Custom Install operation takes on Hollywood over Wizard of Oz phrase

A US custom install operation has found itself going head to head with Time Warner's Turner Entertainment group for using the phrase There’s no place like home … theater in its advertising material.

The Hollywood studio claims that it has sole rights to the There’s no place like home line, made famous in the 1939 classic The Wizard Of Oz.  CI operation Sights-N-Sounds, based not in Kansas but Seaford, New York, has been using the phrase in its promotional literature since 1997.

Sights-N-Sounds owner Joe Calise, moans: ‘It’s a perfect example of a media mogul picking on the little guy. My slogan has nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz. We aren’t using images that relate to that movie in any way.’

Calise decision to apply for a trademark to nab the phrase appears to have been the catalyst for Turner Entertainment to spring into action.  A decision on ownership rights by the trademark court in the District of Columbia is expected within months.