merchandising rights

[jackie]

I have recently returned from Bolivia where I was fortunate enough to visit most of the places of interest to those curious about Che Guevara. I was quite surprised to find that there was absolutely no commercialism linked to his name or image. Other consumer minded countries, where Che had never set foot, appear to be raking in millions of dollars from his name and image. My question is this: Who owns the marketing rights and profits from the sale of the millions of items available (none of which are available in Bolivia or Argentina). I hope somebody can answer this question for me. Now that I am back in Canada, I still want to purchase meaningful memorabalia but not if the profits go to some American "fat cat" who cares little for the true history of Che Guevara.

Thanks, and have a good one . . .

Jackie

[truthaddict11]

well the use of the most famous picture of che ,the Korda one, is owned by Korda's daughter.

[Comrade Ceausescu]

buy some stuff from the store here comrade! :)

[Danton]

The Korda image is unliscensed. When an image becomes so iconic it becomes public property and may be reproduced by anyone and sold for profit... Legally it is totally unmanagable. When you buy any product bearing Che's face or name there is practically no means of knowing where the money's going...

[Edelweiss]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2003, 05:13 PM
The Korda image is unliscensed. When an image becomes so iconic it becomes public property and may be reproduced by anyone and sold for profit... Legally it is totally unmanagable. When you buy any product bearing Che's face or name there is practically no means of knowing where the money's going...
Nope, from my own expirence I can say that truthaddict is right, Korda's daughter could successfully gain the copyrights for the famous Korda image, along with some Italian company I think. I know that because that Korda ***** was threatening everyone who was selling Che t-shirts on the Net with that image with her lawyers, including thechestore.com, Che-Lives' major sponsor. They had to took out all shirts with that image out of their range to perevent an expensive trial, and Che-Lives was out of the most sponsoring funds for months because of that. Now thechestore.com buys "officially licensed" (sic!) t-shirts wholesale.

[Danton]

Really? That's a nightmare, I guess it's a question of if they see it on the net or wherever, they are clamping down but we are talking about an image that graces everything from pencils to ashtrays ( I kid you not) the sheer proliferation of which must make it a full time job for her legal boys to search for... Well I'm sorry to hear about that, what a shitter....

[bluerev002]

:o I never knew! :wacko:

[Hate Is Art]

i heard off yahoo that the guy who took the Korda image was sueing smirnoff for using the image for commercial purposes, i don't know what happened though, i think he died before any sort of case could be brought forward

[shakermaker]

Originally posted by Digital [email protected] 28 2003, 07:42 AM
i heard off yahoo that the guy who took the Korda image was sueing smirnoff for using the image for commercial purposes, i don't know what happened though, i think he died before any sort of case could be brought forward
well, some alcohol firm (was it smirnoff, I don't know) used that famous Che picture for advertisement...and that firm was taked to court and who sueted them won! ...that's what I've heard.

[Hate Is Art]

it was smirnoff, they won well thats good news.

[nezvanova]

Yeah I read about that add. It had the famous picture of Che, and a hammer and sicle but the sicle was a bent chili pepper. But smirnof got sued by the photographer and he won the case. I also heard that he died, sometime in 2001 i think...

[Ian]

Korda after successfully suing Smirnoff donated the money to a Cuban charity, I forget which one, now his ***** of a daughter is trying to profit off it.