In this installment of Trademark Tales of Terror, “Friday the 13th” and the Trouble with Jason Voorhees, we embark on a journey to Camp Crystal Lake, a place cursed by the relentless presence of a silent hockey mask-wearing killer, Jason Voorhees. In the eerie woods of Camp Crystal Lake, Jason Voorhees became the stuff of legends. Armed with a machete and an unyielding thirst for vengeance, he carved his way into the annals of horror history. The “Friday the 13th” franchise brought Jason to life, making him a figure of terror and a cornerstone for the slasher genre.
This is another highly successful New Line Cinema horror franchise. Beginning in 1980 on the not so peaceful shores of Camp Crystal Lake, there have been 12 films so far. Of course, there are also novels, comic books, video games, tons of decor, and costume merchandise. Not bad for a film that started with only a cool title and the notion to copy the slasher feel of the original “Halloween” movie.
While the movies themselves, along with the TV shows, books, comics, and the character of Jason Voorhees are all covered by copyright law, there are numerous trademarks associated with this brand as well, including the name of the series itself, “Friday the 13th,” and the name Jason Voorhees.
I couldn’t find any registration of the iconic masks worn by Jason as trademarks. That’s likely because they would be deemed too generic, and the specific masks are likely covered by copyright registration instead.
This is different from Freddy’s glove from “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” which was registered as a trademark. If something is common, it’s going to be hard to register as a trademark. Here, a hockey mask, even a well worn or damaged one, after all hockey can be pretty rough, is a popular Halloween mask, even when not associated with Jason Voorhees.
So while the mask, combined with a costume involving a mangled head and a large knife, boiler suit, or other accessories Jason Voorhees or his mother had in the films, would evoke the characters from “Friday the 13th,” rather than a hockey player, the mask alone wouldn’t do it, so it can’t be registered as trademark.
The studio has to rely instead on copyright alone to enforce its intellectual property rights to the mask. Similarly, “Camp Crystal Lake” isn’t registered as a trademark, as it’s also a little too generic to serve as a brand identifier. On its own, given the plethora of similar identical names for real camps, how can a common term like “Friday the 13th” be trademarked then?
That’s because it’s trademarked only in connection with certain goods and services, like films, toys, and other franchise related merchandise for which the term is not a common phrase. The owners have no rights to use that term exclusively in any other context.
This film franchise has been the source of a great deal of copyright litigation over who has the rights to the character of Jason Voorhees and in what form. Because Jason didn’t don the famous mask until the third movie, Producers Horror Incorporated can use the masked character without the consent of the screenwriter of the first movie, who only has rights regarding the first movie and Jason’s mother as the killer, not Jason as the killer.
You’ll recall Jason’s brief appearance was as a child in the dream sequence, so he didn’t actually kill anyone or have any kind of covering on his gross head. Technicalities are the thing lawsuit nightmares are made of. Now that that big copyright lawsuit has been resolved, we can look forward to some new projects like a prequel TV series and yet another reboot.
The legend of Jason Voorhees continues to terrorize horror fans. He’s also wreaked havoc in the courthouse halls plenty slicing and dicing bootleg merchandise vendors, and playing a key role in slasher showdown between the original screenwriter and producers.
