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Text丨Editor: Twilight Snow
Andy Lau is angry again! Disasters fell from the sky for no reason, who would not be angry about such a thing that ruined his reputation!
On December 10, some netizens posted a video on social platforms, showing everyone a sauerkraut sold by a street vendor, which turned out to be endorsed by Andy Lau.
It stands to reason that it is impossible for a big coffee like Andy Lau to endorse such a thing, what is Andy Lau endorsing? Trendy brand Baleno, famous car Audi or Huawei's extraordinary master!
Andy Lau will never endorse this unknown "three-no product", not only does it have no quality assurance, but it will also affect Andy Lau's reputation if something goes wrong, which is too much.
Andy Lau's company has issued a statement to sue the other party, but in fact, the probability of Andy Lau winning the lawsuit is not great!
Asian superstar endorsement of Northeast sauerkraut?
Recently, some netizens have posted videos to share a sauerkraut they bought in the Northeast, although its price is very cheap, only 6 yuan, but it has Andy Lau's personal endorsement.
Such news immediately attracted everyone's attention, because this must be the illegal theft of Andy Lau's image by the merchant to "inlay gold" for himself, in order to achieve the purpose of promoting himself and attracting consumers to buy.
You must know that Andy Lau has been stolen for endorsement not once or twice, according to the information statistics of an authoritative news media, in just one year this year, Andy Lau has been stolen as many as 84 times!
And the real number of misappropriations is far more than that, these 84 times are only the number of warnings and prosecutions issued by Andy Lau's studio, excluding those that some other studios do not know or pay attention to.
These brands that steal Andy Lau's image endorsement cover almost all areas of society, from daily digital products, clothing, food, housing and transportation to decoration supplies, beauty products, etc., have all been "endorsed" by Andy Lau.
This is really a repeated ban, Andy Lau's studio is about to form an "immune body" to this, and the prosecution can't be prosecuted, so Andy Lau's "forced" endorsement is also well known.
Now that there is a sauerkraut endorsement incident, and it is so well-known, Andy Lau's studio will of course attach great importance to it, which is a matter of reputation.
So soon the news spread to Hong Kong, and on December 12, Andy Lau's studio responded positively!
The studio didn't even warn, and directly issued an infringement statement, saying that this endorsement was not authorized by Andy Lau personally, and the company involved illegally stole Mr. Andy Lau's portrait rights and affected Andy Lau's reputation, and will be prosecuted in accordance with the law.
It is understood that the producer of this "new Kaihuang brand Northeast lactic acid bacteria sauerkraut" is an agricultural product processing company in Heilongjiang, so a reporter contacted the person in charge of this company, how did they escape responsibility for themselves?
The staff of this company said that their endorsement qualifications were obtained through formal channels, and they even used not Andy Lau's image at all, what is going on?
They said that this was a cooperation between their company and an advertising company, which had the copyright qualification for Andy Lau's movie "Bomb Disposal Expert 2", so they used a movie image, not an Andy Lau image.
At this time, I took a closer look at Andy Lau on the sauerkraut packaging, and realized that they really didn't lie!
The lower left corner of the package does have two lines of very small font that reads: "Andy Lau, the star of the movie "Bomb Disposal Expert 2", joins hands to help the new wasteland brand." ”
So in the final analysis, this is another infringement case of playing the edge, but the hateful thing about the edge is this, you know that his behavior is wrong, but it is difficult to obtain evidence if you want to defend your rights.
Although Andy Lau's studio gave stern evidence against the company, blaming the other party and claiming to sue, can they be considered illegal?
A number of professional lawyers explained the incident, saying that although the company did have no problem using movie images, they should never use Andy Lau's real name and real photos!
If this sauerkraut uses Andy Lau's name and stills from the movie, it is authorized, because the cooperative advertising company of sauerkraut does own the copyright of the film.
But the problem is that the sauerkraut uses real names and photos, so they still have the illegal act of portrait infringement.
But even if Andy Lau's studio really sues them, the process in the middle will be very cumbersome and time-consuming, and Andy Lau simply has no energy to do these little things.
