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.
At least they have a smile on their face as they get bent over...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
hahahah /lame
Props to Gabe and Tycho for puttin' up their dukes!
geeks are cats who dig a certain kind of cool
The banned strip is clearly a work of parody, which I believe is still legal in this country
It's clearly a parody, and would certainly hold up in court (IANAL), but the problem is that the PA guys don't have money to spend defending themselves in court. So it's another case of the "big guy" successfully squashing the "little guy" with the thread of a baseless lawsuit, because the cost of fighting is beyond the little guy's reach.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
"American Greetings.. you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." sorry.. watched Star Wars last night.
Trolling is a art,
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.
...where things are only legal if you can afford to pay as much as the ass suing you to defend yourself in court.
This sig is worse than my last.
Of course their latest strip will get them in trouble. It's just asking for a slashdotting.
I'm not being dumb here, it is just completely unobvious to an international reader what the issue is.
Q: why can't they say it was a parody of strawberry shortcake in the same vein as american mcgee's parody of Alice in wonderland? A: because then american mcgee would sue them.
And, "banned"? How so? This is yet another case of lawyers writing a cease-and-desist, and the recipients capitulating. Nobody got "censored" here, nobody's free speech was infringed.
Breakfast served all day!
It's not funny. Violates the cardinal principle of comics.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I actually came away with the opposite feeling. While the first strip was clearly a parody, it was a parody of American McGee, and not a parody of American Greetings. They'd probably have a strong legal leg to stand on if McGee came to them with a lawsuit.
... Spaceballs parodying Star Wars with a title character named Strawberry Shortcake might be a different story.
:).
However, because they're using a third party's intellectual property in the context of the parody, it's a little fuzzier. Spaceballs parodying Star Wars is cool
The more recent strip, however, is clearly a criticism of American Greetings' policies, and seems more obviously "safe" under various free-speech umbrellas than the first one. It's not even using any of their IP.
I also think it's funnier, but that's just me
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Well, I'm sure there will be no lack of mirrors for this strip, in case they have to take it down. My bet is that half the readership of /. just saved it locally ... "just in case". :)
The comic is titled:
"Read It Before They Take Legal Action"
Maybe that should be "Read It Before They Take Slashdot Action"
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Joke 'em if they cant take a fsck, fsck 'em if they cant take a joke... and above all else... dont sweat the petty stuff...Pet the sweaty stuff.
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
You gotta hand it to Penny Arcade! They have come up with, hands down, the best absolute comeback to those dirty nasty lawyer people! "Fucking nazis!" indeed.
--sdem
Aside from the usual "don't buy anything from these people," it seems the easiest and surest way to get the word out is to refuse any mail with AG's logo on the envelope. Just write "Refused, return to sender" along with a note on the envelope that says something to the effect of "Nothing personal, I'm just boycotting the publishers of this card."
Everyone seems to be posting that PA is in big trouble right now. However, unless my understanding of law is way off base, the worst thing that can happen is that they'll be forced to take this comic down too. Big whoop. It already made me laugh :)
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
The most common place that the general public would've been exposed to this ruling would be in The People vs. Larry Flynt.
Is there something about this case that makes the ruling used for Flynt inapplicable?
<rant>
</rant>
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
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.
Here is a mirror of the latest PA strip. I was pissing myself laughing as I uploaded this.
http://pimpninja.org/img/pa_nazis.gif
:eof
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
The comic in question is (should I say "was") humorous precisely because it's a parody of Strawberry Shortcake.
In the post along with the strip the PA people went out and said that they were parodying McGee. But whether they said it or not, they're also parodying Strawberry Shortcake, playing on her goody-goody image.
The guy on PA makes a good point in his post on their site. Strawberry Shortcake is part of the American lexicon. Just like Gargamel or GI Joe or Speed Racer.
Referencing these characters shouldn't be trademark infringement.
This has nothing to do with copyright law, and everything to do with trademark law. American Greetings is not "protecting their copyrights".
Check out what happened when Reese's threatened to sue Goats over their use of trademark in a similar situation.
-R
IANAL, but i do have some experience in these kinds of cases.
The traditional protection of a work of parody does not, in this instance, protect Penny Arcade. The protections of parody and satire only protect the material being parodied. In this case, the subject of the parody was no Strawberry Shortcake, but rather, American McGee's Alice and Oz games. American Greeting's property was being used to parody something else. Therefore, it's not protected.
This test has been held up in a number of cases, mainly involving the sale of parody t-shirts and the like.
Another proper response is to register sucks-sites for both the prosecuting party and their lawyers.
Remember, Gifford-Krass-Grohsprinkle sucks.
These firms are and represent the scum of the earth. Why? Because they take money from their clients in cases where they know they have no legal standing. They're just bullies for hire, and quite possibly they even fool their clients into thinking they have a real complaint. Scum.
