Most consumer products licensing programs are centered on trademarked intellectual property, but copyrighted IP is often involved as well. So it is interesting to look at a number of recent cases involving copyright infringement across a variety of creative industries. These types of situations occur regularly each year, but the frequency seems to be on […]
Archive | Character/Entertainment
On-Screen Representation
Children’s entertainment properties, particularly television series, are increasingly including characters with visible disabilities—that is, they use wheelchairs, leg braces, or crutches—as part of the main friend group portrayed on screen. They are shown living their everyday lives and participating fully in the group’s activities, modeling inclusion and normalizing disabilities for young viewers. Some examples: MixMups […]
Linking Licensing and Learning
By Karen Raugust on April 25, 2022 in Character/Entertainment, Education, Educational products, Licensing
Teachers and parents continue to be concerned about learning loss and the deepening academic struggles many children have faced since the start of the pandemic. That has likely been one factor driving several licensors and licensees that are active in entertainment/character licensing to forge new deals in the education arena. Licensing of educational products is […]
Wrestling Groups Pin Down New Deals
Last week WWE announced a multifaceted partnership with Fanatics. This is just the latest in a string of initiatives that have surfaced in the past year or so involving wrestling-related IP. Properties and brands at the forefront include: WWE. Its long-term, global deal with Fanatics encompasses e-commerce (including a reintroduction of the WWE Shop); licensed […]
A Good Game for Beauty Brands
By Karen Raugust on April 4, 2022 in Character/Entertainment, Health/beauty, Interactive gaming, Licensing
Beauty companies have been among the most active of corporate marketers when it comes to entering the virtual worlds of gaming and the metaverse. Many have been creating promotions and/or offering digital palettes to be used within the games, for example. Conversely, owners of video game properties have increasingly been dipping their toes into physical […]
Slam-Dunk Combinations
The major athletic footwear/sportswear companies involved in pro sports-related licensing are increasingly pairing individuals from their portfolios of U.S. pro athlete-endorsers—especially NBA players—with properties from outside the realm of sports. The examples have been piling up slowly since 2019 (a few were released even before that), with the pace of new products picking up in […]
Just the Ticket
Rail stations, train lines, and railway museums are logical venues for certain experiential initiatives. Not surprisingly, a large percentage—although not all—of these ventures involve licensed entertainment properties that feature trains as characters, themes, or critical elements of their fictional universe. Four examples from 2021 and 2022 illustrate: Warner Bros. France paired with railroad company SNCF […]
Flipping the Script
Film and TV properties, like other forms of IP, have been getting into the NFT space in a big way. Now a handful of new deals have turned things around by taking NFT-origin properties and developing them for traditional TV or films: Actress Reese Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine, partnered with the NFT collective World […]
A Sense of Direction
Last month, the Stanley Kubrick Film Archives and its global licensing agent Caroline Mickler announced that Surge Licensing would represent six of the director’s films for consumer products activities in North America. The movies include A Clockwork Orange, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Eyes […]
Black Characters Star On Screen and On Shelf
By Karen Raugust on February 28, 2022 in Character/Entertainment, Content, Diversity/Inclusion, Licensing
As is the case every February, many product, promotional, and content announcements and launches involving licensed properties have been timed to Black History Month in 2022. The initiatives have cut across all property types and product categories. One particularly active space this year has been children’s entertainment and media, with new projects expanding representation for […]