The creators of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series have filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Netflix over “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” leaving a Vermont federal judge to choose the appropriate ending.
Chooseco LLC is suing Netflix for trademark infringement and dilution over the streaming service’s new hit, claiming that Netflix is “willfully and intentionally” using its trademark “to capitalize on viewers’ nostalgia for the original book series from the 1980s and 1990s.”
Bandersnatch is an interactive film that allows viewers to make choices that drive the plot and decide the ending. Early on, the main character informs his father that “Bandersnatch is a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book” and holds up a copy by fictional author Jerome F. Davies.
“Choose Your Own Adventure” books were a fond part of adolescence for many of us in our 20s, 30s, and 40s. In its complaint, though, Chooseco draws a sharp contrast between the book series’ tone and tales to Bandersnatch’s “dark and, at times, disturbing content,” which include “demonic presence, violent fighting, drug use, murder, mutilation of a corpse, decapitation, and other upsetting imagery.”
The Vermont-based company alleges that Bandersnatch’s “content dilutes the goodwill for the positive associations with Chooseco’s mark and tarnishes its products" and is asking the court for injunctive relief to stop Netflix's actions concerning its use of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" trademark. Chooseco's complaint details its own continued marketing efforts including a film option contract with Twentieth Century Fox and a board game that was released in June 2018.
The real legal adventure, though, could come in its request for $25 million in damages or Netflix’s profits, whichever is greater, and that the damages be tripled because of the alleged willful nature of Netflix’s conduct.
Supporting the company’s claim that it deserves treble damages is its allegation that the two parties had been in "extensive negotiations" over the use of the trademark in 2016 but that Netflix never obtained a license. Also, Chooseco claims it sent Netflix at least one cease-and-desist letter regarding its unauthorized use of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" trademark in another program.
Does Bandersnatch’s reference to a "Choose Your Own Adventure” book on the show confuse viewers into believing it is actually connected with the real-life books or does the average viewer simply believe fiction is fiction and that’s that?
Now we wait to see whether Netflix chooses settlement rather than have an ending to this lawsuit chosen for them.
