MovieChat Forums > I Am Omega (2007) Discussion > How is this legal?------ Empire Article.

How is this legal?------ Empire Article.


I just read the article in Empire magazine, about these types of films. How are they legally allowed to do this? Could i make a film called 3.30 to Yuma?

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What do you mean? I am Omega and I am Legend and a bunch of other well known movies are based on the same book, I am Legend.

And about the other Asylum movies, the "rip-off's" actually aren't much like their big budget counterparts, only the names are similar.

So unless the producers of Transformers copyrighted the title "Transmorphers" then it's perfectly legal.

They aren't ripping off other movies, they are just marketing them to sound like other movies. I don't like it either, but the movies don't have much in common.

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Unfortunately no, I remember seeing a title in WHsmith entitled 48 Weeks later and unless you knew your movies in depth you would assume it was a follow up, the title was actually renamed in the UK from Gangs fo The Dead. The same applies through all business though, you can gurantee the £1 shops will be selling "Spider Hero" dolls in time for Xmas.

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This movie is an adaptattion of the 1954 novel"I am legend"

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"This movie is an adaptattion of the 1954 novel"I am legend" "

Then where's Richard Matheson's credit?

Hey, this guy's not gonna leak all over my ice cream, is he?

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He is credited as the writer of the source material.

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I went through the endscore twice, and there no Matheson there!

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No, its a rip off of I Am Legend, the movie. Thats what this film company "Asylum" does.

Im the boss.

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Actually junttijoe you are incorrect on the legal analysis.
This is a blatant attempt to confuse the consumer which violates federal Trademark law in the United States, but I'm sure that big production companies like Paramount don't bother going after this small-time low revenue company for its spoofs. This isn't even an exception as a "parody" to the original blockbusters because there clearly is no added social commentary or anything satirical in these ripoffs. they just try to profit off of the goodwill of large successful blockbuster movies.
As for copyright infringement, again similar analysis but you'd have to look at the copyright act to see where and how the producers rights are infringed. A copyright holder, similar to a TM holder, does NOT need to TM or copyright every possible name scenario that sounds similar. Instead there is a legal cause of action whenever there is a likelihood of consumer confusion based on the bad faith of the ripoff company.

Here there is a bad faith intent to profit off of real films like I am Legend, Transformers, and Universal soldiers (although by "real" I only mean they came out first and were blockbusters at the Boxoffice - not judging on viewable quality)

This for the most part can't be "legal" simply because the name is changed around a bit. Asylum must be relying on some very slim exception to the US Copyright Act and Lanham Act of Trademark law.

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[deleted]

Yippie-kay-yay Mr. ImposterDC.
Thank you!

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Also, you can't copyright a title for a movie or a song. Therefore, if I wanted to, I could make a movie entitled "I Am Legend" with a soundtrack song called "I Am Woman" with absolutely no infringement issues. Only if the title can be proven to be directly identified with a certain product or organization (Maxwell Coffee's "Good to the Last Drop") does it have any chance of winning a lawsuit and, even then, it's dicey. Mattel sued MCA Records over the song "Barbie Girl" and lost.

Write a song or make a movie and call it what you will.

I think I will change my name to "westwingisthebestwing"...

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Mattel sued MCA Records based on a dilution Cause of Action on a theory of tarnishment or blurring. However, the song "barbie girl" was so clearly a parody that the court allowed it to ensure that the 1st amendment issues of free speech not be impinged even by a trademark owner's rights. Even if there was blurring of the the producer of barbie in that case (aqua or Mattel), courts had a very distinct reason for not enforcing the TM owner's rights.

In this case, "i am omega" and "i am legend" are indeed based on the same source material which is now public domain so there is no problem there. thats clearly the defense that would be used by aslyum productions but I don't know if EVERY ripoff movie that they produce can claim this type of defense. Not every movie that they have done a cheap version of is based on a novel who's copyright protection has long since run out...

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The source novel, I Am Legend, is not in the public domain.