See also MichaelSavageSucks.com also nastygramed by radio show lawyers
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Penny Arcade was poking fun at American McGee's treatment of other worlds (eg. Alice, Oz), not at the Strawberry Shortcake world. Strawberry Shortcake was a means to an end. It could have been replaced by Pooh or the Smurfs with the same effect. The joke, to me, was the darkening retale of percieved lighthearted, children's stories.
In his own comment on April 21, 2003 Tycho provides a link to other court cases and specifically mentions "Dr. Seuss Enterprises Vs. Penguin Books" on page three as possible precident that would work against Penny Arcade.
That is not to say what PA did was and should be illegal. It's simply not clearly parody. It's something that would require extensive (expensive) legal processes.
Actually, they did get censored, in a roundabout way.
Penny Arcade, while amusing, is small time. They can not handle a drawn out legal battle. The threat of litigation is enough to cause them to give up.
Right or wrong, American Greetings has the cash to keep Gabe & Tycho tied up in court for a very long time. Are you going to pay for that? I certainly know I won't be covering their legal costs.
The term (that I feel) applies here is "prior restraint", more or less. This basically means, in my usage and interpretation here, that their actions were restricted under just the threat of the possibility of legal action.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
The maturity demonstrated here doesn't suggest more than a snowball's chance in Hell.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
If American McGee wanted to sue, there would still be the whole parody/fair use issue, but at least it would make sense. What the hell does AmericanGreetings have to do with it? The only commonality is the word "American", which, if I'm not mistaken, is used QUITE frequently in the United States, for a great many things. This isn't even a parody issue. This is a "what the hell does this have to do with anything" issue.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
"We're late Por our meeting". "She's a Pucking Nazi!"
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Penny Arcade already struck back when they replaced the original offending strip with a message about American Greetings, and the e-mail address of the person who sent the letter. I'm sure she got a sizeable amount of poorly spelled, vicious hate mail.
My thoughts? I don't like the strip - I find it tasteless. But one of the tenets of free speech is to defend even those who you don't like - because if they censor them, it's only a matter of time before they censor you. As such, I'd hate to see these guys go down like this.
This sig no verb.
if you go to the site you'll see that the PA people didn't capitulate because they felt they were in the wrong. they gave in because they run their site on a shoe-string budget.
If I were a big corporation
hehe. that's a funny picture.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I do believe that if my mother sent me a greeting card, and I REFUSED, RETURN TO SENDER'd it, I would get my ass kicked.
What a lame ass thing to take a stand on.
Right here
:eof
"a class of people who do nothing but argue the meaning(s) of poorly written rules."
"The really smart people (physicists, chemists, et al.) look down on lawyers. You should too."
If you think you can do a better job, why don't you do it yourself? Or are you too busy looking down your nose to realize that somebody has to do it and that, if you do nothing but bitch and moan without even bothering to vote, you deserve whatever you get?
If you want to support the guys at Penny Arcade, check
- 04 -14
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003
Which was the former location of the Strawberry Cupcake comic. They have an email address at American Greetings there instead if you have comments. Namely, Rinda.Vas@amgreetings.com
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.
Well, to be technically accurate, the comic doesn't show "American Greetings" on the desk. Look at it again.
first pane: america greeting
second pane: reflection in the door: a?eric?? gr???????
third pane: ????ic?? g?eetin??
Now, we all KNOW who they are talking about, but they don't use the words "American Greetings" in the strip.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That certainly wasn't work safe! *gulp* ;-)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
wench!
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
A quick reference for those um... youngg-uns that only know the internet through their http:// based browser....
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GodwinsLaw
or here goes, from the Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)
Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
"There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any _intentional_ triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful."
--
Time is on my side
I rember seeing this comic the first time and thinking nothing of it. I could not place the comic again until now after looking at the mirror. Is it just me or is anyone else wondering how Americas Greetings found out about this site and why they decided it was worth having thier legal department cause so much trouble over it.
This whole "big guy" "little guy" thing could easily be made moot by asking the ACLU for help. They frequently provide legal advice, assistance and lawyers when someone's rights get trampled, such as in this case. I've had several friends, for different reasons, who've been helped by the ACLU. All you need to do is ask.
I agree. What's a shame is that lawyers get away with these sorts of empty threats all the time. We can't really expect guys like Gabe and Tycho to know when a lawyer is bluffing. It's almost like fraud, in a way, for legal departments to act as if something like this is actionable, when they know it is not.
The original strip was a parody of both Strawberry Shortcake AND American McGee. It would have done NO harm to the image of either party, as they are obvious take-offs on aspects of the other.
