Ford Mustang Eleanor From Gone In 60 Seconds Can't Be Copyrighted

The Ninth Circuit has ruled that the 1967 Ford Mustang fastback nicknamed "Eleanor" in Gone in 60 Seconds is a film prop rather than a protectable character. The panel said the car fails all three Towle test prongs, so it cannot receive standalone copyright protection. sinij writes: The ruling states that the Mustang doesn't pass tests that would qualify it as a character. In the past, studio aggressively went after builders for any Mustang that even remotely approximated Eleanor, making it a hassle to restomod classic Mustangs.

Some background would be helpful

[UnknowingFool]

There were a series of 4 movies Gone in 60 Seconds (1974), The Junkman (1982), Deadline Auto Theft (1983), and the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). Each of these films featured various Ford Mustangs named "Eleanor" with the last one using a GT-500 Ford Mustang from Shelby Group. Denice Halicki owns the copyrights from the first 3 and licensing rights for the remake. After the remake, the Shelby Group licensed a custom car shop to produce “GT500E” Mustangs based on the remake's "Eleanor". Halicki sued Shelby for copyright infringement but the two parties settled in 2009. After the settlement, the Shelby Group then licensed another company Classic Recreations to make “GT-500CR” Mustangs. Halicki sued again for copyright infringement and this ruling says she cannot copyright the car as a character.

Re:

[timeOday]

I don't get the "as a character" aspect. Most things we are familiar with being copyrighted are not characters - songs, books, paintings, also movies, e.g. "Gone in 60 Seconds" as a whole. So why would is a car design not copyrightable even if it's not a "character"?

Re: Some background would be helpful

[Zero__Kelvin]

Kit was a character in Knight Rider because it interacted. Eleanor was, forgive me Nicholas, just a car. I think the operative phrase here is "as a character." It implies that it can be copyrighted, but not as a character, whatever this implies or involves.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

the only significance is that the car IS a character in the movie. she wouldn't be able to even attempt a suit otherwise.

I've only seen the last movie but how is the car a character? Other than the humans referring to the car as having character, it is just a car in the movie. Unlike other cars that are characters, Kitt (Knight Rider), Herbie (The Love Bug), and Christine, it does not speak nor perform any actions that is not standard for a car. The only thing it does is it stalled at an inconvenient time for Nicolas Cage. That's all the "personality" I was able to gather from the car.

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[taustin]

Character copyright protects things that the basic copyright doesn't. And a character copyright would belong to whoever owns the movie, where the copyright on the appearance of the Mustang belongs to Ford.

They're grasping at straws. Unsuccessfully.

Re:

[hey!]

Well, under some conditions an unique movie car *would* be copyrightable. The case where the car is effectively a character is just one of the ways you can argue a car to be copyrightable.

Copyright is supposed to protect original creative expression, not ideas or functional items, which may be protected by *other* forms of intellectual property like trademark or patents. This is because copyright protects *creative expression*. It doesn't protect ideas, or functional items. A car is a functional item,

Re:

[dbialac]

I've heard of people having car fetishes before, but you definitely have quite a different one there.

Re:

[registrations_suck]

Are you going to copyright that concept?

Or just the shape of your asshole?

Re: Some background would be helpful

[Zero__Kelvin]

Oh, I suspect it you ever tried to drive it then dead is exactly the state you would likely be discovered in it.

Weirdness

[JBMcB]

So they think they can bolt a body kit on to a stock Mustang and own the likeness of that Mustang?

Can I re-edit Gone in 60 Seconds and claim ownership of that? No? That's odd.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! That is, indeed, hilarious. Every time they argue that Eleanor is their copyrighted work, they're inadvertently arguing that their "work" is a derived work from Ford's (and possibly Shelby's in between) work.

If they ever "win" then they'll have supplied the perfect arguments for Ford (and Shelby etc) to sue them and win. They should be grateful they lost this lawsuit, since winning would have been more expensive than losing.

Re:

[taustin]

That is precisely why they're claiming character copyright.

On par for Found-On-Road-Dead

[Sebby]

In the past, studio aggressively went after builders for any Mustang that even remotely approximated Eleanor, making it a hassle to restomod classic Mustangs.

They pulled the same kind of bullshit in the past [justia.com] for any website that mentioned "Jaguar" - even websites that was exclusively about the animal, an nothing automotive.

Herbie the Love Bug?

[Tablizer]

...Is Herbie copyrightable as a character?

Re: Herbie the Love Bug?

[leeosenton]

That's a tough question! I think Herbie is a character.

Re:

[SleepingEye]

The Towle test prongs: "The character must generally have physical as well as conceptual qualities. The character must be sufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears. It must display consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes, although the character need not have a consistent appearance. The character must be especially distinctive and contain some unique elements of expression. It cannot be a stock character like a magician in standard mag

Towlie test prongs

[sabbede]

1. Might you need a towel?

2. Do you want to get high?

Re:Herbie the Love Bug?

[segoy]

The Towle test is: 1) The character must generally have physical as well as conceptual qualities. 2) The character must be sufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears. It must display consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes, although the character need not have a consistent appearance. 3) The character must be especially distinctive and contain some unique elements of expression. It cannot be a stock character like a magician in standard magician garb. The Batmobile was determined to pass the test. Herbie would, by that same token, probably qualify as a character in a way that this Mustang did not.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Paint him on a mural and see how fast Disney sends you legal notices. https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]

Re:

[awwshit]

Or Christine?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]

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[PPH]

I am forgotten [pinimg.com].

Re:

[Temkin]

I am forgotten.

Understand, 1971 is to 2025 as 1917 was to 1971.

T

Re:

[jonadab]

In literary terms, Herbie is absolutely a character, but I'm not sure why anybody would set about to make real-world replica versions of him. All of his distinctive characteristics (that make him different from an ordinary, non-sapient Volkswagon Beetle, a model of car that was chosen for the films specifically because it was extremely common), are either so cartoonish as to be impractical to replicate in a real car (like the ability to be sawed completely in half and continue to operate as normal) or conc

There are plenty of Herbie paint jobs

[_merlin]

I've seen lots of Beetles in full Herbie livery in Australia and the Philippines. Disney doesn't seem to go after people for just making beetles resemble Herbie.

Re:

[jonadab]

Well, like I said, appearance isn't the most important thing; in the movies, Herbie doesn't even always have his standard paint job. Sometimes he's (visually) just a plain VW bug. It's what he does, that's important.

Easy workaround

[mccalli]

Did it start and run more than twice in a row? Well then, it's not an Eleanor clone.