# Porno movie: Could they legally use "Toy Story" for the title? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 19, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155 "2003-02-19T16:49:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![H8\_2\_W8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c77e96/32.png) [@H8\_2\_W8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H8_2_W8)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/1 "2003-02-19T16:49:54Z")
I suppose this is a copyright question. I know there are different movies with the same title out there, though I cannot think of them currently. Could an adult movie producer make a film about two sex toys that come to life in the human world when no one’s looking and use the title “Toy Story” if he wanted? Could these two sex toys be called, oh I don’t know, maybe Buzz and Woody? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/2 "2003-02-19T16:57:59Z")
AFAIK, titles are not subject to copyright, but a movie about toys (sex or otherwise) that come to life and are called Woody and Buzz, starts to look like plagiarism. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/3 "2003-02-19T17:03:07Z")
Titles generally can’t be copyrighted. You run into problems if your similarly-titled movie involves a similar story and/or similar characters to the original one. ---
**Author:** ![tevya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@tevya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tevya)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/4 "2003-02-19T17:06:35Z")
Would you be able to get away with it if you titled it “Boy Toy Story,” kept the characters names and called it a parody? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/5 "2003-02-19T17:38:32Z")
Titles are not copyrightable. However, don’t start shooting yet. They are trademarkable, and Disney has trademarked “Toy Story” for use in videocasettes and can sue you if you use that as the title of your work, or use it in such a was so that it could be confused (and Disney will most certainly argue that any porn use would harm the trademark and thus must be stopped). The parody argument might keep their lawyers at bay, but the money it will cost you to win the case would be more than what the video would be worth. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/6 "2003-02-19T18:02:53Z")
Toy $tory (money theme, or xxx-rated $cientolgists) Toys Story (need lots of _toys_ for this one…) Toy Storey (need to have a skyscraper in there or something) Toi Story (needs to star Avril Lavigne, or look-a-like) ---
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/7 "2003-02-19T19:30:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*AFAIK, titles are not subject to copyright, but a movie about toys (sex or otherwise) that come to life and are called Woody and Buzz, starts to look like plagiarism. \*\* Is it just me, or would Woody and Buzz be really good names for vibrators? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Short\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Short\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Short_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/8 "2003-02-19T20:04:58Z")
There actually is a short (humoristic, non-pornographic) parody of Toy Story called “Sex Toy Story”. I don’t know if the people who made this got the rights or not, but there really are too many similarities to warrant a production without permission. [http://www.woz.org/aeonflux/html/sex\_toy\_story.html](http://www.woz.org/aeonflux/html/sex_toy_story.html) (moderators might want to take a look at this: I don’t think it’s overly offensive, but it might be). ---
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/9 "2003-02-19T21:36:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Short Guy \* > \*\*(moderators might want to take a look at this: I don’t think it’s overly offensive, but it might be). \*\* When in doubt, I believe the suggested course of action is to email a mod before you post it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Short\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Short\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Short_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/10 "2003-02-20T15:07:34Z")
That I’ll do from now on. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/11 "2003-02-20T17:36:58Z")
I doubt it’s offensive. Etisalat (state telco here) doesn’t block it. And they have a stupid fkwitted dynamic filtering system that filters out keywords in URLs. So once when I did a search for breast cancer or something on SDMB, it blocked the result pages. Knocking off the “highlight\_word=breast” part, and just going with the thread number, was fine though. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porno-movie-could-they-legally-use-toy-story-for-the-title/156155/12 "2003-02-20T18:17:23Z")
Making porn movies with titles that are parodies of current hit films is such a common occurrence that comedians can make jokes about it. Even the plotlines are often similar. Still, there is a huge difference between doing this and using characters trademarked by Disney. Their lawyers are busier and better than yours are. If you wanted to make a porn movies about dildos which otherwise does not resemble the Disney movie and call it Toy Story or any variant, you’re probably in good legal shape. That doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t hear from Disney anyway.