Had I been a legal eagle at American Greetings, I would have replied by getting one o' my art guys to draw up a Strawberry-esque Tycho and Gabe with the following layout:
Panel 1:
Tycho: We use DIRTY words.
Panel 2:
Gabe: MUCK!!
Panel 3:
Both: tee hee!
The only image tarnished by this whole affair is that of the overly-litigious facist dorks who thought a suit would be a good idea.
It looks like the lawsuit is totally justified. The Strawberry Shortcake comic is damaging to the trademark-holder's reputation, and the US has an enforce it or lose it trademark system.
somebody mod this back up because he's right. it's not flamebait just because you don't agree with it or wish the world were different. I personally like PA but I think they should be counting their blessings that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often, they get away with a lot of shit that they wouldn't if game publishers/etc. weren't afraid of a backlash.
that said, I like that they stuck to their guns. there's not enough of this lately.
speaking your mind is cool. cowtowing to corporate pressure is not. the dixie chicks could learn a lesson from these guys. I had to delete all my illegally downloaded dixie chicks mp3s in protest.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
"The banned strip is clearly a work of parody, which I believe is still legal in this country..."
While this is just an excuse for American Greetings to bully PA into submission, I think the problem they ran into was that they were not parodying Strawberry Shortcake, they were using that icon to parody American McGee. I believe there's some kind of BS loophole that since their icon was not the one being parodied, they could successfully sue for infringement. Either way, PA doesn't have the legal muscle to back-up any kind of challenge by a powerhouse like AG.
Law is boring, unchallenging, and unrewarding.
I do work that is interesting, challenging, and rewarding.
There are high barriers to entry in the legal profession (so that they can artifically inflate prices). The 3 years of easy, yet expensive, schooling do not pay off in the same way that a PhD in science can (in terms of the intangibles).
As for money, I already make as much as, if not more than, some lawyers (there are no lawyers my age anyway). If I left science and went into programming, I'd make even more, I have a standing offer of 3x my current salary (plus I collect patent royalties).
Now, that being said, I do not pay for lawyers. I never will, under any circumstances. As far as I'm concerned, they can not do anything better than I can.
I recently won a wrongful death suit, and have my accountant do my paperwork (a law firm would want as much as $7k to process all of it, I pay less than $500 total).
So, I have as much right, if not more than, the average person to complain about the state of the legal profession/system.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
I don't get what the big fuss is.
Even if it wouldn't hold up in court or even if the parody was less obvious, what was the harm to that name brand? I thought the idea behind advertising was the more you get a name out there the more it will sell (which very well could be the point of all the controversy). It can't be a thing of associating the brand with something bad, because there's plenty of movies with product placement that are violent, perverse or vulgar.
Thanks to Penny Arcade, alot more people have that name brand stuck in their head, and until American Greetings decided to put on the legal nutcrackers it probably would have helped sales even if it were just a postcard with Strawberry Shortcake on it that said "Hey, you remember that comic by Penny Arcade? hahaha"
-Rabbit
There are damn few people with more guns than me. On /., probably none.
Doubtful.
First of all, they didn't use the name: "American Greetings", they used "America Greeting". So they are not addressing the company you are thinking of.
The character portrayed in the strip itself is also not identified, so there is no individual who is being labelled a "Nazi".
Second, they are expressing editorial comment, not statement of fact. That is protected under 1st amendment free speech rights.
If they had expressed explicitly, as fact, that AM worshipped and were Nazis, then they would be in trouble.... unless they could prove that they actually did and were.
In this case, they are expressing editorial comment and the strip would be highly unlikely to be mistaken as a statement of fact by any normal jury.
Winged Power Photography
all this "ahh you used a word i ooown!" crap... what the hell!? noone owns a word.. and if i write "microsoft sux" and "american greet-whatever is the most useless site ever" .... then waht!?
i didnt even knew american whatever before this /. story...
someone shoudl stop this word-ownage madness!
(i also dont care who survived ww2 or who is jewish btw... this was some 60 years ago and has nothing to do wit penny a or a cake or strawberries, this is just about making someone pay something to one who has way too much)
They don't have to be happy about it. It's a parody. In fact, most of the comics that Penny Arcade does features other people's characters, or stores, or companies - should EB sue them when they depict EB employees as bumbling idiots, as PA has done in the past?
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.
Since I cant draw worth a crap, imagine it, or you can use photoshop to draw it or whatever.
First Panel:
(Gabe at front door looking at a guy wearing a three piece suit.)
Gabe: what the hell do you want
Lawyer: Hello. I'm here representing a rather large monolitic corporation.
Second Panel:
Gabe: So What do YoOOOoOOWWWWWWW
(Lawyer Sucker Punches Gabe in the Stomach while he was speaking)
Third Panel:
Lawyer: Have a Nice Day.
Lawyer walking in the other direction as Gabe irks in pain.
