Proactive or Paranoid: As Seen On...

A more accurate approach that some take is to state, "As advertised on/in."

You've also got to make certain the terms and conditions of the advertising contract. Some contracts will have clauses such as:

"Further, Advertiser hereby agrees not to use the phrase "As seen on ________", or similar statements, in any promotional or advertising material it creates or on its website." *








*Disclaimer: Consult your own attorney to help you and read the small fucking print.
 


Sonny Forelli said:
considering this practice spans nearly EVERY industry (look at a few refinance lead gen sites at the top of PPC at the moment) along with a ton of others I'd wager you're MUCH more likely to get a C&D here before a lawsuit.
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An old LP of mine ended up being mentioned in a lawsuit for false advertising/misleading affiliations/misleading comparisons, and the plaintiff never so much attempted to send a C&D or similar notice before the lawsuit was filed. This was a short-lived LP that I didn't spend more than $2k advertising over a period of 2 months, so anyone is vulnerable. Fortunately, the law firm was hilariously incompetent and nothing ever happened with it, but the level of information that Harpo's lawyers had gathered is pretty crazy.

Proactive or paranoid? I'd say be proactive. If you're simply linking to a product LP that mentiones associations, and don't mention those on your own LP, my guess is that you would be fine.
 
mikecarquote said:
So how about using a celebrity name on your lander or ad, if the celebrity actually does endorse the product. Is the risk there?
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The question to ask is whether or not YOU have been given permission to use the celebrity's image to sell the product.


The permission granted may be for the direct use by the recipient company and not that of their affiliates. There may be other limitations as to where and how it is used.
 
I think you guys are missing an important legal distinction here, especially in terms of Oprah, Oz etc., and product endorsement. Oprah had a story on Acai, a story on Resveratrol etc., these are generic supplements. She did not endorse Resveratrol Ultra, Acai Berry 9000 or any other product specifically that I am aware of. These are actual products, not just a generic supplement. Saying that Oprah had a story that extolled the benefits of resveratrol is factually correct, but saying that she endorsed Resveratrol Ultra (or whatever) is not.

Of course using her image, videos etc., to imply endorsement without permission is another issue on top of that.
 
You can't use anyones logo without their permission. Even if it was "as seen on" it is still illegal use of their logo. You would lose if sued.
 
johu said:
An old LP of mine ended up being mentioned in a lawsuit for false advertising/misleading affiliations/misleading comparisons, and the plaintiff never so much attempted to send a C&D or similar notice before the lawsuit was filed. This was a short-lived LP that I didn't spend more than $2k advertising over a period of 2 months, so anyone is vulnerable. Fortunately, the law firm was hilariously incompetent and nothing ever happened with it, but the level of information that Harpo's lawyers had gathered is pretty crazy.

Proactive or paranoid? I'd say be proactive. If you're simply linking to a product LP that mentiones associations, and don't mention those on your own LP, my guess is that you would be fine.
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Agreed, I was hoping you had a figure that it cost you, I think for the big news outlets this is likely. We've all known Harpo was going to go bonkers over their clients name/logo especially given what was going on there. I recall getting warning on this from one great particular AM back last August, luckily I never ventured into that water. I'd be shocked if FoxNews built up a huge suit against a single LP that simply had "As seen on" and then their logo along with a couple other major news outlets.

A "fuck you give me $5k to settle this" suit, strongly worded letter or C&D - sure.

But to actually attempt to litigate over this without the sole intent to settle for something 'small' seems just ludacris.

Again- unless you've gone far beyond the usual 'as seen on' media logos and are implying endrosement or something that really does damage their brand. Does this mean it's okay, absolutely not, the comments about w/ out express written permission to use the logo are, in my legal understanding, spot on. However it's always the 'well what's gonna happen.'

And looking at the exhibits I can absolutely understand why Harpo has beef when the url has a trademarked majorly recognizable name, the ad copy has the same, and then the landing page could easily be confused by a sheeple as that known person's page due to the look/feel/text.

To me we're still apple:orange with that versus what's asked in this thread. Have we all forgotten that in nearly any business there's constant calculations of acceptable levels of risk:reward? I think this is key.
 
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