Slashdot Mirror
Star Ballz Trumps Lucas
baby_head_rush writes: "The company that created pr0n cartoon Star Ballz won in court. George Lucas and company lost their first bid to stop its sale.
A judge with some common sense. There is 'little likelihood of confusion' between Star Wars and Star Ballz." Not for young eyes.
those people violated the law, what does that have to do with slashdot? They clicked on a website, they broke a law.
This is a court case about parody use of IP, forget that its porn/starwars. Slashdot has a history of news relating to parody work and IP.
People are allowed to use IP for "fair use", of which parody is one example, the one the creators are claiming here. But parody is defined as "for comic effect or ridicule".
Some hentai can be viewed as funny, but you can say the same for some musicals. This looks like either hentai in a Star Wars style, or (as Lucasarts claimed) Star Wars in a hentai style. I don't think comedy is a primary goal in either case.
Ridicule implies commentary or criticism, as in "Spaceballs" or "Troopers". Perhaps there's some of that here, but from the shots it looks very much like a character-for-character, scene-for-scene remake, only with large animated sexual organs.
We'd need to watch it to be sure, but I don't see it as being that clear cut, not at all.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I downloaded the sample clip and hoo-boy is that terrible. I can appreciate a good parody even ones that rely on cock and ball humor, but this is god-awful. I don't even know why Lucas felt there was anything to worry about. It's not like anyone is actually going to buy this.
If a work like this, which can only questionably be catagorized as a a "parody" is defended by the courts under fair use, does that mean that we're likely to find Fan Fiction defendable under the same defense?
Then again, the company in question being sued probably had enough money to hire some skilled lawyers. Individual fan fiction writers may just find themselves killed by legal fees, not by legal decisions, which is rather unfortunate.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
When was this? Give me a date.
The company that made StarBallz has in the past made a number of DragonBallZ / Sailor Moon pornographic parodies.
...um...at least that is what my friend tells me...
Ummm... no not likely to overturn, if you read the decision at all. This was 8-0 with one dissent (in a court where anything stronger than 5-4 is a holy shit moment), and four of the justices from then are still on the bench.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."