THE
MIGHTY MOUTH MASK ! ™THE
MIGHTY MOUTH MASK ! ™
Part 1 of a 2
part message from Ronn Lucas
on the copyright on the Mask.
| Folks,
I've been 'Busy' these past three weeks. 'Busy' means Lasix
surgery on both eyes, an Alaska Cruise Show, and another ABC TV Special from Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. In short, I've been out-of-the-loop on your chat room discussions about me.
My thanks to Daniel Robison for catching me up and filling me in. There have been lots of speculation expressed concerning my Mighty Mouth Mask (TM) and it's accompanying routines. I've had to take some time thinking about how to respond. There are those of you that will dissect everything I write, so forgive me if I occasionally come off sounding academic (meaning: 'a little cold') here in my writings. I mean no offense to anyone and I seek only to protect what's mine. PARTS ONE AND TWO It is Saturday, June 16th, 2001 as I write this. This is part one of a two part letter. I've tried to meet a time deadline promised to Daniel, but there was just too much material to cover in one email. So, I will finish part two of this letter and email it on Sunday the 17th (or Monday the 18th at the latest). Thanx. A DISCLAIMER Keep in mind that I am not waiving, and/or limiting, any of my rights by my writing this letter to the vent. community. I have not run these words past my lawyer Ken Feinswog, Esq., because time was of the essence (especially with two really good looking vent. conventions coming up) ...and anyway, my attorney's been in trial for three weeks and I could barely get him on the phone! I therefore reserve the right to change or modify anything I've written here, if so needed, for the future. If you copy or reprint this for others to read, all I ask is that the copies of this part one be dated to today's date (June 16/2001) and must be reprinted in its entirety. I don't want anybody taking anything out of context. Fair enough? EDUCATION IS POWER I've actually had two lawyers working with me on this. (One is Tom Rowan Esq., son of Dan Rowan of the Rowan and Martin fame). Tom is a top show-business and contract legal specialist. Tom further enlisted the aid of Ken Feinswog, an attorney specializing in copyrights and infringements. Initially, I worked on protecting the props, meaning the design of the masks themselves. However, it was Ken Feinswog (the copyright expert) that more recently laid out for me what I believe to be the broader scope of my ownership. He is convinced that I own the following: SPECIFICALLY, the ventriloquist (me) owns and performs a real-time, live-stage, comedy or drama entertainment act, in which he employs a prosthetic mask which has been equipped with an articulated mouth and/or jaw to be operated by the ventriloquist; and that the moving mouth mask is to be placed on, and used upon, an unsuspecting member or volunteer taken from a live audience, for the purposes of the ventriloquist making that same volunteer appear to be (or forced to be) talking. Notice I didn't specify what the mask looks like or how it was controlled. Those are not the important parts. Simply put, copyright laws were conceived to prevent unauthorized copying. Although copyright law does not exactly 'behave' as some of you have presupposed in your e-writings, the issue for all of us is pretty much straight forward: If it LOOKS like you are copying me, you are. If it looks like you are trying to EVADE copying me, then you probably are copying me, anyway. It's not about the masks. It's about the rarity of a ventriloquist specifically using an articulated mask on an audience member. All a trial judge has to do, say, is to compare videos. I have a dated video record of my development of my mask routine as well as my first public performance (shot 1989/aired 1990) on the "Ronn Lucas Show" for the Thames TV Network of London. If a trial judge looks at another vents. video and it looks similar enough, then I AM being copied. (Hey, the judge doesn't even have to crank up the sound!) Many of you have tried to tell me that masks, animal or human, moving or otherwise, by and of themselves, cannot be copyrighted. But that blindly misses and/or minimizes the point. I've been assured by my lawyer that, for an artist [or business] to develop a new, unique, and/or newly specific USE of a prior technology/artform, the new development can indeed be protected because it is a way of bringing old 'stuff' together to form something new... [or so goes my interpretation of his 'legalese']. Anyway, this constitutes a new application. Now, do I claim the concept of 'masks'? Of course not. Do I claim the concept of 'moving mouth masks'? No again. Do I claim the concept of 'audience participation' or 'ventriloquism'? Not on your life. What I do claim is that I combined all of these aspects together in a new and unique way, and then performed them. Nobody had done this, exactly like this, until I did it first. (Come on, guys. If someone else had developed an act like this, we would have all known about it a long time ago. You cannot hide something this exciting.) INFRINGEMENT OR NON-INFRINGEMENT? I do know, for instance, that prior to 1989 my good friend Sammy King had disguised a small person as dummy, using a mask with an articulated mouth; but that is/was a different application since there was no audience volunteer. I have recently seen talking dogs, pigs, and talking snakes utilizing articulated masks. Well, that makes me nervous, but we clearly don't infringe on each other, there. I have seen on TV another ventriloquist attach strings (thread, really) using rubber cement, to an audience volunteers face, only to pull and manipulate that person's lips, cheeks and nose. It was very, VERY funny. Yes, it was an audience participation bit as performed by a ventriloquist but it's not infringement because it did NOT employ a mask. It did away with the mask entirely! [NOTE: Sorry but I don't have a name for this ventriloquist; but I did think this a was one extremely clever man, because he showed a kind of originality that is really, really lacking in our profession.] Concerning the comedy material of my mask routine, people have repeatedly told me "you cannot copyright a joke." OK, so perhaps individual jokes per see cannot be copyrighted, but one's act can. Even a segment of an act can be protected. Words don't even have to be involved. A mime can't copyright his/her behaviors (his 'bits') but he can copyright his/her bits strung together into a routine. It's all about recognition and identification. It is such recognition of a routine/effect/process that would be the key factor in any court case. What I have, up until now, is quite special as a package and, so far, it sets me apart from other ventriloquists. Understandably, I wish to keep it that way. Another way to look at it: Any magician, juggler, ventriloquist, or whatever, can use the word "bam!" in one of our routines. No one can own a word, right? Not "exactly" true. It depends on who [what profession] uses it. If one of us becomes a chef and uses "bam!" extensively in a our new TV cooking show, then we can expect to get a letter from one of chef Emeril Lagasse's attorneys demanding us to stop. That's just the way it works. This ends part one of my letter. Tomorrow I'll close what I have to say with the following topics: THE ONGOING PROCESS OF LEGAL MAINTENANCE CONFUSION IN THE MARKETPLACE ABOUT BILL BOLEY I remain Puppetually Yours, -ronnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn (Ronn Lucas) |