Once Again Marketing People ... Get the Lawyers Under Control
Another day, another DCMA takedown notice issued by a company's attorney that takes an opportunity to build brand value and actually destroys it. The picture (you can find it on Flickr here) is a DCMA takedown notice sent to a MIT educational program about a student who built a replica Pac-Man game from the programming language Scratch - a simple programming language designed to teach people how to program. Again, the attorney probably acted by the book in issuing the takedown notice, but did NAMCO, its marketers, and the attorney miss a brand building opportunity?
It's been a few years since I got in the middle of some IP law, but from what I remember IP law does not require that you demand the takedown of every potentially infringing piece of content, you just need to demonstrate you are exercising control. Control can take many forms. They could just grant the student permission for the purpose of this educational exercise. If there was a real threat to their game built on more robust computing languages, then they could limit the permission for a specific period of time. Problem solved. Now think about the wasted brand value building opportunity? How much free press would they have received if they congratulated the student for embracing their iconic game in their pursuit to learn how to program? What if they granted an open license for any student to build Pac-Man replica games in the pursuit of their learning? People may actually see Pac-Man everywhere. What a tragedy for the brand?This new age of content manipulation should force any brand marketer/content owner to rethink their playbook on how they will build brand value. Those who don't and keep doing what they did for the past 20 years are negligent in their duties (IMO). If you are a marketer and these situations make you unsure of how to act, start asking questions. Get your key stakeholders (including legal) into a room and explore "what if" scenarios. Ask your attorney what is the "minimum" that you must do to protect the brand's legal rights - Minimum being the key word. Then discuss the potential upside of different responses. Takes some risks. Learn. You may surprise yourself with the results. We need to stop using the 20 year old playbook in this new world!Related articles:
