prince with ideas/sales pitches/ music/videos/etc.etc.??? People have been coming at him for 30+years now ..so it is quite normal that there was no response to the advances made.

udo said:

Does mr P live in the same jurisdiction as Troy Gua?

If no: where does Troy Gua live?

Do they have a C&D type of procedure?

I guess mr P will have a hard case to explain why he has enough of his 'IP' in these dolls which have only a vague resemblance to a certain person of flesh and bones.

What if we take some voodoo dolls and have them wear PR-era stuff & a guitar?

Or a yellow assless outfit?

This is just as the Starwars litigation.

vague resemblence? really..... .

thepope2the9s said:

udo said:

Does mr P live in the same jurisdiction as Troy Gua?

If no: where does Troy Gua live?

Do they have a C&D type of procedure?

I guess mr P will have a hard case to explain why he has enough of his 'IP' in these dolls which have only a vague resemblance to a certain person of flesh and bones.

What if we take some voodoo dolls and have them wear PR-era stuff & a guitar?

Or a yellow assless outfit?

This is just as the Starwars litigation.

vague resemblence? really..... .

Yes, but it's not the idea of the doll that caused issues now, it's the sale of the merchandise. Troy should have not posted his ideas so publicly. It'd be the same if you posted on a Dali art forum your own art replicas of Dali painting, and try to merchandise them. If they were posted just for exchange ideas, it'd be a different thing, but merchanidising is a no-go area specially on a Prince forum. I don't know how everybody else feels, but I feel as I am monitored here by a claustrophobic superstar. He has does nothing but piss off people in the last few months. How miserable one must be to cause such distress to fans? I guess you realised how much your latest ventures really suck, eh, Mr. Nelson? Both are really doomed to fail, now who is the looser?

Troy, I think you should have done this under the radar if you wanted to!

[Edited 11/14/12 6:53am]

How far-fetched must the resemblance be to allow legal sales for the USA legalese-perspective?

That is whay I said: voodoo dools. No facial resemblance, very abstact forms yet familiar clothing.

Just to test how freaking greedy the Anglo-Saxon system is.

IP or intellectual property is an invention.

No such thing exists.

Talent on the other hand does exist. It creates stuff out of ideas.

Now do show the talent to market that stuff so that you can earn from it and do not whine when others can do it more cheaply than your untalented ass.

Yes. This is very black-white but you get the idea.

A compromise with wayyy shorter (c)-terms and patent terms etc is needed.

thepope2the9s said:

udo said:

Does mr P live in the same jurisdiction as Troy Gua?

If no: where does Troy Gua live?

Do they have a C&D type of procedure?

I guess mr P will have a hard case to explain why he has enough of his 'IP' in these dolls which have only a vague resemblance to a certain person of flesh and bones.

What if we take some voodoo dolls and have them wear PR-era stuff & a guitar?

Or a yellow assless outfit?

This is just as the Starwars litigation.

vague resemblence? really..... .

Id know that ass anywhere

It's weird to me that people are pissed at Prince about this.

What other celebrity/enertainment entity allows the sale/reproduction of their likeness to be sold unofficially without authorization/consent?

If I start making numerous Harrison Ford looking dolls wearing cute little fedora hats, leather jackets, and carrying mini bullwhips that's fine. It's a glorified arts and craft project.

If I start marketing/selling these dolls Lucasfilm is going to be all over my ass with a cease and desist.

One more thought on this. Troy was clearly not making a profit. No one paid him for all the time he put in, and if you look at his prices I would be surprised if it covered his costs. Fully printed tees are one offs - as in no way could you aford to buy dozen and mark them up unless you were loaded. The calendars were reasonable as well.
Like I said earlier, I'm sure this could easily be won in a court case, but you'd need money to do it.

Even people like George Lucas - who is clearly out to make a buck - let's fans do Star Wars films and use likenesses under certain cionditions. If Prince wanted to stop just the merch, he could have said so. Instead he squashed all of it.

It's a shame this is what we have to talk about instead of some awesome music. I was just thinking back to hearing of a new Prince album and being excited ahead of time instead of wait and see. Perhaps more time making (good) stuff instead of hopping all over people wanting to enjoy his muisc and image would be a better use of time.

[Edited 11/14/12 7:40am]

skywalker said:

It's weird to me that people are pissed at Prince about this.

What other celebrity/enertainment entity allows the sale/reproduction of their likeness to be sold unofficially without authorization/consent?

If I start making numerous Harrison Ford looking dolls wearing cute little fedora hats, leather jackets, and carrying mini bullwhips that's fine. It's a glorified arts and craft project.

If I start marketing/selling these dolls Lucasfilm is going to be all over my ass with a cease and desist.

educate yourself - he never sold the doll.

