Copyrights, Fan-Art, and You

[practicecactus]

The family guy star wars specials are very much parody, much like everything in tv and film referencing star wars and helps keep star wars relevant and in the public eye, and Lucas did ok it. There are interviews with seth mcfarlane about it on youtube. Personally, I think anything to do with family guy should carry the ultimate criminal penalties but that's just cause I find the show so incredibly unfunny. =P

I still maintain that at least the Lucasfilm people have been clever about it, and allow them to do it because it's free advertising, the fans do a better job of holding up the integrity of it, and Lucasfilm would hurt their image if they attacked them legally.
Anyone who's ever just been snubbed by a celebrity will tell you it puts you off their stuff forever.

 

[HauntedPuppet]

The family guy star wars specials are very much parody, much like everything in tv and film referencing star wars and helps keep star wars relevant and in the public eye, and Lucas did ok it. There are interviews with seth mcfarlane about it on youtube. Personally, I think anything to do with family guy should carry the ultimate criminal penalties but that's just cause I find the show so incredibly unfunny. =P

I still maintain that at least the Lucasfilm people have been clever about it, and allow them to do it because it's free advertising, the fans do a better job of holding up the integrity of it, and Lucasfilm would hurt their image if they attacked them legally.
Anyone who's ever just been snubbed by a celebrity will tell you it puts you off their stuff forever.

I very much agree with this whole statement except for the amusement value of Family Guy.

HEH.

 

[Drtooth]

Example:
Disney could have sued the FOX network show Family Guy for many things including their depiction of Burt and Ernie being gay amongst other things but instead they sued and LOST over a parody of a disney song.

Clarification... Bert and Ernie are owned by Sesame Workshop... and I'm pretty sure SW has a good humor about that sort of thing. They may not need permission to have Cookie monster drawn into an episode in a rehab clinic, but they HAVE to get permission to use the theme to Electric Company and the Pinball Number Count songs.

Secondly, You're referring to "When you Wish Upon a Star." It's a common misconception that because Disney used it in a movie and has been associated with the song ever since that they actually own it. They do NOT. Someone else does. It wasn't Disney, but rather the owners of the original movie copyright that tried to sue them. Had Disney owned it, they probably would have let it go. They didn't act on Goofy being turned into an anti-semetic terrorist, they didn't act on a perverted Walt Disney drawing Minnie Mouse naked. The only 2 people that ever had problems were Carol Burnett (which is very disappointing on her part) and the people who own "When You Wish Upon a Star."

That said, the law NEEDS revisiting. They need more swing room for parody, and some sort of "not for profit/fan work" addendum. Again, companies don't realize how important that stuff is to the relevance of their characters. Look at how Garfield Minus Garfield made the comic strip relevant again. And Jim Davis COULD have shut them down. Instead, he embraced it and even published a book. We need more Jim Davises in the world of the internet.

 

[RedPiggy]

It's kinda like Weird Al. I remember seeing that he needs no permission to parody songs, but he tries to obtain it anyway. I only recall a couple of people being jerks about it -- Coolio was one, I think. It's also like Avenue Q -- they didn't really have to get permission, as it was absolute parody, but they did it anyway.

I still have to wonder about the logic of what has happened to my vids. I have abridged Dinosaurs eps (put up to help with my first ficverse) and the only thing I've had to do is disable comments from Changing Nature Ending because I kept getting spammed by foul-mouthed jerks. Otherwise, no one has said a word. It's not like the vile-but-still-makes-me-laugh Dino Dubbing series, which has been taken off repeatedly due to every other word being swearing.

Meanwhile, I had two half-dubbed Fraggle Rock vids that were clearly labeled parody and it's not like my voice is so much like Red's and Mokey's that no one could tell the difference. They weren't taken down but they were blocked by anyone in the US. Huh? My vids were respectful and clearly about trying to drum up interest in the upcoming movie and they were blocked! Meanwhile, you can have thousands of "killing Elmo" vids and Sesame Street doesn't say a single word. I don't know what crawled up either the Henson's or Lionsgate's buttocks, but I know that Jake Forbes of Return to Labyrinth appreciates fan work so much he posts about it on his blog. He thinks it's cool someone knows his work. Chester A. Bum of Nostalgia Critic fame blasted Family Guy for ripping him off, only to devolve into tears of joy that someone that "cool" listens to him.

From what I hear, Japan doesn't have this issue with fanwork. I watched some video about plagarized anime/manga and they were just shrugging and like, "Well, it's cool you watch/read it". They even have whole sections of conventions devoted to fanwork and if you're really good you might even get hired by "real" publishers.

I have a real problem with fanwork, respectful fanwork, treated like a crime. Some of these properties have withered on the vine and it's people like us who drum up business. How did the FR movie start picking up momentum? Demand. How did a show from the eighties that lots of kids didn't even see because they didn't have premium cable start mattering again? Fan stuff. I noted that Redsonga and a couple of other people had episodes of FR on Youtube. If you noticed, they were only pulled when the DVD's with those eps on it came out ... which tells me this was more of a Lionsgate purge than a Henson one. I can understand and totally respect that, which is why despite all the clamoring for me to put Dinosaurs eps on Youtube, I won't because the full eps are available and my uploads are just tastes to get the gist of the plot anyway. I just get irritated when something that ISN'T just a blatant upload gets blocked/pulled too. The content I dubbed in was MINE. I credited people all over the place. I encouraged the real deal.

*inhales*

Sorry, I'll try to stop ranting now ... *pants to calm down, LOL*

 

[spcglider]

It seems that no matter what the law is or is not, people (not saying anyone here) will continue to misinterpret or ignore it. And arguments, informed and uninformed, will continue on forums into forever.

But in my personal experience, it is best to assume that you aren't smarter than someone else's lawyer. That sort of thing only happens in bad courtroom dramas.

Somebody has already thought about the loopholes and closed them.

-G