The best part is that since it never ID's the company you cant get sued and it can be used over and over. It would especially look good where the actual infringed comic used to be.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I haven't seen it mentioned in the comments here, but I thought the joke was at stab at both American McGee AND American Greetings.
Note the similar names? I presumed it was a joke about if American McGee got there first?
Maybe it's just me?
Unfunny is standard fare for Penny Arcade.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
I won't go into all the reasons, but one of PA
main draws is its irreverent attitude towards
the (console/PC) gaming industry, and the
associated gamer/geek culture. That the main
characters carry that attitude over into almost
everything else the strip focuses on is a staple
of the site; and what can make it consistently
funny/unfunny for its readers.
As an AC pointed out in a reply above, they did
not invoke Godwin, you do by bringing up
"Godwin's Law" in reference to a Nazi comment.
Get a life, you fucking commie!
The censorship is : you risk to loose or have a lot of money to be "frozen" for a time, to get a lawyer to defend you. If you do not have the deep pocket of a big company then this money would be a murderous move on your budget.
Thus you have no choice. Temporair ruin and blocking of asset (if oyu win AFAIK you get your money back) or take back your opinion/strip/whatever.
Censorship isn't only governemental and law enforced, and you do not need a gun to force censorship on somebody. Merely inconvenience them to the extrem, put them in a difficult position, which nmight make their life a hell and most except idealist will bow. This is also censorship.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
...why was mine rejected? 2003-04-28 09:56:19 Penny Arcade vs. American Greetings: Round 2 (yro,humor) (rejected)
the chick in the newest cartoon is pretty hot.
Nazi or not.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
just because someone sends a ceist and desist letter, doesnt that mean they have to take you to court? and if your work is clearly a parody, couldn't you just go to court and defend it yourself? get a media law text book, cite some sources, etc...
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
> A: because then american mcgee would sue them.
B: For stealing a game idea before he had a chance
to license the character from American Greetings.
IMO, the funniest thing about the SS parody was;
in an age when Grand Theft Auto and Postal 2 can
generate interest among gamers, a naughty
Strawberry Shortcake might actually sell.
Does anybody have an example of a humorous pennyarcade comic? Maybe I'm too old, but I just don't get it.
Saving random seed...
It was most likely quite intentional and a joke :)
Shadus
Could be a big seller these days.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Slander AND libel?
S-s-s-slander is Sp-sp-sp-spoken.
L-l-l-libel is L-l-literary.
One of the main characters in Spaceballs was Pizza the Hutt. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that might be a company name...
if everybody submits their $.02, then maybee Penny-Arcade can get the legal help they need. I have submitted a "story" for just this, to set up a paypal donation fun so that those interested can give a little to help a lot. Not only do i really love these guy's comic, but I very much wish to retain free speech and fighting this crap is the only way to retain it.
Because if you were, then you'd be taking far more time to make yourself familiar with the particulars of the case. Indeed the work was a parody. However American Greeting does not represent American McGee, the video game developer who is/was being parodied. American Greeting takes issue with their Stawberry Shortcake character. Mike and Jerry have a far more difficult case to argue if they want to keep their picture online. Notably, McGee has only been trolling the works of the public domain, specifically, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.
The question isn't about parody and fair use, but whether Strawberry was parodied. I personally don't see it in the work. In fact, if I were PA I'd simply remove the cartoon and revise it such that a far better case could be made that it parodies both McGee and whatever character that best adopts to these legal requirements.
Mike and Jerry have been fairly quiet about the particulars of it themselves, having been wisely told by legal advisors with more wisedom than yourself, or at least more current experience. The only thing they do say is that it isn't very clear -cut, and they're right.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
For one that strip was bigger. Bigger things take longer to draw. Secondly it had to be inked in different ways. Thats tough too.
I'd just be mad that it took so much work to do.
God spoke to me
It seems the basic concept of a boycott is lost on people. Folks, the idea here is to deprive the company of revenue. Your Mom already bought the card, it will not hurt the company one bit to send a card back that she sent you. That is as stupid as purchasing French wine and dumping it on the sidewalk in protest of the French. They already sold the wine could care less if you drink it.
If your goal is to educate your Mom (or whoever else sends you cards) about AG, perhaps you can find a less offensive and heartless method of getting your message out.
Finkployd
Refusing any mail with the AG logo on it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to do anything. What if somebody's already bought the AG card? You're just gonna piss off the person who bought it, not knowing in the first place.
The original strip was the parody, taking a character out of context for the sake of humor.
AG was right to send its lawyers to make a show of aggressively protecting its trademarks so that actual trademark infringers won't use PA's parody as evidence they don't (which would nullify their trademark), but PA was wrong to buckle.
The new strip is clearly libelous, spreading a blatant lie about AG's corporate culture in order to interfere with their revenues.
