Slashdot Mirror
Penny Arcade vs. American Greetings
ferrocene writes "Penny Arcade's American Mcgee/Strawberry Shortcake spoof posted last Monday was pulled because someone at American Greetings got wind of it and set their lawyers on them. PA's forums are abuzz with activity. I'm pro-funny, myself."
Does anyone have this comic mirrored anywhere? I'm sure we'd all love to see what the fuss is about.
Short, to the point, and not abusive. Hopefully they will take note. Frankly, I think they need to lighten up.
You win again, gravity!
Between Penny-Arcade and Slashdot readers, there are probably enough people to make a difference in their Mother's Day card sales, and unlike boycotting the entire movie industry, this is a really easy one to do. Also, unlike with an MPAA member boycott, they won't simply be able to attribute declining sales to increasing piracy.
So buy Hallmark, tell your friends to do likewise, and let the American Greetings Company know you're doing it. Maybe we can start to teach companies that in the information age, sending out indiscriminate C&D letters in the hopes of intimidation will cause more harm than good to their brand names.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Is this technically a parody? I thought of parody as imitation, not copying, of the original. So Spaceballs or Bored of the Rings are parodies where it is obvious what the source material is but none of the characters, names or places are directly from the originals.
In this case the actual name of the character is being used in the cartoon. Now, if they'd used the same image and made up a new name I don't think AG would have a leg to stand on, but in the current form they may be within their rights.
I don't know the law on this, and maybe my understanding parody is not the same as a court would see it, but I think AG may be right.
This months MAD: "Bored of the Rings: Again" :)
It appears that the contact us section of american greetings has been slashdotted.
500 Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, help@corporate.americangreetings.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Here's what I was attempting to send, feel free to use mine at your convenience.
Regarding the spoof of strawberry shortcake at penny-arcade.com
I think that your company is over zealous with its requirement to remove the parody comic from it's web site. You should be aware however your action been posted at several online news forums about your meager attempt at censorship. A pardoy is just that and it in by no means hurts the trade marks, nor does it cause confusion with the original work. I have also written a letter to the creator of the parody urging him to stand up your legal department and challenge your stupidity in court. If he chooses to do so I will gladly donate to his legal efforts.
Furthermore, I will urge my family, friends and co-workers never to buy any product from american greetings ever again, unless this sillyness by your company comes to an end.
Yours Truly
bla bla bla
"Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails." - Steve Jobs
I really wish I understood the legal limits of parody and satire. It is often cited that copyright law allows it. At the same time, I once heard an interview with Weird Al Yankovic. He was talking about his parodies of pop songs. He mentioned that he always got permission from the copyright owners before he published one. He almost always got it, but he did ask. This would suggest that there are some potential legal hassles if you're not careful.
Come on, does American Greetings, Corp. really think attacking a legitimate parody really furthers its business goals as a company? Did the person(s) initiating this action have no knowledge of how an Internet based community would respond to such an assault on civil liberties? Did this action really protect and further your "Strawberry Shortcake" brand or simply generate much deserved hype around a web comic?
I would like to see you do the right thing as a company... retract your legal threats and allow Penny Arcade to repost that comic. Imagine the goodwill (and sales) you will generate from the Internet community.
Besides, I easily found the "forbidden" comic on an alternate web site (see attachment). Now this single panel will be seen by many, many more people simply because of your action. One second thought, thanks for all the free publicity for the web comic community! Keep up the great work!
By the way, I have a web comic (http://particlesphere.com/) whose main character is a redheaded female... sorta looks like Strawberry Whoever if you squint! Please threaten me with legal action... I really need the publicity!
Thank you,
Will Jayroe
http://particlesphere.com/
particlesphere.com - quantum
I'm assuming you didn't check the site, but PA posted a parody response in regards to the McFarlane/American McGee toy figurine line for The Wizard of Oz. Basically the characters everyone knows was turned into these demonic looking things and Dorothy looked kinda like some bondage babe. So in response, PA did kind of a "what will they do next" kinda strip and thus posted the dominatrix Strawberry Shortcake who had just recently whipped a prone Plum Pudding (another girl who, as a toy, smells like plums) in the rear. The title on the picture was "American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake".
In context, it's funny as hell. Personally Care Bears or Rainbow Bright would have been even funnier.
We've got a big conflict on here as to whether this particular piece of "art" is indeed a parody or not. My question is, can an individual piece of art only "parody" one thing, or can it parody multiple sources?
