Today’s sport manager or administrator do not only have to be familiar with the process of management, but also need a knowledge of sport and the people involved with it. They are required to have management skills as well as a feeling for the business, which includes legal aspects.
All kind of sport institutions or manifestation are influenced by legal aspect settings by constitutional / public law, federal civil rights, federal constitutions or contracts. Especially the wide range of opportunities of event management and marketing always leads to potential problems which are covered by legislation. Organizers and managers are often unaware of all essential legal duties when they are preparing and drafting a marketing plan. Many of them search specialist advice from lawyers, safety experts, and others with specific expertise in the areas they are unsure about. The risks of ignoring the duties should not be underrated at first glance, to do so could lead to consequences which could leave uncalculating damages and fatally problems for the organization or marketing plan (vgl. WATT 1998, 140 ff.). Even sport management and marketing is mainly based by total quality management which essentials are just to be more effective (vgl. WATT 1998, 114 ff.). Searching a solution or making a recreation plan is normally too late or a worst case. This is the reason why the combination of sport and legislation of management have become more demanding.
The following chapters are about the host of legal issues affecting the marketing of products. The risks and duties of making sport products, as well as performing sport events, are illustrated in consideration of the property rights or the danger of collision with other currently available rights. Particularly, the chapters show how to protect own intellectual property associated with the creation of a product or with ideas developed out of sport sponsorship and licensing programs. Although this work mainly focuses on the U.S. law and literature, it is also internationally applicable and can be used in Germany, since the differences between the laws are minimal.
This paper starts with a short overview about some legal basics, followed by their influence on marketing and sport business.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Fundamentals
2.1. The law and legislation
2.2 The role of law in marketing
2.3 Intellectual property
3. Copyright and marketing
3.1 Works of authorship and the protected range by copyright
3.2 Copyright infringement and defense
3.3 Copyrights in sport marketing
4. Trademark and its role in sport marketing
4.1 The value of a trademark and other Lanham Act’s protected marks
4.2 Categorization and the power of the trademark
4.3 Trademark Infringement and Licensing
5. Patents and marketing
5.1 Patents
5.2 Innovations in marketing
6. Unfair competition
6.1 Ambush marketing
6.2. Legal aspects of ambush marketing and unfair competition
6.3. Avoiding ambushes
7. Conclusion
Work Cited
1. Introduction
Today’s sport manager or administrator do not only have to be familiar with the process of management, but also need a knowledge of sport and the people involved with it. They are required to have management skills as well as a feeling for the business, which includes legal aspects.
All kind of sport institutions or manifestation are influenced by legal aspect settings by constitutional / public law, federal civil rights, federal constitutions or contracts. Especially the wide range of opportunities of event management and marketing always leads to potential problems which are covered by legislation. Organizers and managers are often unaware of all essential legal duties when they are preparing and drafting a marketing plan. Many of them search specialist advice from lawyers, safety experts, and others with specific expertise in the areas they are unsure about. The risks of ignoring the duties should not be underrated at first glance, to do so could lead to consequences which could leave uncalculating damages and fatally problems for the organization or marketing plan (vgl. Watt 1998, 140 ff.). Even sport management and marketing is mainly based by total quality management which essentials are just to be more effective (vgl. Watt 1998, 114 ff.). Searching a solution or making a recreation plan is normally too late or a worst case. This is the reason why the combination of sport and legislation of management have become more demanding.
The following chapters are about the host of legal issues affecting the marketing of products. The risks and duties of making sport products, as well as performing sport events, are illustrated in consideration of the property rights or the danger of collision with other currently available rights. Particularly, the chapters show how to protect own intellectual property associated with the creation of a product or with ideas developed out of sport sponsorship and licensing programs. Although this work mainly focuses on the U.S. law and literature, it is also internationally applicable and can be used in Germany, since the differences between the laws are minimal.
This paper starts with a short overview about some legal basics, followed by their influence on marketing and sport business.
2. Fundamentals
This chapter illustrates a short overview about the law, its influence on the marketing section, and the important meaning of the intellectual property in marketing.
2.1. The law and legislation
Law is defined in different ways. One definition says that the law represents a “body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force” (Black 1990, 884). The most things we do and all the decisions we make are limited by the force of law. Our behavior is governed by law. In many ways it tells us, what is right and what is wrong. If we do not follow the rules, we will result in either civil or criminal penalty. At present time the law is not arbitrarily defined by a remote set of juries, judges and congressional representatives. It is more equally like a reflection of society, because ethic and social aspects or interests play an important role in enacting laws or regulating conflicts. You can see the law as an accumulation of rules and regulations which have different inputs for example from the state, federal governments or bigger associations (vgl. Quarterman 2003, 98).
