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Lucas Sues British Propster over StormTrooper Armour. Again.
Andrew Ainsworth, who was the sculpter that delivered the Stormtrooper’s helmets in Star Wars, now sells them on his website without approval or authorization from Lucasfilm. These go for about $2000 a pop without dime one going to Darth Flannel.
In 2006 Lucas put an end to this in a $20milion lawsuit, but the Dark Side is strong in this counterfeiter, and he continues to peddle his Trooper domes in Britain, where the lawsuit had no jurisdiction. Yet.
Lucasfilm claims violation of copyright and trademarks by prop designer Andrew Ainsworth, who sculpted the Stormtrooper helmets for the first “Star Wars” movie in 1977. London-based Ainsworth sells replicas of the helmets and armor, which he says are made from the original molds, on his Web site.
How this guy thinks he owns the copyright to the Stormtrooper helmet design is beyond me. Lucas was previously able to prove that his creative team and artists had developed the look that Ainsworth was hired to sculpt into a working model, well before Ainsworth was hired on. I imagine similar points will be brought up in the London Superior Court.
If Ainsworth does manage to keep his spine intact throughout the precedings and happen to win his case, this would set a very dangerous precedent in copyright treatment. Does working on an aspect of the film grant you copyright to whatever you worked on? What about the designer who made Vader’s digs? Or anyone who designed anything for any film.
This guy was clearly a talented prop maker to have been assigned such a task to begin with, but getting hired to create something from an existing drawing hardly grants him full rights to that product. He was paid for his efforts and that was that.
Should the concept artist who came up with the look of the trooper’s armour be able to sue Ainsworth too?
Do you think this prop maker should profit from the association to Star Wars? His counter suit is for approximately $24 billion dollars claiming “his works” were used in all 6 films and he wasn’t paid for them.
Now I am not a British Lawyer, and I don’t know how copyright laws work there, but I would presume they are not THAT much different that he could get away with this.
I’m not justifying this or anything, but for the love of Christ, haven’t Lucasfilm made more money than GOD with this franchise, this is a professional sculpture making very expensive props for a very VERY niche market…I know what he is not doing is strictly legal (American Copyright laws are so strict they are strangling the domestic culture in general), but cut the guy some slack for his little hobby….
And let it be said that I simply fucking hate the merchandising empire that Lucas, Disney, and other franchises have become. Its fucking sickening.
Dude has no right to it. That would be like the copy guy at Kinko’s suing Diablo Cody for printing the Juno screenplay at his store. You may have assisted in the creation in some function, but you aren’t entitled to a piece of the pie. You didn’t come up with the design. You were just hired to build the thing. Nuff said.
Kurt, this is far from a hobby for this guy. Lucas filed $20million against this guy and won. And this is not about Lucas getting more money. Seriously, $20million is nothing to this guy. He simply wants to stop this guy from profiting on something that Lucasfilm owns. It is standing up for your own copyright.
He HAS to do this. If he just lets this guy get away with it, others will do the same and then he wont even be able to keep up with all the counterfeiters. This will would likely get settled out of court if the guy simply stops selling these things, hands over the original molds and stops claiming he owns the copyright to them.
You would do it to if you were Lucas.
Gray line here… It’s like the RIAA and the progress of P2P file swapping… You can either get on board and provide the “service” (or in this case: “product”) yourself – or, if you won’t, somewhere, somebody else WILL step up and fill the void .. lawful or not.
You can fight this guy and hey, even shut him down, but if finding a movie set replica costume -of anything- isn’t available from the studio or manufacturer – SOMEONE is going to make one. Period. So yes, it may not be his right to, but the question lies with the Lucas camp.. Are YOU going to offer easily accessible replicas? Or are you going to chase going an infinite number of fans who will make them when you won’t? It may not be ideally lawful, but it is, in fact, the reality.
there is no argument here at all. the guy has absolutely no right to the things he is selling and therefore he should be shut down and stopped.