In this case, yes, it seems to parody American McGee, but it seems to parody the "cutesy oh so good" Strawberry Shortcake, poking fun at a seamier dark side of the annoyingly sweet character. Does the fact that AM is mentioned disallow also parodying Strawberry, I've never heard anything against dual-parody.
Or maybe it's that the two items being parodied are fairly unrelated, but I still don't see why dual-parody would be disallowed - could an arguement as the word-simularity between "American Greetings" and "American McGee" (if AM had done cards for AG, Mad Magazine often did shorts like this)
I do see the point made by American Greetings as to their trademark though - if they'd sent a nicer letter this probably would have gone better for them. I think a lot of the problem comes not from the use of the copyright bat, but just in legalese scare tactics when a simply "please, we'd appreciate it if you didn't do that" might work better - or at least as a start.
The issue with the PA strip is not satire fair use as many have pointed out. Strawberry Shortcake is not being parodied, and therefore the use of the character is illegal. But then why did the PA artists use the character at all? They're clearly not ignorant of copyright law.
I believe that Gabe and Tycho thought that Strawberry Shortcake was now in the public domain; and if copyrights had reasonable terms she would be. However, copyrights now last for at least 20 years, and more if you have enough sway in Congress (see Disney).
If American Greetings were still using the Strawberry Shortcake character (the way Disney is still using Mickey) I could see their justification for protecting their copyright. As an artist, I wouldn't want my body of work being coopted even as I was creating and promoting it, and I think the Penny Arcade guys would agree. But Strawberry Shortcake is a dead concept, to such a degree that I would bet nearly nobody even knew she was owned by American Greetings.
American Greetings has an opportunity to demonstrate good corporate citizenship, improve their public image, and set an example for other media companies by dropping their copyright on Strawberry Shortcake and any other properties they aren't using and don't plan to use again. There's no sense in wasting money and time to protect things you won't use.
Strawberry Shortcake, Popples, Care Bears and related trademarks are federally registered trademarks of Those Characters From Cleveland ("TCFC"), an American Greetings Company. All 978 Trademark Records at USPTO.gov
r ound.com
American Greetings Corporation (AM) (#2 US maker of greeting cards)
One American Road , Cleveland, Ohio
DesignWare party goods, GuildHouse candles, PlusMark gift wrap, and Designers' Collection stationery, balloons, giftware
Subsidiaries:
Those Characters From Cleveland, Inc. (character licensing)
AGC, Inc. (Design licensing)
Learning Horizons (supplemental educational products)
Magnivision (nonprescription reading glasses)
AmericanGreetings.com (online cards)
Bluemountain.com
Beatgreets.com
Passita
AG Industries, Inc. (Product display fixtures)
Gibson Greetings, Inc.
American Pie Acquisition Corp.
Egreetings Network, Inc. (egreetings.com)
Plus Mark, Inc.
Carlton Cards Retail, Inc.
CPS Company of Delaware Inc.
Carlton Cards Limited (Canada, UK)
Camden Graphics Group (UK)
Hanson White Ltd. (UK)
Gibson Greetings International Limited (UK)
The Ink Group Publishers Ltd. (U.K.)
Carlton Cards Ltd. (Ireland)
Carlton Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
John Sands (Australia, New Zealand) Ltd.
The Ink Group PTY Ltd. (Australia)
The Ink Group NZ Ltd.
S.A. Greetings Company (PTY) Ltd. (South Africa)
Memory Lane SDN BHD (85% owned) (Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia)
Top Competitors:
Hallmark (principal competitor)
123Greetings
Corbis - owned by Microsoft
Last 10k
The Coca-Cola Company brings this action to enjoin defendant from printing, distributing and selling commercially a poster which consists of an exact blown-up reproduction of plaintiff's familiar "Coca-Cola" trademark and distinctive format except for the substitution of the script letters "ine" for "-Cola", so that the poster reads "Enjoy Cocaine." Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. 1338 and 1332.
That was their mistake. I would have modified the trademark "WAVE" myself. Perhaps reversed it or made it two intersecting lines. Oddly enough, the Coca-Cola "WAVE" is a registered trademark, just like the Nike "SWOOSH".
Parody is not against the law, and in fact has been successfully protected by free speech rights. Trademark infringement will still get you in trouble.
Parodies can RESEMBLE their targets, but they should also be distinctive enough that they do not exactly copy the "victim".
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.