Posts Tagged ‘ Sony ’

Who the Hell is Kevin Butler? Sony Sued Him, Thinking You Know Him

January 29th, 2013. By AbiK

http://youtu.be/9ONtyilKg8Q

You are so out of the loop if you don’t know Kevin Butler. But don’t feel bad—we took a completely non-scientific poll over on our Facebook page and found that no one we asked knows who the hell Kevin Butler is. Nor do they apparently care.

But Sony cared.

See, Kevin Butler is the fictitious character played by ad actor Jerry Lambert in Sony’s PlayStation commercials. Going out on a limb here, but guessing you don’t know who Jerry Lambert is either. Both Jerry and Kevin are pretty comical in the Sony commercials—but that’s neither here nor there.

Apparently, Sony thinks you know Jerry—or Kevin—and that you watch and internalize his every move. And so when Jerry went and did a commercial for Bridgestone earlier in 2012 in which a Nintendo Wii was offered as part of a promotion, and in which Jerry (not Kevin) happens to play on a Wii along with a cast of other Bridgestone “employees”, well…

You can imagine how the phones were ringing off the hook over at Sony with pissed-off consumers getting all confused at seeing Jerry play on a Wii when everyone knows his fake character, Kevin, endorses PlayStation. (That would be sarcasm for those who missed it).

In October 2012, Sony sued Jerry (they couldn’t quite sue a fictitious character, so Kevin was off the hook here) for violating the Lanham Act, misappropriation, breach of contract and tortious interference with a contractual relationship. The Lanham Act covers things like trademark infringement and trademark dilution as well as false advertising. Of course, by having a fictitious spokesperson be seen using two different video game systems, well, you can imagine the alleged damage done to PlayStation.

Regardless, Jerry (the real actor) did admit that his appearance in both company’s commercials with two different video game systems might confuse some folks. And so, the two—Jerry and Sony—settled (Bridgestone also took Jerry out of their ad).

According to the terms of the settlement as reported by Joystiq, Jerry Lambert has agreed to not appear in any advertisements that feature or mention “any other video game or computer entertainment system or video game company” for two years. Additionally, for another two years after that, he must notify Sony if he wants to appear in gaming ads so Sony can assess whether his intended performance will infringe on the Kevin Butler character.

So that’s who the heck Kevin Butler is. We’re glad the air’s been cleared as clearly a ton of folks—who didn’t even know who Kevin Butler was—were confused over which video gaming system he really preferred. Phew—disaster averted!

By the way, one astute fan of ours—named Jay (go Jay!)—did actually know that Kevin Butler was a placekicker for the University of Georgia. He went on to play in the NFL for the Bears and the Cardinals. We did not attempt to contact him for this story. Another fan, Sam, suggested that he might have been Rhett’s brother… Thanks to all who participated in our survey!

Tags: Bridgestone, Jerry Lambert, Kevin Butler, Nintendo, PlayStation, Sony, Trademark Dilution, Trademark Infringement, Wii
Posted in Celebrity, Emerging Issues, Intellectual Property, lawsuits | No Comments »

Pissed off Canadian Tells Sony ‘Game On’ with PlayStation Class Action

May 5th, 2011. By Hunter West

Natasha Maksimovic is mad as hell and she deserves to be. 

Natasha is the 21-year-old resident of Mississauga, a city in the Greater Toronto corridor in Canada, serving as the lead plaintiff of a proposed class action lawsuit against Sony over the potential theft of personal information. 

There are some 77 million people worldwide who may agree with her. 

At issue is personal information belonging to gamers and users of Sony PlayStation and Oriocity systems. Such information includes, but may not be limited to names, street addresses, birthdates, passwords, security answers, logins, billing information, and so on. 

Sony has reportedly apologized for the breach and offered a 30, or 60-day free membership for users on its PlayStation network. 

Maksimovic says that’s not good enough. “If you can’t trust a huge multi-national corporation like Sony to protect your private information, who can you trust?” she asks. 

Exactly. 

It appears that Sony has done two things wrong. First, the electronics juggernaut appears to have dropped the ball in protecting its system sufficiently from hackers who constantly cruise the Internet looking for portals to plunder. Second, they appear to have taken the potential theft of 77 million sets of personal information worldwide—about a million in Canada—somewhat lightly. 

The lawsuit alleges that Sony was aware of the breach, but failed to advise clients in a Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: hackers, internet security, Natasha Maksimovic, Oriocity, Play Station, Privacy, Sony, Sony Class Action, Sony PlayStation
Posted in Class Action, Internet/E-commerce | 2 Comments »