Fuji TV Shuts Down Iron Chef Fansites

psiwave writes: "Following the growing trend towards corporate ineptitude, Fuji Television has smacked every fansite of that oh-so-popular Japanese food-fighting show, Iron Chef, with a cease and desist order. Since June 1st, IronChef.com, IronChef.net and every other fansite of any merit has been ordered to remove all Fuji-owned IC graphics and sound (though none of these sites are for-profit). It seems that rather than embrace the show's growing (and somewhat fanatic) Internet fanbase, Fuji is hoping to alienate and disillusion it." (CT: I love this show. This makes me grumpy)

The Ass, The Dog And Their Master

A Dog and his Master's Ass, having grown acquainted over the years, had become great friends, though the Ass spent many long hours ploughing the fields, and the Dog mainly lay about with little to do. One day the Dog decided that the work of his friend the Ass was quite remarkable and under-appreciated. Taking a bushel of grain from the year's harvest, he proclaimed to all passers-by: "O, just look upon the work of my friend the Ass! Is it not remarkable!" Some onlookers did make comment on the quality of the grain, whereupon the Ass brayed in delight. Yet upon returning home, the Master found two handfuls of grain missing, and thereupon beat the Dog soundly, chained him up, and warned the Ass never again to countenance thievery.

Moral...

Comments

I tried licensing the material. It didn't work.

[yerricde]

Once upon a time, I made a fansite about a different TV show. The only copyrighted material I used was one picture of the main character (fair use 3) for non-commercial (fair use 1) purposes. I even linked to the official site (fair use 4).

The copyright owners sent me a cease and desist letter. I took the image down within half an hour of checking my mail. I would later study the issue in more depth and discover that fair use is not infringement; cease and desist letters against obvious fair use can constitute harassment.

So I asked for a license. They refused to give me one, claiming a possibility of defamation aka libel. Then I just took the site down and put a rant in its place.

The right and wrong

[Dark Paladin]

This one is a hard choice for me. On the one side, Iron Chef certainly has the copyrights to its logo, images, and sounds from its show. And it probably has the right to go after people who they feel have violated that copyright. After all, if they don't reign in people now, what's to stop someone else from making Iron Porn or something that comes back to bite them in the butt?

Now, that having been said, Fuji should take a careful look as to what site is doing what. If the site is positive and promotes traffic, I'd give them a letter saying "Hey, that's our stuff - but you can use it all if you sign this agreement saying that it's all ours, and that you won't claim its yours, and give us a link to our site on each page in a nice viewable manner." This way they maintain control of the copyright (by forcing people to have Fuji's permission, a perfectly reasonable request IMHO), and if a site doesn't agree, then they can slap them down. As always, that's just my $0.02. I could be wrong.

John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
We don't just like games, we love them!