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Hence why the called it "I Am Omega"

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this movie is in no way based on the novel, it's simply using a name similar to the book/major blockbuster movie to make money. if you read the book ther is absolutly no similarity atall in anything contained in "I am Omega" wheather it be, story/ploe, chatacters, situations, time lines, terminology. it's a farce to try and piggy back on the sucess and reputation of other media sources.

The movie is a joke anyway and not in a self depricating "We're low budget and so bad we're good type way" it just takes itself way to seriously and is full of plot holes pointless scenes, terrible acting.

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Exactly. Warner Bros. paid Richard Matheson for the right to adapt his novel. Asylum did not. That's a big difference.

Matheson is still alive and well, so I AM LEGEND won't go into public domain for at least another fifty years or so.

The Warner Bros. film also cites Matheson in its credits. ("Based on the novel by Richard Matheson.") I'm guessing Asylum did not.

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There is a rule in copyright that if it is made to confuse the buyers, it is illegal.

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Then who is Asylum paying off to continue producing these sh*tty movies?

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The Last Man on Earth, which was a film based on Mathesons novel, is definitely public domain. So you have nothing to worry about legally if you just base your work on the movie instead of the book.

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The book "I Am Legend" is not in the public domain. Typically, a novel retains it's copyright until 70 years (it used to be 50 but was changed in '98) after the authors death. Richard Matheson is still alive, so it's copyright is good for quite some time.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

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The novel is not public domain.

I think I know where the confusion is comming from:

the film "The Last Man on Earth" is public domain. But the novel it's based on is not. Bizzare but true..
You can watch the movie here:
http://www.archive.org/details/the-last-man-on-earth


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Does Warner Bros. really worry that people will confuse this zero budget project with the $150 million budget I AM LEGEND?

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Not after watching it, but I can imagine someone accidentally picking this one up in the video store instead of the Will Smith picture.

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"The source novel, I Am Legend, is not in the public domain."
==============================================================

Yea, I thought it was 75 years not 50 years.

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apples and oranges, unless the studio has trademarked the film's title. "barbie" is the name of a product, not the title of a story/film/song. i understand what youre saying about blurring, but the use is different here.

while not every movie this studio has made has been based on the same public domain source material, the courts cannot realistically chase down every filmmaker who makes a film with a similar concept to another film. how much detail is needed for "similar concept" to become infringement? example: the concept "monster runs amok in city" can be applied to hundreds of films, as can "technology out of control in the near future." while a number of the films are indeed ripoffs of their predecessors, an even greater number are not, and are indeed only similar to one another when they are boiled down to that core concept. dozens of films are released each year that have these same core concepts, and it would be ridiculous for the filmmakers to try to attack one another in the courts.

lets not forget that the police dont come knocking on doors to investigate infringement spontaneously. there has to be a complaint for the courts to take action, and it is the injured party that has to do the investigation. i think the big studios feel that it simply not worth their time and money to go after these guys, and that they are not really losing any business to them. i mean really, i know people are stupid, but would any moron confuse "i am omega" with "i am legend" even with similar art on the cover? these films dont hurt the major releases in any measurable way. in fact thay might even add to the hype surrounding the bigger film, and add to its take.



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True. IIRC, there were *at least* 3 different versions of "War of the Worlds" movies out when the Spielberg one came out, and one of them was a for-TV movie, which would not have aired had it been a "blatant infringement", even if the names were exactly the same. And given the quantity of look-alikes (have you seen the sheer amount of "Parent Trap" rip-offs out there?) it would be impossible to enforce that. Even major studios do it, watch "Nikita" and "Point of No Return" back to back, and its far more similar than "I am Omega" and "I am Legend". Or the TWO "Jungle 2 Jungle" movies.

Plus, the two movies are so dissimilar, it just wouldn't stand in court. Might as well have "Haunting on Hill House" and "House on Haunted Hill" duking each other at court...

