I’ve participated in a number of Internet discussion about the Austin Powers: Goldmember movie and there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about how and why Sony was able to force the movie’s producers to change the name and pull all the marketing material for the movies (at least temporarily).
First of all, this is not a trademark issue, even though Sony is obviously not pleased with the the parody of Goldfinger. If you want to make a spy spoof film and call it Goldmember, I doubt Sony would have much of a leg to stand on in a trademark lawsuit (though it might be able to harass you with nuisance suits and make it unprofitable to continue).
One of the few good things the MPAA has done is figure that its members probably have better things to do than file trademark lawsuits back and forth with each other. So companies that are members of the MPAA can register film titles with it. This costs $300/year plus $200 for every 10 film titles.
What do you get for your money? Well, say you register the film title “Jack of Spades.” No member of the MPAA can release a film with that title without securing your permission first. Suppose instead I decide to make a movie called “Ten of Diamonds” which you think is a bit too close to “Jack of Spades.” Rather than sue each other, we are bound by our agreement with the MPAA to go into arbitration that will settle the matter.
If you follow the movie trade closely, you’ll occasionally see movie studios paying other studios, filmmakers, etc. serious dollar figures to obtain the rights to a certain movie name — Disney, for example, reportedly paid $600,000 just to use the title “Ransom” for its Mel Gibson film of that name.
Its just domain name squatting, Hollywood style.