Lionsgate Backs Off 'The Hunger Games' Squabble With Charity

Lionsgate has backed off a cease-and-desist letter sent to a charity that studio brass felt was wrongly invoking the newly opened blockbuster-to-be "The Hunger Games", according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The studio holding the rights to the Jennifer Lawrence-starring blockbuster that opened this weekend delivered unto Harry Potter Alliance's Imagine Better Project a recent order to kibosh the slogan "Hunger is not a game." Though the studio apparently feels it's unfairly co-opting the ubiquitous franchise's good name, the tagline actually touts the charity's backing of Oxfam's GROW food sustainability project.

Studio business affairs and litigation vice president Liat Cohen wrote the group a letter that took the "Hey, we're on your side!" approach by talking up Lionsgate's partnerships with Feeding America and the U.N.'s World Food Program. "We understand and support your cause and mission . . . We are looking for an amicable resolution."

Apparently not feeling he'd made himself clear enough, Cohen later delivered an additional statement. He explained the belief that with the film's release already tied in with multiple hunger-awareness efforts, the Harry Potter Alliance's invoking of not merely the words "hunger" and "game" in its slogan but also the Suzanne Collins trilogy's themes (namely, individual districts of Pandem combatting their own respective hunger issues) on its website could potentially create affiliation confusion. A separate source told THR that the studio would not pursue legal action.

"Our requests to other fan-based initiatvies center more specifically around the use of copyrighted materials with have been committed to the WFP and Feeding America," Cohen explained. "We absolutely support and encourage the efforts of organizations battling world hunger and would encourage fans to join our efforts by visiting HungerGames.com."

One must appreciate that oh-so-subtle working-in of the website plug.

"This is causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts," Cohen's original cease-and-desist letter states. "We have the ability to take down your sites as a violation of our trademark and other intellectual property laws. We hope that will not be necessary as this is too serious a subject."

Lionsgate could indeed have standing for action here. As explained by THR, the Lanham Act provides such grounds where trademark confusion and making false or misleading claims of affiliation could damage a trademark's value or standing. Though for a worthy cause and even one Lionsgate itself supports, Imagine Better is still soliciting money and playing in none too subtle a manner off a licensed intellectual property to do it.