They're going to get reamed in court, and I wish I was AG's lawyer. IAN even AL, but I can see the vaseline flying from here.
I've tried to explain the situation to various non-geeks if you will, and they all look at me like "huh?"...
If anyone has any standared email that they've sent to friends/coworkers regarding the upcoming boycott, it might help those of us not as skilled in legal talk to explain it to people, short of "big company fucked small guy, dont buy thier cards."
thanks guys.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Even if that were not true, I find simplistic and offensive the equating of anything that people think is violating their rights as "Naziism". American Greetings, whether or not their suit is moral, are nowhere near Nazis. It's a lazy shortcut that relies on a certain perception of what a Nazi is that ends up watering down the whole concept. I don't think the Holocaust should be watered down.
bad sig...no donut.
Are you a gamer? It might help since it's mostly based around that. If i made my little sister read slashdot, she'd find this very boring. Does that make it boring? Embrace difference chief.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
Didn't say it was boring or without value -- just looking for a pointer or two to a particularly good example of the comic. I'm perfectly willing to make my own assessment and keep it to myself. If the 3 or 4 recent ones are typical, I guess I'm not in the target audience.
Saving random seed...
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
After you read this, don't forget the fact that statistics can be used to prove anything
This whole site is dedicated to telling me that there are less lawsuits now than in the 70's and 80's. That is, undoubtedly true -- but not for the reasons you think. Could it be, perhaps, that most of the cases are settled out of court because of the extravagent cost of defending it?
Hmmm....
If you get sued for $50,000 and it would cost you $100,000 to defend yourself, wouldn't you settle out of court? I would.
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)
The 2 Live Crew/Roy Orbison case was an instance of this. 2Live asked for permission to parody Pretty Woman, which Orbison declined. they went ahead & did it anyway, Orbison sued, and the courts upheld the right to parody. And the parody sucked, too, so quality of parody is unimportant.
For a summary of the case, check out http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/1994/0694Bulletin/U S_ParodyAsFairUse.html
It's a JOKE! Jesus Christ. People make Nazi jokes all the time, probably just not to you because they know you'll FREAK OUT and give lectures about how the holocaust's meaning is being watered down and stuff. It isn't losing any meaning or anything by having one more joke about it on Penny Arcade.
So shut up before I kill you.
Where's the EFF??
Seems to me this should be right up their alley, at least, this is the sort of thing _my_ donation was for.
The only thing I can find about Penny Arcade on the EFF site is a link to a PA cartoon about the Blizzard case.
If that were the case then Namco would've sued them a long, long time ago for using the Pac Man logo (which I guarantee is copyrighted) on one of the character's shirts in every strip.
Strangely enough, either Namco knows and doesn't care, or they have no clue that Pac Man is in every strip. It can be argued that Pac Man isn't represented in a good light due to the frequent cursing in the strips and weird situations he ends up in. Then again, Namco isn't American Greetings.
Overall I see no idea why American Greetings gives a shit about this one strip. Strawberry Shortcake, as a valuable product, has been stone dead since the mid eighties. They'd be lucky to pull in $100 a year from that expired product line. No cartoons = no sales.
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
All day long I was trying to connect to my home PC and Remote Desktop Connection was laging so bad it was unusable... then I get home and find that my poor little mirror is being raped by slashdot! (http://www.wereallmadhere.com/files/straw.gif)
Freelance writer John Scalzi brings up an interesting point that I haven't read here:
American Greeting's argument here could be that Penny Arcade's image is using the Strawberry Shortcake name to parodize American McGee's tendency to appropriate young female literary characters for his dark and bloody video games, not Strawberry Shortcake herself. Therefore, using Strawberry Shortcake for that purpose is not covered under parody. It's an interesting assertion.
However, I wonder if this line of reasoning, if indeed it is the one American Greetings is using, is as strong as it might appear initially. This line of reasoning works only to the extent that Strawberry Shortcake herself does not fit the rubric that the Penny Arcade is parodizing, namely that Strawberry Shortcake is not a young female literary character. In fact she is, the main character in dozens of books: Strawberry Shortcake: Meet Strawberry Shortcake, Strawberry Shortcake at the Beach, Strawberry Shortcake: The Berry Big Storm, and Happy Halloween, Strawberry Shortcake are just some of the titles in her oeuvre. And in an interesting literary note, in several of these titles, Strawberry Shortcake is either planning or having a party of some sort or another, which makes her activity in the parody (planning a party with her friends) not an atypical activity for her. Although to be fair she's not typically whipping her friend Plum Pudding at those parties. But that's part of what makes it a parody.
I don't know if this point holds any water, legally speaking, but it's interesting. You can read the rest of the article here
-Spyder
I dunno about you, but my first impression was that this was first and formost a parody about Strawberry Shortcake, with only a slight mention about McGee.
