Source: https://www.mediainstitute.org/2012/11/21/historical-nature-of-haunted-house-trumps-trademark-rights-of-owners/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 08:49:48+00:00

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Courts have generally refused to superimpose on copyright law any additional free-standing layer of immunity emanating from the First Amendment for what would otherwise be considered copyright infringement. The reasoning has been that the substantive law of copyright already has doctrinal protections built in that provide adequate breathing space for freedom of speech, such as the fair use doctrine and the idea/expression dichotomy.
Not so, however, in all other fields of intellectual property law, in which the First Amendment does indeed often play an independent role, providing an additional layer of defense to what might otherwise constitute an infringement of intellectual property rights.
This point was recently illustrated in Winchester Mystery House, LLC v. Global Asylum, Inc.,1 involving the intellectual property rights to a haunted house. The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif., is a popular tourist attraction. The mansion was built by Sarah Winchester, of the Winchester rifle family. Sarah married her husband, William, and sadly, after their marriage, she bore a child who died shortly after birth. When William died in 1881, he left his wife a substantial interest in the rifle company. According to popular myth, a psychic medium subsequently told Sarah that her family was cursed by the spirits of those who had been killed by the Winchester rifle. The psychic advised Sarah to move to San Jose. Based on the medium’s advice, Sarah Winchester moved to California and bought a farmhouse in what would become San Jose. The 160-room Victorian mansion she built would, following her death, come into the possession of two enterprising folks, John Brown and Mayme Brown, who turned it into a haunted house museum, the Winchester Mystery House.
The proprietors of the House, in 2008, entered into an agreement with a film company, granting it the exclusive right to use the House for the filming of a movie. Subsequently, however, another film producer, Global Asylum, inquired about using the House for a horror film. The Global Asylum overture was politely declined, however, with the explanation that the proprietors of the House already had a contract with another film producer.
Against this backdrop, the question before the court was whether the proprietors of the real Winchester Mystery House had a valid cause of action for violation of their intellectual property rights in the trademark of the House, specifically, a claim under the Lanham Act, or whether First Amendment principles preempted liability.
1. Winchester Mystery House, LLC v. Global Asylum, Inc., 210 Cal.App.4th 579, 148 Cal.Rptr.3d 412 (Cal.App. 6th Dist. 2012).
2. Winchester Mystery House, LLC v. Global Asylum, Inc., 210 Cal.App.4th 579, 148 Cal.Rptr.3d 412, 416 (Cal.App. 6th Dist. 2012).
3. Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994 (2nd Cir. 1989).
4. Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994, 997 (2nd Cir. 1989).
5. Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994, 998 (2nd Cir. 1989).
6. Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994, 999 (2nd Cir. 1989).
8. Winchester Mystery House, LLC v. Global Asylum, Inc., 210 Cal.App.4th 579, 148 Cal.Rptr.3d 412 (Cal.App. 6th Dist. 2012).
9. Winchester Mystery House, LLC v. Global Asylum, Inc., 210 Cal.App.4th 579, 148 Cal.Rptr.3d 412, 420 (Cal.App. 6th Dist. 2012).

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