Brand yes, brand no. Totò’s heirs, as a result of the precautionary order of the Court of Turin, can block the clandestine use of the name and now comes the official announcement: Totò becomes a registered trademark which requires clubs, restaurants and pizzerias to turn around and cancel it from signs, menus and placemats, quotes and poems by the artist. In Naples the issue is divisive, Prince De Curtis is the emblem of the city and its art. «Are we sure that he would have wanted to lock up his cultural production?», asks the writer Maurizio de Giovanni. Who adds: «Blocking his memes, quotes and films is seriously limiting the expression of our identity. Obviously there is a commercial issue, but telling a pizza chef not to use Totò’s image seems silly to me. It means not letting it reach the new generations, who already don’t watch films from before the 90s, don’t go to the theater and don’t know ‘A level».
Letter from Totò’s heirs: the pizzeria «’A livella» changes its name
ROYALTIES
Totò on the murals of the city where he was born, but also in the rest of Italy. Totò who inspires desserts, pizzas and dishes from one end of the country to the other. Totò which becomes the sign of restaurants, trattorias and pizzerias everywhere. «We are talking about a character in the public domain, well-known, whose evocation has an immediate impact on the public and a corresponding and potential economic valorisation. The commercial exploitation of a name that has acquired absolute renown is therefore looming, so much so that the Court of Turin speaks of an offence”, underlines Professor Fabrizio Vismara, professor of International Law and head of Litigation at the Squire Patton Boggs firm. More complicated, he adds, is preventing the wine from circulating ‘A level, like his famous poem, or forcing the managers of the premises to remove his posters from the walls: «The use of images of a public figure is one thing, another is use of his name. In this case the customer combines service and product with Totò.” How is dispute with restaurants resolved? «By paying the royalties – explains Vismara – In this way the privativeness is recognised, that is, the ownership of the name by the heirs». Determined to protect the name of Prince De Curtis. «I’m happy that Totò becomes a brand – says Marisa Laurito, artistic director of the Trianon Viviani Theater – because I saw him everywhere. It is not correct that the name of a showman and, in this case, of such prestige, is used in advertisements that can be seen everywhere.” For the sculptor Lello Esposito «copyrights exist and therefore the family has the responsibility for them, even more so than an extraordinary man like him. But it applies to every form of art.” For the artist «the attitude of family members serves to moderate the excessive use of an image that told the story of an era and a city and which must be protected from commercial speculation».
Also supporting the de Curtis family is Gaetano Liguori, artistic director of the Teatro Totò, a historic hall in the alleys close to Via Foria: «Given that the matter concerns activities different from ours, we have been remembering Totò for thirty years. We were authorized by Liliana, who came to the inauguration and, on the occasion of twenty years of activity, by her daughter Elena. Theirs is the right position, because Totò’s name should be combined with high-level activities, not with cutlets and burgers. The family was right – insists Liguori – to put a stop to these initiatives. Just to remember the spirit of projects in the name of Totò, for thirty years we have had a theater academy in a difficult neighborhood which is a true outpost of culture and legality, where we bring many young people back onto the stage.”
LIKE EDUARDO
A technical opinion comes from Raffaele Cercola, professor of Marketing at Vanvitelli University: «What the family members did is absolutely correct. Totò is a modus vivendi, it should not be exploited but valorised. Today this is not the case: it is used in all sauces. The idea that it should be protected and controlled is therefore right. The same goes for Eduardo De Filippo and Massimo Troisi.” The actor Benedetto Casillo proposes the solution: «Advertising on pizza boxes, with images or phrases of Totò, could be subject to a quota, part of which could go to charity for those who live in the alleys and for the dogs that he loved him so much. Totò remains the prince of all and we are his subjects.”
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