Ever been to NY or the beach and seen all the airbrushed celebrities on tee shirts? How many of those are sold every year? Cease and desist there? Nope. You could paint a portrait of ANYONE and sell it. It's your work. No case for cease and desist. Mad magazine (is that still around?) parodies celebrities all the time with their likeness. No cease and desist. What about impersonators making a living off of playing that artists music. Cease and Desist? no. If he sold the likeness in the form of just a mass produced doll you might have a case. That's a liscensing issue. And Troy turned people down on that. If he wanted to make money THAT is the way to go.

He made one doll, fabricated it himself, made clothes himslef, shot photos himslef and made a tiny bit of mercahndise based on his art. Technically not on Prince's likeness. No judge in the world could say that was Prince he was photographing. He was photographing something he created. The bottom line is Prince could have not been a dick about it and simply asked for no merchndise to be sold but keep on creating.

Zannaloaf said:

One more thought on this. Troy was clearly not making a profit. No one paid him for all teh time he put in, and if you look at his prices I would be surprised if it covered his costs. Fully printed tees are one offs - as in no wy could you aford to buy dozen and mark them up unless you were loaded. The calendars were reasonable as well.
Like I said earlier, I'm sure this could easily be won in a court case, but you'd need money to do it.

Even people like George Lucas - who is clearly out to make a buck - let's fans do Star Wars films and use likenesses under certain cionditions. If Prince wanted to stop just the merch, he could have said so. Instead he squashed all of it.

It's a shame this is what we have to talk about instead of some awesome music. I was just thinking back to hearing of a new Prince album and being excited ahead of time instead of wait and see. Perhaps more time making (good) stuff instead of hopping all over people wanting to enjoy his muisc and image would be a better use of time.

1. Profit doesn't matter. They were for advertised for sale. That's copyright law.

2. George Lucas is relaxed on a lot of this stuff, but he is essentially letting fans infringe on his trademark. It is within in his rights to not allow it...if he wants.

It's not like it's a rule/copyright law that Prince invented. Nor is he the only one that enforces it.

Zannaloaf said:

educate yourself - he never sold the doll.

Okay, so he sold merchandise related to the dolls.

Ever been to NY or the beach and seen all the airbrushed celebrities on tee shirts? How many of those are sold every year? Cease and desist there? Nope. You could paint a portrait of ANYONE and sell it. It's your work. No case for cease and desist.

There could be cease and desists.

I think that troy's visibilty on the internet is actually what hurt him. If he had just been hitting up parks, beaches, malls, craft fairs...Prince's people probably wouldn't seen it, nor cared. However, the internet is a HUGE audience...one that Prince doesn't tap into for some reason..but that's another conversation.

Mad magazine (is that still around?) parodies celebrities all the time with their likeness. No cease and desist. What about impersonators making a living off of playing that artists music. Cease and Desist? no. If he sold the likeness in the form of just a mass produced doll you might have a case. That's a liscensing issue. And Troy turned people down on that. If he wanted to make money THAT is the way to go.

Not sure the Mad Magazine magazine analogy is the same. Parody/impersonations are a different bag?

Listen, I am not saying Prince is a swell guy or super fan friendly when it comes to his copyright, but obviously selling merchandise with some version of Prince's image (based on his likeness "technically" or not) is opening yourself up for legal headaches. I think if I reproduced and sold my own art of Prince's face, that he could come after me...especially if I incorporated things like his symbol etc.

He made one doll, fabricated it himself, made clothes himslef, shot photos himslef and made a tiny bit of mercahndise based on his art. Technically not on Prince's likeness. No judge in the world could say that was Prince he was photographing. He was photographing something he created. The bottom line is Prince could have not been a dick about it and simply asked for no merchndise to be sold but keep on creating.

Again, "technically not on Prince's likeness"? "Tiny bit of merchandise"? I think these are the sticking points to a cease and desist.

Maybe Prince has no rights at all on this, but I think that if someone made a cartoon that looked EXACTLY LIKE YOU and reproduced/sold books/calendars/posters of it, you'd have some legal ground to stop it.

vainandy said:

It's a doll made up to look like Prince. I don't see it as any different than when Dave Chapelle made himself up to look like Prince and he sold the DVDs of him making fun of him. The doll was not for sale and was made out of admiration. So the calendars were for sale but they were pictures of the doll dressed as Prince but not Prince himself. And the Dave Chapelle DVDs were for sale and they were Dave Chapelle dressed as Prince and not Prince himself. Sounds like the same thing to me except one was making fun of him and the other was admiring him. The choices of who he goes after seems assbackwards to me but oh well....

.

.

.

