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Norwood man wants ad agency to sing different tune over McDonald's Filet-o-Fish ad
By adamg on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 9:13am
Who could forget that McDonald's commercial with the singing fish? Not Daniel Thomas Calden of Norwood, who says the ad agency that came up with it ripped off his idea, to the tune of $20 million in damages.
In his copyright-infringement lawsuit, originally filed in state court but now in US District Court in Boston, Calden says the ad by Arnold Worldwide of Boston is based on a music video he posted to a McDonald's contest on MySpace in 2008. Calden's video was about the Big Mac and featured a singing sock puppet, but Calden says it's obvious Arnold took his work and parodied it for use in what became one of the earwormiest TV campaigns of the decade.
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Comments
While socks can smell like fish...
If the McD's commercial had the sandwich doing the singing this guy might have an argument...But those talking/singing fish have been around for a while, and there is nothing original about sock puppets. Cultural zeitgeist does not a copyright infringement make.
Ah, this guy is just
fishin for a lawsuit (Sorry, could not resist). Anywho, I really don't see copyright infringement here. Singing "creatures" been used in commercials for some time now as well as other folks, other than he, using singing sock puppets. Good luck to him!
FISHSONG
I love that song. Should've won a Grammy.
Wow! Adam! Some recognition by the mainstream media!
"A Norwood man claims he was ripped off by the ad agency that produced the catchy McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish ad, UniversalHub.com reported."
Here's the link:
http://www.wcvb.com/news/money/Norwood-man-claims-...
Good for you! Although recognition by the mainstream media of being part of the mainstream media is not necessarily a good thing...
Hey, I'm in the market for a fedora
To go with the press pass I hope to get soon from the state court system ...
Recognition's always nice, and give Channel 5 props for spelling "Filet-o-Fish" correctly, unlike with the bastardized version I originally had in my headline.
Hmm...
There are some similarities between the videos but I don't think there are enough to warrant copyright infringement. So what I'm saying is, yes, I think Arnold Advertising stole his idea but I don't think there's enough evidence on its face to warrant a copyright infringement win by the plaintiff.
DDB held the Big Mac contest NOT Arnold
There is no way Arnold ripped off this guy's idea. They never even saw his entry.
DDB out of chicago held the Big Mac contest. This guy is fishing--big time.
Maybe Pets.com should resurrect itself and sue him and his sock puppet for 20 million
One problem
I bet part of submitting his entry to a McDonalds contest was to grant McDonalds an exclusive license to do pretty much whatever they wanted with the entries...including the possibility that they could give them to an ad agency to do with them whatever they wanted...like use them as creative copy.
However, after viewing both videos, I find zero duplication of the beat, the melody, the song lyrics, or even the actions in the video aside from "normally inanimate object sings about McDonalds food".
He's all washed up.
Exactly what I was thinking---contest rules
Most of those contests do have rules that say basically "we own everything" so I'll bet that was the case in the fine print here.
On the other hand, this is the same company that ended up paying a settlement to a lady who sued because she spilled hot coffee on her own crotch--so who knows what'll happen.
It's time to can the crotch coffee canard
First off, they refused to settle. That's why it was so famous as a lawsuit that actually received a large jury judgement (not large enough if you ask me based on the facts of the case). Speaking of facts:
1) The 79-year old woman received 3rd degree burns as a result of the temperature of the lavacoffee that spilled out when she removed the lid to add cream and sugar, while parked in the lot. The wounds required multiple skin grafts and over $200,000 in medical bills (that's 1992 healthcare costs).
2) McDonalds had previously received over 700 complaints about its coffee being brewed too hot for consumption to the point of burning the complainants...and had paid out over $500,000 in settlements prior to the famous lawsuit.
3) McDonalds defense in court was that a 79-year old woman didn't strip off her pants fast enough in front of her grandson (who was driving the car) and that because she was old her skin wasn't as tough as younger individuals...even after their own quality assurance manager testified that they knew it was too hot to serve without causing injury and didn't care.
4) McDonalds dragged the woman through every process possible after the jury award. She was left with just enough to pay off her medical debt and legal costs (around $400,000 when the original judgement was $2,700,000).
5) She didn't even want to sue them, but they refused to help in any way with her medical costs to replace the skin and muscle burned off by their coffee.
What happened after the trial, aided by the mass media, was outrageous. McDonalds and the insurance company worked to spread the meme that some "crazy lady" had "dumped her coffee in her lap" and then got them to fork over "millions" for her own stupidity.
No one is interested in the truth...
... when it comes to this story (and ones like it). People are quite happy with the comfy little myths they've been sold by corporate PR departments.
Worst part
is it's led to states capping liability payments for bodily injury awards. Many states like TX now have hard caps, so if you medical & legal bills are more than the settlement, you're screwed.
And more states are following suit in the name of "reducing healthcare costs".
1) OK but 2) not so fast
I knew about the reduced payment to the lady....I KNOW she didn't get the millions of dollar she'd filed for. I'd thought it was a settlement, but you're right, it was a reduced payment on appeal. Wrong terminology there on my part.
But guess what. McDonalds DID pay settlements. You said it yourself in your point #2.
So, thanks for proving my post to be mostly correct. They may have not paid hot coffee settlements to that one lady, but they paid coffee settlements. Showing a HISTORY of paying settlements led Fish Boy to file his own suit, I'm certain. That was my point.
Bad examples then
Yes, but that's why I responded as I did. It wasn't just the technicality of whether they settled with her or other people, but to point to the coffee burn situations that occurred due to overheating McDonalds coffee (by McD's policy) and caricaturize them as classic absurdist "they spilled it on themselves and won money anyways" argumentation is the thrust of my point.
There are plenty of examples of greedy people suing companies just to get a settlement for things that were outside the reasonable expectations of the company's control. The scalding coffee burns from McDonalds coffee is not such an example, even though it has sadly turned into one due to media messaging.
We agree that his lawsuit is probably a hope for settlement which is a learned behavior at this point due to an overly litigious society. I just twitch whenever I hear "McDonalds coffee" used as the poster child for that problem.
Yes bad example(s) by me
.you're right about that.....I took the easy road using that case because of it being mcDonalds. Make no mistake, I freakin' hate McDonalds and everything they stand for.
same
The beat is the same, and the rap in the middle is also VERY similar.
BUT, this guy should know that anything you put up on myspace is fair game to take. I assume the contest spelled this out.