FINAL UPDATE:

UPDATE 4:

gumby_trucker said:



Bridgestone's first comment on the lawsuit:



"Mr. Lambert is one of the actors who appeared in the commercial as a Bridgestone engineer. Bridgestone denies that 'Kevin Butler' appears in the Bridgestone commercial discussed herein and thus denies that he speaks or does anything whatsoever in the commercial." - Bridgestone statement



source:



"But on September 3, just three days after the expiration of an agreement between Sony and Lambert's loan-out company Wildcat Creek, the actor appeared in ads for Bridgestone that promised consumers a Nintendo Wii upon the purchase of four tires."



And as most of us suspected:

"According to a complaint filed in California federal court, the contract between Sony and Wild Creek was entered into on August 7, 2009 and contained an "exclusivity clause" that prevented Lambert from providing his services or his likeness to competing gaming system manufacturers like Nintendo."



Looks like the Hollywood Reporter paid to get access to more complete records of the suit. As far as I know this hasn't been posted on this thread, maybe it could be added to the OP.Bridgestone's first comment on the lawsuit:source: The Hollywood Reporter - The article is worth a read imo for anyone interested in seeing how the entertainment industry views this case. It also offers a concise and well-written overview, as well as some new details such as this one:"But on September 3,between Sony and Lambert's loan-out company Wildcat Creek, the actor appeared in ads for Bridgestone that promised consumers a Nintendo Wii upon the purchase of four tires."And as most of us suspected:"According to a complaint filed in California federal court, the contract between Sony and Wild Creek was entered into on August 7, 2009 and contained anthat prevented Lambert from providing his services or his likeness to competing gaming system manufacturers like Nintendo."Looks like the Hollywood Reporter paid to get access to more complete records of the suit. Click to expand...

UPDATE 3:

UPDATE 2:



Update: GamesBeat contacted Sony and the publisher’s senior director of corporate communications Dan Race sent us the following statement:



"Sony Computer Entertainment America filed a lawsuit against Bridgestone and Wildcat Creek, Inc. on September 11. The claims are based on violations of the Lanham Act, misappropriation, breach of contract and tortious interference with a contractual relationship. We invested significant resources in bringing the Kevin Butler character to life and he’s become an iconic personality directly associated with PlayStation products over the years. Use of the Kevin Butler character to sell products other than those from PlayStation misappropriates Sony’s intellectual property, creates confusion in the market, and causes damage to Sony." Click to expand...

UPDATE:

Original Post:

gumby_trucker said:



Sony are suing for this! Not only are they suing Bridgestone for the commercial, they're also suing Wildcat Creek, Inc.



Who are they? Well, evidently they're the advertising company hired by Bridgestone for the commercial. According to



Sony sues Kevin Butler lol







Summary

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2012cv04753/258962/

Court filing 1

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2012cv04753/258962/8/

Court filing 2

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2012cv04753/258962/14/ sorry, had to bump:Sony are suing for this! Not only are they suing Bridgestone for the commercial, they're also suing Wildcat Creek, Inc.Who are they? Well, evidently they're the advertising company hired by Bridgestone for the commercial. According to this their president is none other than Jerry Lambert. Click to expand...

There was some confusion relating to the legal process that has since been removed. Sorry for any confusion it may have caused.Sony's Dan Race responds to the lawsuit (thank you Wario64, and JeffGrub) at Venturebeat Timeline- SkiesofWonder posts a screenshot of Bridgestone's Game On promotion featuring Jerry Lambert egging on some of his Bridgestone friends while playing Mario Kart Wii. Jerry's been doing Bridgestone commercials for a few months now, but this one was for a promotion regarding tire purchases leading to a free Nintendo Wii. A few hours later the promotion's website reveals Jerry with the group playing Mario Kart.- Videoman discovers video of the ad on Facebook, I upload it to Youtube. Video goes viral with stories posted by major sites mocking the fact that the actor formerly known for hawking PlayStation products is indirectly helping the other team.- Sony Computer Entertainment America files a lawsuit against both Bridgestone, and Wildcat Creek. Wildcat Creek is a company Jerry Lambert is president of, presumably to look over his acting duties. gumby_trucker discovers the lawsuit today (October 6) and posts it on GAF.- Bridgestone removes the video from Youtube with a copyright notice. Presumably this is when Bridgestone put their own upload of the video on private, and removed Jerry from their Game On site. Google cache shows he was removed from the site by September 27. The image with Jerry is still hosted on their site.- alr1ght posts about an alternate version of the ad circulating that no longer features Jerry at all. Drago posts this alternate version on Youtube.- The Game On campaign concludes.Jerry Lambert, the actor who plays the Kevin Butler character began appearing in Bridgestone Tire commercials a few months ago . More recently the company began running a Game On promotion where purchasing a new set of tires nets you a $70 American Express card or a Nintendo Wii. The commercial for the promotion drew the attention of Skiesofwonder who posted this on September 3 The original website design for the promotion had this banner:(Thanks to -x.Red.x- for embedding)That was removed prior to September 27 according to the Google Cache but is still hosted on their servers to this day.The commercial was uploaded onto Youtube after being spotted by VideoMan on Facebook. The video and story got coverage by a variety of large sites like CVG , and others. Bridgestone pulled the video down after amassing over 120k views on. Wario64 found an streaming version here On(about a week prior to the promotion ending on September 30) an alternate version of the ad was discovered by alr1ght with Jerry being removed from the ad. Drago found a Youtube version of this new ad Earlier today gumby_trucker posted that SCEA filed a lawsuit against Bridgestone, and Wildcat Creek (a company Lambert is the president of) on