Heres an interesting article on Toho's legal team that actively hunts down IP infringers who bootleg the image/name whatever of ol' Goji
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/1 ... error.html

D'oh!

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=26467

Still, I want these.
Godzilla attorneys Aaron Moss, left, and Charles Shephard show off unlicensed Godzillas that Yankee Stadium vendors were hawking without Toho's permission.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com.

This thread should be called "When Godzilla's Lawyers Attack!"

I remember when that Subway commercial aired with Godzilla I just knew it was gonna get pulled.

Theres a Yellowtail wine commercial with Godzilla in it thats airing now.I assume they paid Toho their fee.

I didn't think that creature looked anything like Godzilla. Yet, the three-headed dragon in new recent MUMMY movie looked an awful lot like Ghidrah. Will Toho sue Universal? No, they would be crushed by them. Toho used to be a nice company to work with, until they became douches.

I think back to the time I started collecting kaiju stuff (about 15 years), and I don't ever remember Toho _not_ being douches.

I remember that once they filed suit Kia for using Gorgo footage in one of their commercials. Don't remember whether or not they were successful but that took Godzilla-sized balls.

That wasn't for the GORGO footage, it was for their print ad, which used Godzilla (from GODZILLA 1985, IIRC). There was a huge banner on the side of the Covered Wagon Saloon (now Annie's Social Club) here in San Francisco. That's what Toho sued over. Back in the late 1970s/early 1980s, I used to regularly call Toho's LA office, and they would send posters and other printed materials to me. That changed when a they swapped out managers in the mid-1980s.

In1982, I met a guy who was involved in the US ad campaigns for MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and ZOMBIE ("We're going to eat you!" was his tag line), and he was interested in seeing LUPIN III: CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO. Being one of the few people in the States with a copy of the film (a screener given to me by author Monkey Punch, himself, at the 1980 San Diego Comic Con), he was differed to me, and we talked about the film -- our little fan group had already painstakingly put together an English subtitle script for the film (working with a fellow Japanese fan), which he was also interested in.

I told him I would call my contact at Toho's LA office, and asked if they could meet with him. The manager of the LA Office, not only agreed, but flew up to San Francisco to meet with us and took us out to dinner (at an expensive Japanese restaurant in Ghiradelli Square)! He was very humorous and warm, and we had a great time. Getting down to business, he told us that the price for the rights to the film was $10,000 USD for North American theatrical rights (excluding Television, Home Video and Ancillary rights) for five years. Unfortunately, the ad man couldn't raise the investment to secure the film, and that was the end of that. But, I continued to talk to this very awesome manager until he left to return to the home office. After that, communications with Toho's LA office became cold and distant.

Interestingly, an acquaintance of mine, William Winckler, who wrote, produced and directed the US version of TEKKAMAN: THE SPACE KNIGHT in the 1980s, met with Toho's then-new manager to discuss the acquisition of a new Tatsunoko Productions film being distributed by Toho, TECHNO POLICE 21C (he was already friends, and played Golf regularly, with the heads of Tatsunoko). As they were playing Golf, William tried to break the ice with the new man in charge, who had just been transferred from Toho's Rome office, and asked, "How do you like LA?" The terse response was "I hate it; I want to go back to Rome." William said that he was a very unpleasant man.

This jerk was the very same character who set the precedent of Toho's LA office suing everyone in the early 1990s, before he left for greener pastures.

According to Jim Cirronella, distinguished kaiju historian and certified expert on Gorgo, "Toho did want the Gorgo Kia commercial removed because they enlisted the help of author Stuart Galbraith IV to take a look at the footage. Stuart advised Toho that the monster is Gorgo, not Godzilla and that they owned no rights to it. I don't know if Toho continued legal action over the commercial, but it disappeared quickly enough from broadcast."

tl;dr,
But those guys in that elevator look real happy they got
FREE F*CKIN' GODZILLA BALLOONS.

In life, I believe this is all that matters.