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Episode 47 - Gottlieb vs. Paramount Pictures
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago40 min listen
Highlights
- Silver Slugger was released by Gottlieb (under trade name Premier) in 1990 as a cheaper, simpler alternative to modern pinball machines
- Silver Slugger appeared in a scene in the 2000 film 'What Women Want' starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt
- Gottlieb's rights holders sued Paramount Pictures in 2008 for copyright and trademark infringement, eight years after the movie's release
- Gottlieb closed in 1996, six years after releasing Silver Slugger
- The lawsuit was dismissed early as a matter of law based on de minimis use doctrine
- The de minimis and fair use doctrines are not codified in the copyright act but evolved from case law
- Gottlieb's rights are currently held by Steve Young and Pinball Resource, who control access to Gottlieb manuals and parts
- Unlike other pinball manufacturers, Gottlieb machine manuals and schematics cannot be freely accessed through the Internet Pinball Database and must be purchased
- Gottlieb had a prototype for a Brooks and Dunn game that was never manufactured before the company went out of business
- The Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television case, where artwork appeared for a substantial portion of an episode (approximately 12 minutes), formed the legal basis for Gottlieb's de minimis argument
Notable quotes
“Gottlieb, though, was just like the only, I don't know, I guess everybody was selling big units back then, but they were definitely the flagship. And it's just funny how the mighty fall.”
“It's a little bit different than fair use, which I could get into the big differences. Fair use is a much broader, you're using it for specific purposes, or you've transformed it for a different means, like parody and all these other things. It's not quite that level. De minimis means it's just the car in the background.”
“I just don't think anybody would look and be like, oh, yeah, Gottlieb, the company that went out of business at this point 12 years prior. It was paying to put their pinball machines in the movie.”
“If you look at a lot of these games that they were making at this time, it's kind of no... It's not surprising that they went out of business.”
“So once again, the works of art thing, it does. There are both sides of it. And obviously, you can copyright these gorgeous, you know, pinball.”
“De minimis means it's just the car in the background of what that's blurred out and you're not seeing it. It's not an artistic expression. It's just something to fill the background.”
“Unlike every other machine where you can go on and find a PDF file of a manual or a schematic into the Internet Pinball Database to help you out if you're trying to work on your games, with Gottlieb, you have to go on and you have to buy a manual.”
“Bring it on. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Wait till I'm barred and we'll do this.”
Entities
- Coca-Cola· company
- Columbia Pictures· company
- Gottlieb· company
- Paramount Pictures· company
- Pinball Resource· company
- Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television· event
- Sandoval v. New Line Cinema· event
- Barbed Wire· game
- Brooks and Dunn· game
- Frank Thomas' Big Hurt· game
- Mario Andretti· game
- Silver Slugger· game
- Internet Pinball Database· organization
- Wedgehead Pinball Podcast· organization
- Alan· person
- Alex the Waterboy· person
- David Gottlieb· person
- Helen Hunt· person
- Mel Gibson· person
- Nancy Meyers· person
- Nate Taylor· person
- Steve Young· person
- What Women Want· product