On the one hand, Andy Lau is very busy, and on the other hand, Andy Lau has just experienced the pain of losing his father, and he doesn't have the heart to do these things, so there is a high probability that he will not pursue it too much.
Therefore, these companies are convinced of the psychology of celebrities, and deliberately engage in this kind of illegal side-kicking, in order to achieve the purpose of deceiving consumers for profit.
Such things are not uncommon, such as the game "Legend" endorsed by Jackie Chan, Wu Mengda and Zhang Jiahui, which is the legendary "get on the bus first and make up the ticket later".
Choose one or the other: waste time or real endorsement
Many people will wonder why so many big stars will endorse such a browser game that no one plays at first glance, in fact, this is because the operation methods behind them are too superb.
They are deliberately infringing on the endorsement videos of synthetic celebrities, deceiving consumers with fake endorsements at a very small cost, and they are sure that celebrities will not spend a lot of time suing them.
For celebrities, they have only two options to solve this kind of thing, either spend a few months suing for a little money, or simply give them endorsements to earn benefits.
There is no need for them to waste so much time to defend their rights and interests with the law, so the best way is to endorse them, which can be said to be an effective "coercion".
Zhang Jiahui, Jackie Chan and Wu Mengda were "tricked" into endorsement in this way, but there are also many who are determined not to be coerced and must use legal weapons to make them pay.
In 2021, "Banlaia", a pirated beauty brand L'Oreal, used Sun Li's image endorsement without permission and was sued by Sun Li's studio, and then Liu Haoran also experienced such a thing.
However, the number of times they have been infringed on their portrait rights together is estimated to be no match for Andy Lau, Andy Lau has experienced 80 portrait rights infringement this year, and over the years, Andy Lau has received the most compensation of only 500,000 yuan.
It was in 2012 that a health care equipment company in Zhejiang stole Andy Lau's portrait rights without permission to endorse his water purifier, and Andy Lau's studio sued and demanded a public apology and compensation of 2.01 million for reputation damage.
After a process that lasted for half a year, the company compensated Andy Lau 500,000 yuan and apologized, and the matter was over.
The process of the water purifier incident is the same as today's sauerkraut, first using the copyright of the movie to correct the name, and then making a mistake, pretending to be Andy Lau himself to endorse it, so as to make a profit.
Some time ago, there was an endorsement of Jay Chou, which rubbed a wave of traffic, but he was not warned by Jay Chou at all, that is the most standard case of endorsement rubbing the edge is not illegal, it is Nai Xue's tea.
A classic case
Two months ago, after Luckin and Moutai co-branded and ate a large wave of traffic, Nai Xue's tea next door couldn't help but be tempted, and they also played such a side game, and they set their sights on Jay Chou, who has hundreds of millions of fans.
So he immediately launched the co-branded model of "Nai Xue Still Fantesi", which made everyone think that they had reached a cooperation with Jay Chou, and many people came to pay for Jay Chou, but do they really own the copyright?
In fact, they just reached a cooperation with a music company, and that music company owned the copyright of Jay Chou's album "Still Fantesi", so they co-branded with this album.
Therefore, the outside world naturally thinks that it is Jay Chou's endorsement, but this is just a sideline, and Jay Chou has no way to sue them.
Endorsement is linked to the personal image of the star, since they endorse the brand, they have to take responsibility for the quality of their products, if something goes wrong, they must be scolded.
Just like the famous old actors Hou Yaowen and Pan Changjiang, they abandoned their reputation for the sake of profit, and in the end they could only fall to the point where everyone shouted and beat them.
Write at the end
Just like this sauerkraut endorsement incident, if there is a problem with the quality of this sauerkraut, there will be many uninformed people who abuse Andy Lau and say that he has no morality.
So Andy Lau is protecting his reputation, but the more important thing is not to let them compensate, but to tell everyone that this is not his endorsement, and don't scold the wrong person if something happens.
There are many people who are popular, and these unscrupulous businessmen who are illegally engaged in side play must be punished as they deserve!
【Disclaimer】The process and pictures described in the article are all from the Internet, and this article aims to advocate positive social energy and no vulgar and other bad guidance. If it involves copyright or character infringement issues, please contact us in time, and we will delete the content as soon as possible!