TORONTO — Entertainment company Lionsgate and online broker TD Ameritrade are in a legal tango over a TV commercial that parodied Dirty Dancing.
Lionsgate filed suit Thursday against TD Ameritrade alleging false association, unfair competition and trademark infringement and dilution.
The company, founded in Vancouver in 1997, takes issue with a commercial for TD Ameritrade that showed a man holding a piggy bank over his head with the tagline, “Nobody puts your old 401(k) in the corner.” A 401(k) is a retirement savings plan provided by U.S. employers.
Lionsgate claims the ad infringes on the iconic “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” line from the 1987 film starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. The company’s September 2014 application to trademark the line is pending.
It alleges the animation “was intentionally designed to be virtually identical to the Dance Lift … the iconic and ultimate scene in the film in which Swayze lifts Grey above his head during their last dance together.”
The advertisement ran from October 2014 to April 2015.
“During the last 25 years, Lions Gate has been able to capitalize on the popularity and recognition of its Dirty Dancing intellectual property rights and has enjoyed a great deal of success in the exploitation of those rights worldwide,” reads the complaint, filed in Los Angeles.
It alleges TD Ameritrade is trying to “deceive customers into believing that the Advertising Campaign was a Lions Gate-licensed, authorized, or sponsored work, when, in fact, it was not.”
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In April, Lionsgate sought compensation from TD Ameritrade and demanded the brokerage stop running the commercial. Marketing agency Havas Worldwide — a defendant in the lawsuit filed by Lions Gate — evidently countered that the commercial was a parody.
According to the Lionsgate lawsuit, the parties were negotiating a settlement until last week, when TD Ameritrade asked a federal court in New York to “put to rest the baseless, overreaching claims asserted by Lionsgate.”
The entertainment company is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction against TD Ameritrade. It also wants the advertising scrubbed from social media.
None of the allegations have been proven in a court of law.
Dirty Dancing grossed $214 million at the box office and earned an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Song. The movie spawned a pair of chart-topping soundtrack albums and a concert tour as well as a short-lived TV series, reality series and musical production.
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