Well, it looks like the French can exhibit the same kind of histrionic outrage as the Red Hot Chili Peppers when they think someone's been capitalizing on their renown.  Apparently, when what looks like a Louis Vuitton product appears in the "Do Somethin" video of noted tabloid denizen Britney Spears, it is tout a fait insupportable, an "attack" on the brand and its image.  Is this dilution gone mad?

Yes, emphatically.  I've watched the video (the things I do in the name of this blog, believe me!) and the image of the LV product appears for at most one second.  Blink and you've missed it.  In fact, it's hard to tell that it's even Vuitton.  Dooney & Bourke has a similar pattern;  I'm sure others do as well.  The French language was born from Latin;  do they not understand de minimis use?

The "attack on the brand" theory may not fly so well in the US, at least I'd hope not.  I don't think dilution by blurring would work, because the use is not the use of a mark, and I would at least hope a strong argument could be made for the use falling into the nominative fair use category.

Guess what?  Videos like that sell product.  Just like hearing the name of the series "Californication" may remind someone to buy the CD of that name, watching a video where Louis Vuitton products are featured — nay, even suggested — may prompt a sale or deux.   Are they willing to sacrifice sales to preserve what they see as their products' image?  It certainly wouldn't be the first time a French company expressed dissatisfaction at its products' apparent appeal to a demographic it considered an unworthy beneficiary of its cachet.

In my book, unless it's counterfeit, to paraphrase Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously, don't be stupid, take the dough.