Slashdot Mirror
Penny Arcade vs. American Greetings Revisited
Jojo writes "After American Greetings got some lawyers to bring down a Penny Arcade strip (M
i r r o r) last week, PA is now striking back.. IANAL, but I fear their latest strip might get them into real trouble this time." As always, PA cracks me up, but these are scary events. The banned strip is clearly a work of parody, which I believe is still legal in this country, unless that too changed recently.
The problem is that they were parodying American McGee by using a registered trademark. They clearly weren't parodying Strawberry Shortcake - if they were, it would be more clear cut. Not that we wouldn't see a C&D letter anyways...
:)
For the record though, I love PA and hope they make it through ok. And you just have to respect em for making a stink even if they did pull the offending strip originally. They're as subtle as a heart attack
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Today's PA comic
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
If you notice, Gabe and Tycho are visiting America Greeting headquarters.
I've certainly never heard of this company, and I'll bet American Greetings has never heard of them either (for they surely would have sued America Greeting Corporation if they had).
So Fuck American Greetings.
And remember, buy Hallmark instead.
American Greetings currently (I think) holds the copyright for Strawberry Shortcake. If you click on one of the mirrors, you'll see Penny Arcade's take on American McGee's *next* game, in which Ms. Shortcake is quite the little sadist.
So American Greetings is essently protecting their copyrights to Strawberry Shortcake. Groundlessly, because as the article stated, it's a work of parody. The funny thing is, it's *supposed* to be a poking fun at American McGee. I'm sure PA was prepared for any backlash from them. Getting hammered by a greeting card company probably surprised PA quite a bit.
And, to top it off, PA is now getting hit with a slashdotting, as if PA didn't already have bandwidth problems!
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
I looks like they're seeking legal aid from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. If the little guy can't defend himself in court against the big boys, then there should be someone else who can. They also protect Japanese and American manga artists and sellers. I joined, and so should you.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
For general information on curbing all sorts of lawsuit abuses across the country, you might want to take a look at the American Tort Reform Association.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
This only applies if the user attemtps to pass their own work off as the original. US Copyright law permits the parody of works as long as the derivative can be easily seen as a parody. And since this strip wasn't intended to be seen by Strawberry Shortcake's prime audience (little girls), I don't think American Greetings has an actual case here.
of course the usual disclaimer: ianal but have seen them on tv
This has nothing to do with copyright law, and everything to do with trademark law. American Greetings is not "protecting their copyrights".
Right here
:eof
For general information on the true mission of the American Tort Reform Association, see these trial lawyers.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
That certainly wasn't work safe! *gulp* ;-)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I did my patriotic (read-rabid PA fan) duty, and wrote Miss Rinda Vas a letter, telling her what bad idea this all was and everything. I got a fairly swift response, including an "original" letter written to the PA staff. Email addresses have been removed to protect the innocent...
... fyi ...
Email sent Wed. 4/23--
there is no legal action against them
-----Original Message-----
From: RV Rinda Vas (1328)
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 9:32 AM
To: Subject: RE: Trademark infringement, misuse
Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter. We note that the
cartoon has been removed.
I am receiving a good amount of e-mails from the penny-arcade subscribers
asking why American Greetings asked you to pull the cartoon. Unfortunately I
do not have the resources to respond to them individually so I am passing
the answer on to all of you. On April 17, 2003, American Greetings received
a complaint about the cartoon namely that it was "creepy" and "offensive."
Thereafter, we asked you to remove it.
Note that the target audience for Strawberry is young females (indeed young
children). And we do receive complaints from parents and the like over
cartoons like yours.
So there you have it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 3:55 PM
To:
Subject: Please Cease and Desist
Dear Rinda Vas-
I am writing to you, as I am sure are many others, to implore you to stop
your legal action against Penny Arcade and its creators. As you may or may
not be aware, the actions your company has taken against Penny Arcade has
already publicized the original event much more than the comic's web site
ever would have. Furthermore, several websites have made note of this
issue, spreading the issue to more people, not usually associated with the
normal Penny Arcade crowd. Feel free to read the articles posted on
http://slashdot.org, and other such sites. At Slashdot, you will see the
forum that follows every article. Within said forum, you will note a
resoundingly negative response to your decision to take legal action. There
is even a petition out to boycott your company. The last time I checked
that site, the petition was drawing near the 10,000 mark, and climbing.
I am not going to threaten you, or swear at you, as I am sure many others
are doing, regarding this issue, but I have to advise you that, from all
evidence available, what you are doing does not seem like a smart move. I
think you might do well to look into options for reaching a quiet agreement
with the owners of Penny Arcade. I am sure they will be happy to make this
legal action go away with as little public notice as possible. My advice to
you is to try to save face, as your company stands to lose a large amount of
business and public appeal by pursuing this petty issue. Thanks for your
time.
