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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.
If you go to the screenshots, I'd swear that was Goku. It seems that DragonBall Z would have a bigger claim to infringement.
And I must admit, it does look really stupid.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
I sense a grave disturbance in the force.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
"Luke, I am your father."
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
did Judge Claudia Wilken have to watch both movies to determine that there was little chance of confusion?
Lucasfilm's spokeswoman said "This is a pornographic cartoon utilizing Star Wars intellectual property. We feel strongly that the law does not allow for parody to be a defense to a pornographic use of someone else's intellectual property, especially when that use is directed to children."
But regardless of being pornographic or now, people are allowed to use intellectual property for parody purposes, which is clearly what Star Ballz is doing. Well done to the Judge for not taking sides with the big corporation, but instead choosing what is right for people's freedom.
Follow me
because whatever it is that "Star Ballz" is gonna be, from the looks of things, it's going to be better than Episode 2!
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
How many hits from Slashdot will result in sales of the video just because MMG's pissing in a big studio's corn flakes?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Star Ballz: The plot, dialogue and characterization are no better than Episode 1, but at least the chicks get naked.
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charlton heston is more of a man than yo
...and have Natalie Portman in a sex scene so all these damn /. trolls will finally shut up!
"We feel strongly that the law does not allow for parody to be a defense to a pornographic use of someone else's intellectual property, especially when that use is directed to children."
Of course. Always invoke the children. That justifies any measure.
The Gardener
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A star wars related movie with no muppets or N'Sync. No wonder Lucas wants to sue, I want to see this more than episode 2: star wars 90210.
People v Larry Flint, he did exactly that he created a porno parody of a religious guy. Flint won at the Supreme Court.
Parody is enshrined within that judgement as being allowable, and indeed a cornerstone of US Law. Supporting Hustler and Flint in that case were NYT, Washington Post and others who you wouldn't normally see on the same shelf as Hustler.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Starballz claims this is a parody. Really? Parody, says Websters is "a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule." Case law shows that criticising or commenting on the original is also fair use (although not necessarily parody).
Having your own original characters do a Matrix freeze-orbit scene is parody for comic effect (please, enough, stop doing this now). Borrowing the characters, but spoofing twenty two other works and making very cutting critital points about "moichandising, moichandising" leaves you mostly clear, as Mel Brooks showed, and in agreement with the very informative overview of fair use and parody laws at publaw.com
But this... well, I dunno. It's commercial, it's not commenting or criticising that I can see (not is it primarily comic per se, it's part of a well defined genre of its own, like musical), it uses substantial portions of the original (characters, scenes and plot). That only leaves the effect on the original which is, to be fair, minimal. But in three out of the four criteria that a court should use to decide fair use, it appears to fall down.
Perhaps it does comment on or criticise the original. Of course, we'd have to watch it first to find out. And perhaps Lucasarts should have done so too:
It's hard to sympathise with a lawyer getting bitchslapped at the best of times, but this, if true, is probably karmic enough to cancel out any actual moral transgretion.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Sailor Moon as Princess Leia..
This is so stupid, I can't even make myself sit through the preview. If Lucas hadn't sued odds are no one would have even heard of this.
Am I the only one?
Probably. Next question?
Yes, its unsuitable, and its inappropriate and unthinkable and unconscionable and and wont somebody please think of the children!?!?
Liberty in your lifetime
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.
...for more parodies like that? I have to admit that watching a re-run of "Thunderbirds" on DVD last night, my mind drifted for a moment fantazing about Lady Penelope and Tintin taking care of the 5 sons while the father and Tintin had some fun too and GranMa was watching and cheering up Tintin's father having taken off her denture.
I hope that people with animation talent won't be shy experiencing new ways to bring us joy and visual pleasure.
In a country drown by puritanism and religion, I am impressed about the open mindness verdict the judge has demonstrated. New lifestyles are reaching our country. This is re-assuring.
Kuddos to these guys for protecting US citizen rights by having taken the chance to fight Lucaz.
To these guys and the judge: You've got ballz! I know about a lot of people who would have comply with what ever big corp. would have order them to do (cough! Lindows cough!)
PPA, the (bi) girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Far more serious free speech issues are going the wrong way. How about accademic freedom? The University of South Florida is canning a computer science teacher for saying bad things about Israel (see this Salon story). How about DeCSS? How about encryption rights? How about Digital Rights Denial? In all matters of real importance, the US federal government has proved itself wrong headed recently. So while the publishing giants feel free to swear on the public airways they own, place naked people on billboards, and do whatever else they think they can to make a buck, you and me are being stripped of the right to utter dissaproval in any meaningful way. Your comminications will be monitored (carnivore and local ISP caches), your house will be searched unreasonably(USA and Patriot acts), your property will be confiscated (standard proceedure), and you will be quiet.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What gets me is the "directed to children" bit. Um, what? Where does it say that the parody is directed to children? On the Star Ballz website, where there's a clear "this website contains material unsuitable for those under 18" disclaimer? By watching the thing? (Oh, wait, no, they didn't, did they?)
I know! It's because it's animated, and as everybody knows, animated vids are only for kids, regardless of content! Ha ha, right, all those Mangle Video animes with people getting naked (and peoples' brains getting shot out) that they release instead of getting around to Giant Robo are all to keep the little kiddies entertained!
Bleah. That mindset makes me sick.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
On a related note, the usual "fortune" at the bottom of this page says "Can't open /usr/games/lib/fortunes.dat." Is that a bug, or a parody of a bug?
We're partially to blame. Every time we point to a Nintendo console as being "kiddy" because games are using cartoon graphics instead of being hyper-realistic, we perpetuate that belief.
:)
Of course, when I say WE, I really mean all of you.