[Edited 11/13/12 22:55pm]

Using likeness for the sake of parody is considered fair use. If he really tries to sell these dolls then I wouldn't have a problem believing most judges would consider it an attempt to sell unauthorized merchandise.

I personally thought the appeal of the dolls got old pretty quick, although I admit they do look like "art objects" instead of just looking like bog standard merchandise. I wouldn't be surprised if Prince himself thought they were creepy.

novabrkr said:

vainandy said:

It's a doll made up to look like Prince. I don't see it as any different than when Dave Chapelle made himself up to look like Prince and he sold the DVDs of him making fun of him. The doll was not for sale and was made out of admiration. So the calendars were for sale but they were pictures of the doll dressed as Prince but not Prince himself. And the Dave Chapelle DVDs were for sale and they were Dave Chapelle dressed as Prince and not Prince himself. Sounds like the same thing to me except one was making fun of him and the other was admiring him. The choices of who he goes after seems assbackwards to me but oh well....

.

.

.

[Edited 11/13/12 22:55pm]

Using likeness for the sake of parody is considered fair use. If he really tries to sell these dolls then I wouldn't have a problem believing most judges would consider it an attempt to sell unauthorized merchandise.

I personally thought the appeal of the dolls got old pretty quick, although I admit they do look like "art objects" instead of just looking like bog standard merchandise. I wouldn't be surprised if Prince himself thought they were creepy.

Which is ironic considering all of the creepy looking dolls in Purple Rain.

rlittler81 said:

From Lisa Coleman's facebook page...

"all I can say is... Troy, You're in good company. ♥"

Lisa had posted some of Troy's pics on her FB page. sorry if already posted.

Lisa also posted on Le Petit Prince's facebook page:

"to Troy...
You are a very good artist, and we have all been lucky to share in your craft and good natured endeavor. The wonderful thing about being FREE in this country to be an artist, is that you can reflect the folklore of your country and your experience in life. Too many artist think only of art as entertainment and commerce. You are a true American Folk Artist. You should be proud. Thank you for putting yourself out there! Thank you for being a voice for so many people.
Thank you for the positivity.
Don't stop being who you are.
With Love and Respect.
xlisa"

What a class act.

afro75 said:

rlittler81 said:

From Lisa Coleman's facebook page...

"all I can say is... Troy, You're in good company. ♥"

Lisa had posted some of Troy's pics on her FB page. sorry if already posted.

Lisa also posted on Le Petit Prince's facebook page:

"to Troy...
You are a very good artist, and we have all been lucky to share in your craft and good natured endeavor. The wonderful thing about being FREE in this country to be an artist, is that you can reflect the folklore of your country and your experience in life. Too many artist think only of art as entertainment and commerce. You are a true American Folk Artist. You should be proud. Thank you for putting yourself out there! Thank you for being a voice for so many people.
Thank you for the positivity.
Don't stop being who you are.
With Love and Respect.
xlisa"

What a class act.

He should make Wendy and Lisa dolls and sell them. Complete with "is the water warm enough" hot tub.

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

I told Troy not long ago that hope the Prince Police don't come after him. I feel bad 4 him. But him being a fan of Prince it had 2 cross his mind.I expected it to happen. I'm glad i just got my calendar the other day.

I have to stand by Prince's decision. It is his likeness & right to control anything that profits off of his likeness. know this will bring the already Prince haters a reason to hate on him again. I wish that all of U haters will just close ur accounts & go away for good... Maybe this will do it

hate U

[Not nice to falsely accuse someone when you have no proof snip - luv4u]

mask said:

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

I told Troy not long ago that hope the Prince Police don't come after him. I feel bad 4 him. But him being a fan of Prince it had 2 cross his mind.I expected it to happen. I'm glad i just got my calendar the other day.

I have to stand by Prince's decision. It is his likeness & right to control anything that profits off of his likeness. know this will bring the already Prince haters a reason to hate on him again. I wish that all of U haters will just close ur accounts & go away for good... Maybe this will do it

hate U

[Not nice to falsely accuse someone when you have no proof snip - luv4u]

rlittler81 said:

From Lisa Coleman's facebook page...

"all I can say is... Troy, You're in good company. ♥"

Lisa had posted some of Troy's pics on her FB page. sorry if already posted.

That about sums it up right there....

StrangebutTrue

Troy's a guy right?

I'm just imagining what the reaction would've been if the maker of the dolls was a 22yo caramel piece of ass. Probably would've been the subject of his next aborted TV movie or a 3CD set.

skywalker said:

afro75 said:

Lisa also posted on Le Petit Prince's facebook page:

He should make Wendy and Lisa dolls and sell them. Complete with "is the water warm enough" hot tub.

rdhull said:

mask said:

[Not nice to falsely accuse someone when you have no proof snip - luv4u]