Viacom Wins Trademark Dispute Over MTV’s ‘Floribama Shore’

An 11th Circuit Opinion in the ‘Floribama Shore’ trademark case provides guidance on establishing artistic relevance under the Rogers Test. Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo talk about this case in this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog.

Watch this episode here.

Show Notes:

Scott:
Despite challenges to the application of the Rogers test outside of traditional artistic works, the Rogers test remains a valuable defense to TV and movie producers sued for trademark infringement. Establishing that the producer’s use of the allegedly infringing mark has artistic relevance is one of the two factors of Rogers and a recent 11th Circuit opinion cementing MTV’s win over the use of Floribama Shore as the title of a docu-series shows provides guidance on steps producers should take in order to establish the existence of artistic relevance.

Scott:
MTV FLORIBMA SHORE is the title of an MTV docu-series modeled after the JERSEY SHORE franchise.  The series purports to celebrate youth culture, profiling a summer of fun for eight young adults in the Florida panhandle. The Flora-Bama Lounge is a restaurant and marina facility located on the Florida Alabama border that has been in operation since 1964.  The owners of the lounge were not happy with MTV’s use of FLORIBAMA as the title of its series, especially after MTV held a few casting sessions at the Flora Bama Lounge, and sued for trademark infringement.

Josh:
In the district court case MTV moved for summary judgment which was granted. The owners of the Flora-Bama lounge appealed to the 11th circuit.

Scott:
In the 9th Circuit (as well as the 2nd, 5th, 6th and 11th Circuits), the test for determining whether the use of a third-party trademark in an expressive work (i.e, use of a brand within a movie, TV series, video game, etc., including as part of the title of an expressive work is the 2nd circuit’s test from the 1989 case of Rogers v. Grimaldi. The Rogers test was adopted by the 9th Circuit in Mattel inc v MCA Records (better known as the “Barbie Girl” case). Under the Rogers test, the use of a third-party mark in an expressive work does not violate the Lanham Act “unless the title has no artistic relevance to the underlying work whatsoever, or, if it has some artistic relevance, unless the title explicitly misleads as to the source or the content of the work.” Under the Rogers test, the first inquiry is whether the use of the third-party mark has “some artistic relevance”. The threshold for this test is extremely low; basically, if the level of artistic relevance is more than zero, this is satisfactory. If there is greater than zero artistic relevance in the use of the third-party mark, the next analysis is whether the use of the third-party mark explicitly misleads as to the source or content of the work.

Josh:
In its opinion the court goes into great detail over how MTV eventually chose the title to its series.  MTV wanted to build out the Jersey Shore franchise like the Real Housewives, by establishing multiple series in different locations.  MTV began to develop a seventh Shore series, this one focused on Southern beach culture

Scott:
MTV commissioned a survey of 300 young people familiar with the region to measure awareness and perceptions of the culture and nightlife in various beach towns in the “gulf Shore” region spanning from Biloxi, Mississippi, to Panama City Beach, Florida. The report noted the term “Florabama” to describe the region. Of the 300 people surveyed, about 34% had heard of the term “Flora-bama,” with half of the 34% identifying it as the bar and the other half identifying it as the region.  The filming location for the series was Panama City Beach, 100 miles from the lounge.  An MTV executive testified that the selection of MTV ‘Floribama Shore’ was the title of the series was driven by finding a title, like Jersey Shore, that would “define the subculture” featured in the series, that “Floribama” offered “a very distinct sense of what part of the country and subculture that is.” This executive ALSO testified that because Florida has “multiple subcultures,” a name like “Florida Shore” would not have sufficiently identified the Gulf Coast setting. And “Florida Shore,” of course, would include Miami, which McCarthy noted “has its own sort of codes.”

Josh:
The court also noted that MTV wanted a Jerseyesque type of show and Floribama screamed louder than Gulf Shore.

Scott:
Even though the bar for artistic relevance is low, I still think it’s a good idea for producers to go through the additional step to actually lay the groundwork for establishing artistic relevance at the time the producer makes its choice to use a potentially infringing mark