Comments on: Toho Sues Subway For Godzilla Commercial

By: Godzilla’s fearsome lawyers | Japan Probe

Godzilla’s fearsome lawyers | Japan Probe — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:39:43 +0000

[...] the above-pictured Subway advertisement that was subject to a lawsuit and eventual settlement over the unauthorized use of Godzilla’s [...]

By: distant creations » Think Godzilla’s Scary? Meet His Lawyers

distant creations » Think Godzilla’s Scary? Meet His Lawyers — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:35:35 +0000

[...] brought by Toho over its “Five-Dollar Foot-Long” sandwich campaign. As a result, Subway removed a seconds-long snippet in its broadcast commercial showing an animated dinosaur meandering through a downtown — in what [...]

By: Hailey

Hailey — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:25:48 +0000

For those of you that think that there is no problem with subway highjacking godzilla to basically endorse their own product, would you feel the same if burgur king dressed someone up like ronald mcdonald and had him endorsing burger king. This is not by any means fair use, fair use relates to when copyrighted material is used in an educational manner, an example of this would be if your local news were to do a segment on the upcomming godzilla movie and they showed an image of godzilla to acompany the story. Likewise this falls quite short of the qualifications to be considered parody. What we are dealing with is an advertisement which delibratly portrays godzilla doing what godzilla allways does (destroying a japanese city) just before he stops to endorse a subway product. Are you kidding me peaple? if this isnt copyright infringement then what is?

By: Karisu

Karisu — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:04:35 +0000

Fair Use

By: kobeboy

kobeboy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:15:55 +0000

Reminds of the advert for ChewIt’s from the UK back in the late 80′s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7YOXn32nmM

By: Courtney

Courtney — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:24:17 +0000

Ok first of all it isn’t even Subways fault. The only ones that are at any fault is the ones making the commercials. And for now just to be sueing about this, I mean hello Toho why don’t you start watching more tv and see all the other crap first before going out on others. I mean what the heck?
So ridiculous, your not the only one who gets these problems.

By: Dr. Pepsi

Dr. Pepsi — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:18:26 +0000

Ridiculous.
People who sue for stuff like this should be fined.

By: jjjtango

jjjtango — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:47:54 +0000

This comes as a surprise….TOHO must be desperate for some money hahahaha.

By: D-san

D-san — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:09:57 +0000

I’ll be surprised if they win. A lot of people have used Godzilla lookalikes in many things and never gotten sued.

By: mortonsalt

mortonsalt — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:09:00 +0000

thats right, parody is an actual loophole in the legal system that allows you to get away with that.

subway is not at fault because it’s a parody.

also using copy written material for “educational” purposes is not liable.

theres one other one but i can’t remember what it was.

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:12:01 +0000

LOL Sueing for an obvious parody. I guess TOHO isn’t doing so well.

By: Klauscore

Klauscore — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:49:48 +0000

If you have godzilla under contract, why do you have to sue? Why can’t you send him over to wreck some havoc?

By: 131172

131172 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:21:00 +0000

To me it is more like a spoof instead of a rip-off. I am not sure whether any copyright is infringed.

By: Tkyosam

Tkyosam — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:54:42 +0000

lol, the company wants all the money it can get towards a franchise they created