Can a work parody more than one thing at a time? Is it only protected from its primary target? Seems to me that this lampoons both McGee and AG and the new strip comparing AG to Nazis seems to make that even more clear.
But your suggestion that PA simply go out a pick a new pair of characters to make their point, I assume that they'd have to find some characters who are both well-known (to make a point with equal impact) and in the public domain (to avoid more legal action from someone else.) But with copyright law going the way it is, and the public domain moving farther into the past every day, I don't see this as a reasonable course of action. Just as a trademark holder needs to defend his right to a trademark in order to keep it, the public needs to defend their right to parody or we will certainly lose it. Or have we lost it already? Just look at the Consumer Whore parody of Starbucks or the The Wind Done Gone parody of Gone With the Wind.
The problem is the nature of what they were parodying. American McGee's work took what our popular culture largely considers a nice, safe, child's tale and painted it in rather dark, disturbing hues. The PA crew simply drew from a more recent collection of cultural safe-for-kids icons and produced a different version as if it too were given American McGee's same treatment. It is a parody of McGee's style and a particularly saccarine-sweet line of children's icons / toys that surfaced in the 80s.
Perhapse they should have picked some safer material. Perhapse something else done by Disney.
Which leads in to a lot of rather interesting points. First off, Disney is hardly "safe". But at the same time, a lot of Disney IP is actually their own treatment of cultural tales and public domain stories - mucking around in that territory is fairly safe as long as the images don't come too close to Disney's images.
Oddly enough, Disney was one of the first entities to really manage coopting American culture as owned IP of the Disney corporation (whether that was the origional idea of the Man and the Mouse). Its kind of interesting to see a younger generation referencing their own cultural memory and finding it wholly owned by a corporattion willing to aggressively defend their property. The PA folks don't even have the public domain versions of cultural icons to fall back on.
Finally, despite the memories based on Disney's work... Alice in Wonderland is actually fairly twisted even without McGee's treatment.
Fertile soil for parody, indeed.
Like many people, I have a strong love-hate relationship with Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine. I love his willingness to fight to protect our rights from attacks by the easily offended, even while finding much of the content of his magazines personally repugnant.
Anyway, one quick phone call or email should end this matter real quick. How many people have seen this online strip, vs. how many people would see similar strips in that magazine? How much money is AG willing to spend to harrass a couple small-time artists, vs. how much money is it prepared to spend defending itself from a company that's successfully argued Freedom of Speech cases before the Supreme Court?
Call me crazy, but I don't see a lot of crossover in the consumers of <i>Hustler</i> and sappy greeting cards so the magazine can fight hard and fight dirty if AG wanted to fight them. Hell, I wouldn't put it past them to launch their own lines of parody greeting cards (real greeting cards, not just jokes in the magazine). I mean, where else are you going to find the perfect Valentine card for the girl who dumped you for your best friend, or for your former boss?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
why is this bad?
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!
"Mr. McGee don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
sri
It's a lazy shortcut that relies on a certain perception of what a Nazi is that ends up watering down the whole concept. I don't think the Holocaust should be watered down.
The characters depicted in the comic strip are clearly not the best role models in the world. Now let them make their lil' jokes in peace and stop being the thought police officer in charge of nazi-related humour and merriment.
They are not "watering down" anything, they are insulting a power greater than themselves by equating it to a former, well recognised, great power of evil. You, of course, have a right not to like it, and I have a right to think you're a wang-less loser for reading so much into this silly comic strip.
Watering down the holocaust...jeebus!
You can't take the sky from me...
Copyright != Trademark
Yes, you can parody a copyright freely. No, you can't parody a trademark freely. It's a trademark.
It's a similar statement to someone saying, "He walked into the highschool with a gun and shot the other kid - it was clearly murder." and then coming back with, "US law permits the use of deadly force to defend your home." No one's disputing the second statement, it's just that the second case doesn't apply to the first.
Here are four of my favorites, but (as mentioned above) you may not find each one funny if you haven't played Tribes 2, Resident Evil, Warcraft 3, and Asheron's Call 2, respectively.
Tribes 2
Resident Evil
Warcraft III
Asheron's Call 2
This is the strip that always comes to mind when someone mentions PA. Granted, it's pretty old, but it hits pretty close to home.
I'm in complete disbelief that you would use corporate lawyer bully tactics to remove a parody cartoon from Penny Arcade. You've soiled yourself in my eyes.
h =2 3446&bfrom=3&prodnum=3003008
On another note, I find the following cartoon offensive and creepy:
http://www.americangreetings.com/display.pd?pat
It's a picture of two rabbits obviously engaged in foreplay and about to have sex. Please remove it from your website.
