Bradbury closer to suing over Fahrenheit 9-11 film title?
Ray Bradbury appears to be seriously considering litigation over Michael Moore's "Fahrenhiet 9-11" movie title.
Bradbury, who is a registered political independent, said he would rather avoid litigation and is "hoping to settle this as two gentlemen, if he'll shake hands with me and give me back my book and title."
The film is being released this friday, so there's really no chance that the title will be changed at this late stage. There's more on the Fahrenhiet 9-11 title issue in this earlier post. There, I wondered if the titles were actually related at all, but they obviously are as Moore has said that Fahrenhiet 9-11 is the "temperature at which freedom burns." Bradbury's book is named Fahrenheit 451 because that's "the temperature at which books burn."
A confusion analysis would probably not work here, as consumers are unlikely to be confused as to the source of the film being Moore and not Bradbury. A dilution analysis may work, if the book's title can be considered a trademark.
Article here.
posted by Chris Cohen @ 11:50 PM
2 Comments:
I just came to your site to let you know about this story, but I can see your one step ahead of me. Bradbury's book is coming out in a new edition in about 8 weeks. Do you think he's hoping to have some cash benefits from this 'controversy' flow his way?
No doubt he'll try to get something. Bradbury will keep threatening to sue, at least in the media, just to make Moore look bad. His case appears to be fairly weak, I believe the law is that book titles can't be trademarked. He'll try to get a bit of money out of it to shut up though. Perhaps he'll get himself a new Benz out of the deal, or maybe he'll just get shafted. Time will tell, and I will post it.
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