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"The Parent Trap" is clearly based on the pre-War novel "Lotte and Liesel" by German writer Erich Kastner - who's probably better known for his most famous story: "Emil and the Detectives" (filmed in Germany as "Emil and the three twins" in the 1920's) It ("The Parent Trap") was merely a remake of the German original, which was called "The Double Lottie".

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"Even major studios do it, watch "Nikita" and "Point of No Return" back to back"

That would be because Point of No Return is a remake of Nikita based on Luc Besson 's script. Otherwise Besson wouldn't be given credit for it.

Hey, this guy's not gonna leak all over my ice cream, is he?

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You can also find the basic story twins or look alikes swtiching to fool parents or others. The Prince and the Pauper without the parents who are divorced

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I have already changed my name to "Major Matt Mason of the 2001st Space Odyssey War of the Asteroid Star Mutant Carbonite Ninja Wookies".

Try to fit THAT on your friggin' RealID, you bastages.

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jaustin035, that.....THAT was "all-time classic" right there baby. The golden moments of imdb.

"Inside the dusters there were 3 men"..."So?"....."Inside the men there were 3 bullets" - d{^_^}b

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p.s. - I'm gonna quote you and use that as my new sig-line.

"Inside the dusters there were 3 men"..."So?"....."Inside the men there were 3 bullets" - d{^_^}b

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There were too many characters so this is what I ended up with.

jaustin035, on Sun Dec 16 2007 18:50:29, wrote something that made me laugh.

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You are right about "a likelihood of consumer confusion based on the bad faith of the ripoff company."

Nobody in their right mind is going to confuse product from The Asylum with a major studio film.

Anyone looking at the film (in its DVD box, prior to watching) and identifying it is a "cheap rip-off" of the original with no actors that anyone has ever heard of has instantly differentiated it from the original product. Ergo, no confusion, therefore no infringement.

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You are right about "a likelihood of consumer confusion based on the bad faith of the ripoff company."

Nobody in their right mind is going to confuse product from The Asylum with a major studio film.

The factors set forth in the landmark Polaroid case are as follows:
(1) strength of Plaintiff's mark (in this case the Will Smith film)
(2) similarity of marks (they're pretty similar, but not identical)
(3) goods/services identified by marks (pretty similar--both are MOVIES)
(4) similarity of facilities used by competing parties in marketing (again, similar)
(5) similarity in advertising (I don't think "I am Omega" used ANY advertising)
(6) Intent of the alleged infringer (it's pretty obvious they INTEND, or at least HOPE, to confuse people)
(7) actual confusion (you'd have to conduct public studies to determine how many people are ACTUALLY confused).

Based on the totality of these factors, I'd say that Warner Brothers definitely has a claim. Whether they would win is another matter, and whether it would be worth the time and money spent to teach some fly-by-night studio a lesson is yet another matter.

Y'all can go to hell. . .I'm goin' to Texas

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"a blatant attempt to confuse the consumer..."

Eh? If the consumer is confused then they've confused themselves! It shouldn't be difficult for anyone to tell which film they are going to see, for Chr***sake!? If they are then they deserve to wallow in their own stupidity!

If someone actually bothered to mount a case of trademark law voilation I'd very quickly understand why they decided not to name "The Madness of King George" "The Madness of George III" due to the perception of US audiences...!

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[deleted]

Warner Bros has owned the rights for the novel for many, many years before Will Smith's I Am Legend was even greenlit. It went through different prospective directors/leads during the lengthy time before the rights were aquired and the Will Smith film. So, yes, it's not in the public domain.

Asylum cashes in by riding the coattails of bigger budget films, but they take the same gist and do their own thing with it.

One exception: Tom Cruise does War of the Worlds, then his old Outsiders co-star C Thomas Howell stars in Asylum's adaptation of the same book for their own direct-to-video production to coincide with the big budget film, with the exact same title to boot. How? The WOTW book is public domain.

Pirates of Treasure Island lures people in who are into the whole pirate thing and the Depp Pirates trilogy (this always happens. A movie is release, and films or documentaries of a similar interest show up on store shelves. On the big budget scale, look how many fantasy-book-to-films and zombie films are released to cash in on such interest).