2.2 The role of law in marketing
As already pointed out that regulations and legal duties influence all parts of human´s life, and consequently human´s business. Marketing is one of them and plays in today´s world of business, money, globalization, and capitalism a huge role. The effect of total quality management for a successful marketing has become more. As an effect of total quality management in the capitalism market, the competitors provide consumers with best-quality products at the lowest prices. We can find a lot of similar products that are competed by different companies, but do not have any difference in quality and price. The companies Reebok, Nike, Adidas for example offer equal sport products to the same target group in Basketball, Soccer and many other kind of sports. The result of such a competitive market is that sport marketers always use and look for the latest aggressive marketing tactics, resulting to a kind of competition in the sport market, which could not be fair.[1] To go ahead, ambush marketing or deceptive advertising are often in unauthorized use with the aim of putting other organizations in disadvantages by its illegal way. This is also a reason, why the state and federal governments created special laws to avoid unfair trade practices and to regulate anticompetitive business practices (vgl. Masteralexis 2000, 358).
2.3 Intellectual property
In order to protect an invention, idea, ingenuity or a creative product against unfair trade practices (6.), copyrights (3.), trademarks (4.), and patents (5.) were engaged as a law of intellectual property. They give exclusive rights to the ideas (writings etc.) and discoveries a person has made. These rights grant the protection of the product of one´s intellect.
For example an author can get a copyright of his written book to protect that original work with authorship. Unique words, names, or symbols are protected by trademarks and the discovery or inventions of new products, processes or plants can be saved by patents. It is important for the author to secure his intellectual property in order to protected his idea, but also to find out that he does not infringe upon another´s intellectual property. They have to figure out which character of intellectual property belongs to them (vgl. Goldstein 1981, XIX ff.). Copyrights, Trademarks, and patents are three different types of protection whereas each type serves different purposes. The careful distinction of these terms plays an important role in marketing and I am going to talk about these types of protection in particular.
3. Copyright and marketing
Copyright can be compared to the German word “Urheberrecht”. One definition of copyright is given by Webster´s Dictionary; “A copyright is a exclusive, legally secured right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter and form of literary, musical, or artistic work for a period.” (Gove 1993, 504)
This ´exclusive right´ belongs to the original work of authorship and gives protection to the author either at the time when the ideas develops, or later when it is already part of a marketing plan. This means that the ´work´ can currently exist, or only be something that will be worked out or developed in the near future and will result in a ´form´ or ´medium´ of expression which you can perceived, touched, or otherwise communicated.[2] The ´period´ of this exclusive right is restricted to 50 years beyond the lifetime of the copyright owner. Is the result the work of a team, the copyright will be hold 50 years past the lifetime of the last surviving team member. The protection for works made for an employer or publisher ends either 75 years after the first date of publication or 100 years after the date of creation, whichever comes first.
3.1 Works of authorship and the protected range by copyright
This chapter gives some examples of works of authorship which can be protected by copyright:
- Literary works, such as books and stories
- Musical works, including any accompanying words
- Dramatic works, including any accompanying music
- Pantomimes and choreographic works
- Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
- Motion pictures and other audiovisual works
- Sound recordings
- Architectural works.
(Masteralexis 2000, 359-360)
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Figure 1: The FIFA WM 2006-Logo is a graphic-designed work with copyright
Logo is taken from the homepage www.fifaworldcup.com
However, when an author creates a kind of that work and becomes its copyright owner, the right he gets, does not extend to any idea, procedure, method of operation, concept, or marketing plan. The author does not have a claim at all situations, which seems to be an unfair trade practice. There is a line between fair and unfair that has to be considered. Special situations have to be examined with the help of a case-by-case analysis which includes references about the range of the abuse, the commercial use, financial disadvantages for the copyright owner or just ethical, social key points. The fair use doctrine helps to weigh up the situation. It is like a principle of law that has been established through the past decisions and interpretations known as a common defense to a copyright infringement claim. This doctrine tells us that a fair use of copyrighted work can be allowed, but only if the use is for purposes such as news reporting, teaching, criticism or documentary work. In general the Copyright Act grants a copyright owner the following rights;
- to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission (sound recordings)
- to display the copyrighted work publicly (e.g. literary, musical, and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual works)
- to perform the copyrighted work publicly (literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works; pantomimes; motion pictures, and the like)
- to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work
- to reproduce and/or distribute copies or sound recordings of the copyrighted work to the public sale, rental, lease, or lending.
(Masteralexis 2000, 360)
[...]
[1] See point 6. Unfair competition
[2] compare to point 3.1
- Citation du texte
- Christoph Lam (Auteur), 2005, Legal aspects of marketing and eventmanagement, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/89770
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