Wellywood brouhaha makes The New York Times

If fame is the aim of the “Wellywood” initiative, then our capital city’s got it.

The brouhaha over Wellington Airport’s controversial plan has made the New York Times.

On page A22 of today’s print edition, the Times notes that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (which holds trade mark rights to the original sign) is threatening legal action (a development  first reported by NBR on Tuesday).

Do something of your own
“Over the years, we’ve been contacted by a lot of people who want to mimic the sign,” chamber president Leron Gubler told the Times. “We usually tell them, ‘Do something of your own.’ ”

The LA Times has also covered the controvesy today.

Take-down notice issued
This week, there was more evidence that the chamber vigorously polices the use of its trade mark – or at least keeps its lawyers busy.

A number of “sign generator” sites have sprung up during the controversy, that let type in letters that appear in your own version of the Wellywood sign.

One, created by Auckland digital media agency Skull and Bones, was originally put  online last year, as the airport made its first Wellywood push.

On August 10, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce sent Skull and Bones a take-down letter, demanding it “cease and desist” from “unlawful use” (see link below for the full document).

Complied ... for a while
“I did take down the generator after some correspondence between chamber and myself,” creative director Matt Zwartz told NBR.

“While my advice was that their case was probably pretty weak, I suspected their financial situation was just marginally better than ours if it came to proving it in court.”

One the same side 
Mr Zwartz attempted to alert the chamber to the nuances of the situation.

“I did try to point out the irony to them of their proposed action against us - our alleged breach of their copyright was in fact helping to protect its very integrity in the long term. They were underwhelmed at this observation and insisted it come down anyway.”

When the airport reanimated its Wellywood plan, Skull and Bones put its generator back online. After all, if it’s legal for the airport to mimic the Hollywood sign, then why not websites?

Popular
By Skull and Bones account, the sign has generated a lot of traffic.

The first publishing of the Generator saw over 29,000 unique visits in one week with some 12,000 signs created. This second publishing has seen some 7000 unique visits with approximately 4000 signs created. The average site visit time is over three minutes. 

“I expect we'll take the generator down again in the next few days as our intention is not to offend the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, but to give people a mechanism to voice their opposition to this absurdity,” Mr Zwartz said.

RAW DATA: The take-down letter in full (PDF)

New York Times photo above courtesy of Ben Kepes, the Christchurch Xero Fan Club president currently attending an event in Colorado