Summit Entertainment (the film studio responsible for the Twilight saga films and the critically-acclaimed The Hurt Locker), has won its cast against Beckett Media, a company who has been producing unauthorized magazines related to the Twilight series.
The allegations contained in the original complaint indicated that Beckett had been provided with a cease and desist letter, requiring the cessation of Beckett's use of Summit Entertainment's publicity photos from the Twilight series films, but that they had refused to comply with the demands. Summit Entertainment was granted a preliminary injunction against Beckett's continued use of the copyrighted items.
A representative from Summit issued a statement on the court's decision, saying "Summit Entertainment acted to protect its rights in a situation which found Beckett Media using copyrighted and trademarked images and materials relating to the Twilight films for Beckett's financial gain without an agreement in place with Summit to legally license the right to produce materials based on its film franchise. Beckett's sale of stand alone magazines under the name Twilight, and wholesale use of Summit's copyrighted material in a commercial product, went well beyond the intended purpose of Summit's publicity site. We applaud the court for its judgment in this matter."
If you haven't actually seen Beckett Media's materials, you can take a look at one of their Twilight covers here (or here) and see the use of two studio-owned pictures from the very start. In other words, it wasn't a case of grasping at straws . . the uses really were rather egregious.
Comments
You know what, I thought those magazines were official. Woops!!! thanks for clearing that up. are the "Sexy Stars" mags authorized??
Whatever the case may be, it's horrible for people to make unauthorized gain. We all had a similar conversation about bootleg copies of New Moon and Twilight, and I said then I can't judge people for what they do, but it's unfair to the company. And I still stand behind that. It's unfair to have monetary gain without permission or an agreement from the people who hold the copyright on items. Be it Twilight, Star Trek, anything. Even a horrible movie (LOL). The crazy thing is this company blatantly did it. Their magazines are on sale everywhere. Of course someone would think it's an official magazine with actual stills from the movie on it. I'm not saying Summit should be able to take all of his money, but he owes them something for using their images, especially without permission.
I am not writing about Twilight which I love, Im writing to ask you to consider reading, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, its soon to be a saga and Im promising it will do just as well if not better than twilight, if it were made into a movie. Thanks pass the message.
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