The DaVinci Treasure, same deal, plays into peoples' interest in that crappy Dan Brown book while changing just enough to avoid lawsuits.

Transmorphers is deriving from the title Transformers enough for people to think that they're similar, but without using any copyrighted/trademarked names.

I Am Omega is taking the basic premise of Matheson's novel, which is one of the very few similaries that are shared, but it's unique enough from the original story to become it's own creature. Nor would the project risk trouble and use the character names from the novel. Asylum released this film to coincide with Will Smith's film, no denying, but it's not enough of a carbon copy to be illegal.

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what you have to understand is that i am legend isnt a new story, its a film made from a book (i am legend) so making a film with a slightly different name and similar story is perfectly legal
i agree it is a bit a sneaky but thats life

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Haven't seen the Will Smith flick yet, but I just read the book and the plot for the movie on the internet... And trust me, even though they're both sharing titles and everything, they're both very different!

Anyways, back to the original argument here, I think that marketing products and trying to cash-in a few easy bucks copying another piece of art, is defilement for art. It just sucks!

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Agreed.

It's like if you've ever browsed a market around Christmas time and there's always some toothless redneck selling fake action figures of that year's blockbuster movies, and misinformed parents buy them thinking they're the real thing.

Imagine little Jimmy's disappointment when he received a Hippy Feet pot-smoking penguin plush.

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This has gone on forever. Nosferatu has basically the same plot line as Dracula, with just a few bits changed. Nosferatu was made first, but of course it was based off the book Dracula. I think I am Omega actually was released before I am Legend, to me its not a big deal. I have seen Last Man on Earth, I am Legend, and parts of I am Omega, and i need to see The Omega Man. I am Omega seems most like Last Man on earth.

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The producers didn't get the rights to use the title Dracula (from Bram Stokers wife I think) so they renamed it to Nosferatu. Sneaky again.

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[deleted]

Nosferatu was changed BIG TIME when Bram Stoker's widow (I think - whoever owned the rights to the novel Dracula) got a copy of the script and sued the company that was making Nosferatu. If you watch the film, it is actually QUITE different from the novel/movie Dracula.

"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys

-AK

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Yes, you could. Why don't you?

Welcome to the Free Market, Kid.

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The real answer to all of this is in the litigation process. To actually infringe on the copyright of the material at hand, you have to copy an exact percentage (as arbitrated by the DGA and WGA in the first stages) for it to be an infringement of copyright. Asylum and other companies like it change just enough so they can't get sued. That's the simple answer.

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they still made a movie based on a book that had already been purchased for exclusive movie rights. if a movie has a connection to source material(like i am legend to i am legend the book, or transformers to the transformers franchise) a production company must purchase the right to make said movie months to even years before filming starts.

These crap shoot films made by asylum are making films based on the same source material, but they don't have the right to make these films.

USED TO BE COMRADE RD
All your oil are belong to U.S.

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Based on a book. You can't copyright an idea, but the story, characters etc. Now if they were to copy word for word scene for scene then they could be sued. Or a big portion of the story etc. But since it's based on the book that's a whole nuther matter.

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id say this is LOOSELY based on the novel I Am Legend. several blackhole sized plot holes might suggest that it was written out by someone who never read the book. but i wish the film was written a little better to explain what happened to the world, his family, etc...

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Since this seems to be the most active of threads on here for this movie, I was wondering if anyone else noticed a scene where the backdrop is identical to another used in the sci-fi hit television series Roswell aka Roswell High?