Thank you
Ironic, isn't it?
*waits for tumblers to click into place*
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Apparently you missed my reply to the earlier message. I appreciate that you think I'm wanger-less, but you will please note that, as I am already dead, I couldn't care less about my lack of penis.
bad sig...no donut.
Is it Slander if it is a comic strip character speaking?
IANAL... But I play one on
Not only will I not be buying them, I sent an email to thge email address provided in the replacement message to let the people at American Greetings know what I think of their practice (worded appropriately respectfully and professionally, afterall, I generally just ignore random name calling and general beligerence) and that I intend to be both boycotting them and informing everyone I know as to their practices and asking them to join in the boycott.
I encourage others to do the same.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Now i have seen everything....Re:Clearly Parody, But.... (Score:5, Flamebait)
Here's how to tell if it holds water legally:
Hope that helps.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
you guys rock.
thanks for pointing out that we're witnessing the nazification of our country. you're SO RIGHT ON.
next time you see someone with an american flag hanging off of their car, think of the iraqi babies, and think of the people who supported the nazis.
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
http://www.snopes2.com/quotes/goering.htm
hyperpoem.net
One comment with a pun was bad enough but two in a row that takes the cake.
Veramocor
About 15-20 years ago National Lampoon magazine had a very funny (and rather pornographic) fold out titled "Strawberry Cheesecake" and it had a smurf with 3 day facial hair smoking a cigarette and strawberry shortcake. It depicted a slutty looking stawberry shortcake getting it from behind from said smurf. I'm not kidding, I as a very young'un thought it was hilarious.
Google searches failed to turn up the picture.
lol...my bad. There's too many good ones. PA is hit and miss a lot of the time, but when they hit, they hit hard. :-)
I remember one particular issue featured a full-page illustration of a Smurf holding the waist of a grimacing Strawberry Shortcake while smurfing her from behind.
I found a web reference here, but no picture...
In a matter of THIS nature, there is a stack of caselaw about 1.5 inches high that I will assure you any lawyer who has passed the Bar Exam is VERY familiar with, and ALL of those cases say that parody falls within the realm of free speech.
Really? They don't have parody doctrine on the bar in my state, and I can't think of many law schools which require a First Amendment course.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I suspect that the C&S letter has actually caused more people to see the original cartoon than would otherwise have seen it.
I personally don't frequent PA that often. IMO, the site is too slow, and it's too much of a pain to find the link to the current strip. It also doesn't help that that strip was 218k.
But, on hearing about the yanking of the strip, I was intrigued enough to visit the site, and go searching for it on the web. Finally saw it on one of the mirrors listed in the top post today.
I am not familiar with American McGee or it's products, so it didn't strike me as very funny. I frankly didn't see much humor in it.
But I saved the image, and have it to pass around to others. I'm also convinced that American Greeting is a company with which has lost my respect. They could have just laughed it off and ignored it. Few of their customers would have been likely to see it. It strikes me that the target audience of PA and American Greetings aren't the same.
Instead, they have escalated it to be news, and made sure that far more people will see the strip than would have otherwise.
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful."
-- The Hacker's Dictionary.
The strip in question features an "America Greetings" employee saluting Hitler. Ergo, given the above defintion (comparison to Hitler), Godwin's law has been invoked, by them, not by me.
I read a few weeks worth of Penny Arcade during the previous mention on slashdot. I didn't get it then, even though I'm in touch enough that I've played some of the PC games they discuss. I'm really having a hard time seeing how this "comic" can generate so much interest on slashdot.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Way to go guys, today's strip is hilarious! Please make this a series and find legal ways to stick it to these jerks endlessly until they get the hint.
...and I'd bow down before the gods of parody (once I stopped laughing my ass off) if I were to see PA's take on American McGee's treatment of the Smurfs....heh heh
C'mon...Smurfette--a lone girl smurf amongst a community of 99 boy smurfs? "They're only a couple apples tall but it's still one big blue bang"
Email them here: http://www.americangreetings.com/customer/emailus. pd c tus/index.html
:)
Email american greetings parent company here:http://corporate.americangreetings.com/conta
Or snail mail them here:
American Greetings Corp.
One American Road
Cleveland, Ohio 44144
Here's a form letter
Fuck you, you nazi bastards. Yes, you're nazis. Haven't you ever heard of parody? It's a LEGALLY protected form of speech, one of the few remaining. But I'm sure you corporate nazi whores will take care of that.
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!
