QR Codes: Legal Risks & Mitigation in Marketing Motion Pictures

Rey Rodriguez, Assistant Chief Counsel of Legal Affairs, The Walt Disney Company, USA

Increasingly, marketers use QR codes to promote, advertise and market goods. This article focuses on how QR codes are used in the marketing of motion pictures and some important legal issues that arise. The relevancy of QR codes increased substantially, since Denso Wave, a Japanese company, debuted the first QR code in 1994 . Smartphone manufacturers such as Apple integrating QR code readers into their devices’ built-in camera and contactless communication during the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the QR code’s ubiquitous use in today’s society. One common legal issue marketers face when using QR codes is the collection and processing of consumer data being compliant with consumer privacy laws. Consumer data can be collected from a QR Code when that QR Code drives the device reading it to a digital environment configured to collect cookies from that device. Responsible marketers will want to maintain the security, confidentiality, availability, and integrity of personal information and do their best to ensure that such data is not compromised by a QR Code scan. Another important legal issue relates to litigation stemming from patent infringement claims based on how businesses display and/or utilize a QR code.

Rey M. Rodríguez is a twenty seven year veteran of The Walt Disney Company. As an attorney, Rey serves the global theatrical distribution arm of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, covering the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Asia. He is fluent in Spanish, which has played an important role in managing issues and developing relationships in Latin America and Spain. Previous to his work at Disney, Rey was an attorney at Paul Hastings. In addition to his professional career, Rey feels an important obligation to give back to his community. He is a 20 plus year board member of Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission, a non-profit organization in East Los Angeles serving the needs of Boyle Heights. He is a board member of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, dedicated to advocating in the courts and through legislation for California’s poor. He is a member of the board of Family Foothill Services, which is a nonprofit that provides mental health services to needy families throughout the San Gabriel Valley. He was a member of Grupo Educa, one of the few Spanish language heritage schools in Los Angeles, dedicated to ensuring that subsequent generations of Spanish speakers retain their ability to speak, write and read Spanish. He has written extensively on the need for more Spanish language heritage schools to be established in Los Angeles and across the country. He has been published in UCLA’s Heritage Language Journal. Through the Disney Legal Department Pro Bono Program, Rey has provided legal services to two unaccompanied minors who ultimately received their permanent residency to study, work and live in the United States. Rey has achieved a bachelor of arts in economics from Cornell University, a master’s in public affairs from Princeton University and JD from University of California at Berkeley. He has climbed Mt. Whitney five times, each time in one day. He is a black belt in Aikido. He is blessed to be married to Vivian Rodríguez Godoy and has two boys, Diego and Pablo. He was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in Durango, Colorado.

The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California