Roswell (Roswell High) in case you don't know the story is about the supposed UFO landing in Roswell, New Mexico near the infamously laughable secret military installation referred to as Area 51. In the late 50s, supposedly a UFO crashed and legends/myth says that the military took the alien bodies as well as a few live aliens that survived the crash to Area 51 for studying. Well, in the television adaptation series based on a series of books titled, Roswell High, three alien hybrids come out of their pod chamber when they are small children. Later you learn about a fourth alien hybrid that did not come out the pods at the same time as the other three. Two of the hybrids are brother and sister, Max and Isabel Evans, who were picked up while walking in the middle of the desert by the Evans couple who eventually adopt them and raise the two as if they were their own children. The third becomes separated. Law enforcement later finds him and he goes into the foster care system where his foster care father only wants him for the check. This hybrid's name is Michael Guierrin (sp?) Upon meeting each other in school not long afterward, approximately 2 years if you use the timeline in the series when in a future episode a reporter is talking to a social worker who tells the story of the foster care father that claimed his 3-year-old charge levitated a table. If this is so, then it was another two years before they were in school together. This dialogue in the last season doesn't pan out throughout the full run of the series itself. In fact, in the end, the producers planned to pull the plug without allowing the writers' time to give it a decent ending. Thanks to the common unified efforts of many fans that mailed bottles of Tabasco sauce to the studio in protest over the axe job, the writers did finally allow a final season to give the show the closure the fans demanded. The "Tabasco sauce" protest was symbolic of the alien hybrids' inability to taste foods unless they were spicy and/or sweet, hence the aliens' always visible bottles of Tabasco sauce and their excessive use of the product when stopping into the local diner with the Roswell UFO theme called The Crashdown. Liz Parker, whose family owns the diner and where she works as a waitress, becomes the love interest of the once former king of the alien hybrid trio Max. Max and Liz are the epitome of soul mates.

Check out a search on IMDB.com for Roswell, Roswell High, or Shiri Appleby. She is the actress that plays Liz. You can learn more about the show there.

In the background of many of the Roswell series shots there is a formation of mountainous rock that juts out at an angle toward the sky. In Omega with Dascascos, that same background scene is shown although it is nowhere near the height as it is in the series Roswell. In fact, Roswell's version of the formation had to show it much larger because later in the series it is how the infamous "Granlalith, the spaceship," shoots out of the sky as it is placed within the rock formation and only accessible by the alien hybrid's ability to change molecular structures in addition to the need for the crystal that starts the countdown of the spaceship's take off. Regardless of the size of the rock formation, it is the exact same one used in Omega.

The scene where Dascascos has drank the 6-pack of what is presumed to be beer, he is standing pissing on the rocks then screaming that he is pissing on the world until he becomes disoriented and falls down. It is from the sitting angle where you can clearly see this is the money shot from the opening sequence from the Roswell series!

If anyone else notices this, please let me know I am not simply seeing things. Let me know if you also believe this to be the rock formation used in the footage from Roswell. I am inclined to believe that while Asylum Productions appears to have taken the storyline for I am Legend, it might have also "lifted" some scenic background from Roswell too.

Paise

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it's perfectly legal.... there's nothing illegal about what The Asylum does. They just take popular movie titles, and change them around a bit, like Transformers into Transmorphers or Snakes on a Plane into Snakes on a Train... and the movies aren't direct rip-offs of the actually movie, the stories are usually at least slightly different.

Plus, I Am Omega is just another adaptation to the same book that I Am Legend is based off. The book I Am Legend has been adapted multiple times, including I Am Omega, I Am Legend, The Omega Man, and The Last Man on Earth.

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and any number of zombie movies out there.

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[deleted]

I like that response huge penis man.

I am Omega premieres on ScyFy Saturday at 9pm.

The Director

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[deleted]

To be fair the title of this film is a pretty clever play on two out of the three other film adaptations of Matheson's novel I Am Legend, being The Omega Man and I Am Legend. You could argue then that both, the film adaptation of I Am Legend and Omega Man are actually rip offs of The Last Man On Earth.

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No, you couldn't argue that, because when you license it you're not ripping anybody off. The author(s) [or well, whoever holds the rights] are paid what they 'deserve'.

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Could i make a film called 3.30 to Yuma?
Your sarcasm (if implied) made me laugh.

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