If the lucas camp wants to make them and sell them or doesn’t want to then that is up to him but just because they don’t currently sell them doesn’t mean people can just start making unlicensed products just because there is a market for it.
It would have been all well and good if Ainsworth at least gave Lucasfilm a small slice of the pie. I would not call what Ainsworth does “counterfieting” – he does have the original mold. Let’s take a close look at that. He was probably ok’d to keep that mold for a memento and/or for his own personal use nothing more.
All Ainsworth had to do was call up Lucas, and ask. Instead, he violates copyright infringement. Here’s where I have zero sympathy for Ainsworth. Lucas wins the lawsuit. Ainworth has to cease his Stormtrooper line (at the very least) forfiet all his Trooper molds to Lucasfilm for abusing such trust and/or turning over a good chunk (if not all of) the current profits.
Ainsworth did his greedy deeds for profit and did not ask permission from Lucasfilm, and did not share profits with Lucasfilm, end of story. I don’t care. Put Ainsworth out of the Clone Army business.
lucas’ main concern is, if he doesn’t defend his copyright/trademarks, he loses them. that’s why he has to sue.
maybe he doesn’t like ainsworth, either.
There is a demand for Storm Troopers helmets and armor (I’d buy one if I could spare the money) that Lucas is ignoring so I think it’s great this guy is selling them or else nobody could get his hands on one of them.
If Lucas began selling the same product the guy would be out of business real quick. That’d be a lot easier than suing the guy.
The only reason anyone is even agreeing with the other guy, is cause they feel they have to bash Lucas and disagree with every decision he ever makes because they hated the Star Wars prequels. I see it all the time on various Movie Message Boards the only people that are siding with the other guy are people that you see time and again bashing Lucas every time his name is mentioned in something.
And the thing is, Lucas may be ignoring the demand, but it’s HIS property. If he chooses to ignore it, then fine, suck it up and deal with it.
The guy doesn’t have any right to produce these things, especially since he’s been successfully sued over it once already.
By the way, it’s SOP for productions now to get artisans to sign intellectual property agreements that clearly state all such property rights belong to the production, not the artisan.
I had the pleasure of visiting Andrew Ainsworth in Twickenham in 2005
& purchased a Stormtrooper helmet from him. He gave me a tour,
let me take photos and showed me original photos & paperwork
from Lucas. The original drawings that he used to sculpt with were
actually from John Molo the guy that got him involved. John sketches were based off Ralph Mcquarrie’s original design, Andrew’s design is based off these sketches, similar yes but exactly the same ,no. Andrew
originally contacted Lucas to get him involved when he started but Lucas immediately went on the attack. Lucas should have cut a deal with Andrew & acquired the original molds for the archive but Greedo just couldn’t..
Day-Vuh & Nacho, Lucasfilm does licence companies to sell replicas to fans. Rubies costumes & Master Replicas in the US & Altman’s helmets in the UK are a couple that have sold licenced replicas. It is a niche market but it does exist and Lucasfilm recognises it. A quality high end replica company named Master Replicas was the last company to hold the licence that expired at the end of 2007. They made a line of Star Wars helmets that included the Stormtrooper helmet. Lucasfilm owes it to these companies to defend the copyright and insure licenced companies exclusive rights to sell these products. Lucasfilm doesn’t bother fans that create their own replicas only those individuals who mass produce and sell unlicensed Star Wars replicas. If Andrew Ainsworth wanted to legitimitely produce and sell these props than he could have bid for the licences when it was up last year as well as years before. It is not about the money it is about principal and standing up for the honest companies that cater to the Prop Replica market.
(Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)
(Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so) I hope that Shepperton Design Studios does not go out of Business because i never got a stormtrooper helmet from him!
Ainsworth did not design or sculpt anything – Lucas employed a talented team of artists to design and sculpt the characters.
All Ainsworth did was the vacuum forming of the helmets and suits.