Ryan
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
But they were targeting American McGee, and his method of taking childhood fantasy (Alice in Wonderland, Oz) and adding blood, gore and a bit of S&M. I really don't see how Strawberry Shortcake was a target in this; the joke would have remained the same if it was a different character in the bondage gear. Thus, American Greetings has a leg to stand on in court: PA was not parodying Strawberry Shortcake, and could have just as easily used a different character.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Unfortunately explaining a joke ruins it, but you didn't seem to get it in the first place.
American McGee's "Alice" was released a couple years ago. It was Alice in Wonderland (a sweet, charming, etc childhood story), but much MUCH darker. Like, the part of max payne where he goes crazy darker.
A couple weeks ago, American McGee's "Oz" was annonced. It's going to be the same dark style as Alice, but based on the Wizard of Oz (another sweet childhood story). So American McGee is a brand that makes dark covers of childrens' work, hence the strip.
Oh, and this is pure genious. (probably because it actually HAS happened to me)
If you don't normally buy cards anyway, well good for you, you don't need to reply to this telling me about how you're superior because of it. Maybe you'd like to buy a Hallmark card anyway, just so that AGC's market share as a percentage of money spent on greeting cards this month falls, maybe not, up to you. But for those of you who were planning on buying a card for your mother anyway, how about checking the brand on the back first?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
If you love their comics or just want to support their stand, Penny Arcade does take donations.
At the bottom of the ClubPA page (http://www.penny-arcade.com/clubpa.php3) there's a link to their paypay donation box.
And as an added bonus, no matter what size of donation you'll get access to the most excellent "Over Easy", one of the best comics online for both artistic merit and style, highly recommended!
C'mon, toss in a buck for the most excellent comic, you won't be dissapointed!
If you truly do want to help, go to the Club PA section of their site and contribute. It's real money like this that pays the bills folks. Plus you get cool stuff every month for being a member!
I am in no way affiliated with PA. I just love the site.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
According to the USPTO website, the Strawberry Shortcake mark is owned by "Those Characters From Cleveland, Inc." Those Characters From Cleveland appears to license their marks to American Greetings or is a subsidiary. I haven't found a page that explicitly mentions their relationship. (Note: I think USPTO query links 'expire.' You can always search again using TESS.
According to this link, it looks like American Greetings, Those Characters From Cleveland, and Rinda Vas have previously gone after alleged violations of their marks. (In the linked page, the case appears to be a reasonable attack against a domain squatter.)
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
No, it's libel.
In general, and IANAL, and I am oversimplifying, and I am from the UK so our legal systems only share a common ancestor, etc,
slander:
- transient, for example:
- speech
- holding up a sign
- pulling stupid faces
- internet chat rooms (maybe, and distributing logs would be libel)
- damage must be proven to have occurred
- except in certain cases, for example:
- accusing someone of a crime
- saying someone's got the lurgy
- calling a woman a slag (only works for women)
- saying someone is shit at their job
libel:
- permanent, for example:
- newspapers
- magazines
- books
- comics
- films
- web pages
- usenet
- damage is presumed to have occurred, so the claimant need not prove it
Polymer City Chronicles is doing it too...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Well, if slashdot posted a direct link to the donations page...
Because you aren't free to just make any work you want that includes someone elses copyrighted material and get away with it on the grounds that you claim it's parody. Works which incorporate someone else's IP are derivative works, and they're what copyright law in the old-fashioned sense makes illegal. There are exceptions, such as parody, where people can make derivative works for the purposes of exercising their maintained right to criticize something. Copyright is basically a legal restriction on free speech, but is itself restricted from banning speech that's expressive/critical/etc. as opposed to commercial in nature.
For the SS cartoon to be free from a charge of being an unauthorized derivative work of the Strawberry Shortcake(R) property, it needs to actually be making a protected statement about SS, American Greetings, etc. It really isn't. It's making a statement about American McGee.
This is why it's not a clear cut case of parody. Unfortunately people are being so quick to yell foul that they're missing this pretty obvious point.
There are two parts to the parody. The first is the parody of American McGee's game design proclivities, of taking an idea that's light-hearted (or, in the case of Alice, one normally thought of as such by the public) and turning it into something dark and sinister. The second part is a parody of corporate franchises and the phenomenon of whoring them for money past their sell-by date; just remove the "American McGee's" and add "... as you've never seen her before!", and presto, you have a parody ad that stands on its own just as easily.
Range Voting: preference intensity matters
The reason Penny Arcade got an cease and desist letter was because "Strawberry Shortcake" is a copyrighted name. The current strip cleverly does not show "American Greetings" but obscures the 'n' and the 's' to make it "america greeting" wich is not a copyrighted name. What PA should have done initally is simply altered there strip so that "Strawberry Shortcake" was misspelled, then stuck there toungs out at AG's lawyers.