The original "Alice in Wonderland" was not quite as light-hearted as the Disney movie based upon the book. American McGee definitely has a way or darkening the tone quite a lot, but to call the original book "light-hearted" is a bit inaccurate.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I really cannot see this parody of S.S. I'm not suggesting that they choose from an increasingly dwindling public domain, but rather actually parody the two of them. If you want to assult mcgee and 80s corporations, do so, and make it unambiguous. Say something like "from the people who've whored out your childhood memories for twenty dollars and american mcgee" or otherwise indicate that you have some sort of critical point to make. Not only have you doubled your satirical milage, but you've covered your satirical ass.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
for my line of "You slept with Lumbergh?" greeting cards...
Perhaps because of strips like this.
*chuckle*
As a long time customer of both American Greetings and Penny-Arcade.com I am deeply saddened by the recent developments between your company and penny-arcade.com. After examining the situation as presented before me. I have come the the conclusion that American Greetings is wholly in the wrong. Because of this and because of while there are many supplementary goods for products bearing the American Greetings logo there are few for Penny Arcade.com and none for free speech, I have decided to stop consuming your products until such time that a noticeable change is made in the way that American Greetings responds to similar incidents.
While I understand that the number of individuals willing to take a stand on this issue will be small, I firmly believe that the number of people who would have had their opinion of American Greetings swain by an electronic comic-strip would be far less had American Greetings chosen a different course of action on this matter.
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
As a long time customer of both American Greetings and Penny-Arcade.com I am deeply saddened by the recent developments between your company and penny-arcade.com. After examining the situation as presented before me. I have come the the conclusion that American Greetings is wholly in the wrong. Because of this and because of while there are many supplementary goods for products bearing the American Greetings logo there are few for Penny Arcade.com and none for free speech, I have decided to stop consuming your products until such time that a noticeable change is made in the way that American Greetings responds to similar incidents.
While I understand that the number of individuals willing to take a stand on this issue will be small, I firmly believe that the number of people who would have had their opinion of American Greetings swain by an electronic comic-strip would be far less had American Greetings chosen a different course of action on this matter.
-Thank You
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
Found it quite entertaining... though I must admit I wasn't "laughing" per se while I was looking...
Do you like... pie?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
You sent us a Greeting
/open cover to greeting card
That said Cease and Desist
So we give you "The Finger (TM)"
(we couldn't resist)
The "Red Bitch" has been mirrored
Like DeCSS
We just thought we'd share
(or is it confess)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Fuck You
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
= McDonalds Lawsuit
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
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.
yeah but how many parents of young girls read PA? and how many parents generally avoid buying their daughters products that evoke images of bondage lesbianism? I think they'd not have too hard a time proving damages.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
I disagree that the case is totally reasonable (although the defendent may have looked like a squatter), and it's worth noting that the defendant won.
They actually removed the link. All this non-violent protest stuff may be good for something after all
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
" I'm really having a hard time seeing how this "comic" can generate so much interest on slashdot. "
Are you serious? Slashdot is a haven for angry fanboys who hate corporations, Microsoft and George Bush, but love 12 year old crap like Anime and comic related games and merchandise. You haven't noticed that 90% of the people who post here are complete whackjobs who lost touch with reality sometime during the 80s?
Yet I didn't sue. I just got a chuckle at the sick mind who would create such a thing! AG should take note.
-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the free Nmap Security Scanner. Version 3.27 was released today
Subject: Horrible AMERICAN GREETING CARD - Adoption
Newsgroups: alt.adoption
Date: 1997/01/20
One of our members was out looking for a Valentine's Day card today and happened to find an interesting one. Here's the text:
COVER- cartoon cat saying " Sis, even if you were adopted, I'd still love you...
INSIDE TEXT- ... not that you are, of course. At least, I don't think
so. But, come to think of it, you don't really look like Mom or Dad,
Gee, maybe you should get a DNA test or something. Oh well, don't worry
about it. We all love you even if your real parents don't. Happy
Valentine's Day "
This is not made up; this is American Greetings card and the number on back is 225AV 0837-42W and the card is in front of me. The head of our group here, Bertie Hunt, was so incensed that she called the local CBS affiliate who has done stories on us in the past and the reporter thought it was unbelievable. She then tracked down American Greetings and talked to Laurie Hendrickson there who also thought the card was terrible and Ms. Hendrickson has ordered the card recalled from the stores! She is also sending an apology letter, which I will post when it arrives. Never mess with a pissed-off adoptee! JOLF from TRIAD/Orlando
P.S. I'll see if there is a American Greetings home page with a mailbox and post it if I find one.
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
You know if they put Parody in big red letters written in blood..they cannot be sued..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Say something like "from the people who've whored out your childhood memories for twenty dollars and american mcgee" or otherwise indicate that you have some sort of critical point to make.
I don't like that, simply because it mandates form in order to qualify for protection as a parody. Why does it have to be like a bad political cartoon where everything is explicitly labeled just so that any retard can see that you're trying to make a statement? I can see the exact remark you are suggesting be plastered on the image in the image itself. Is it not satire if it isn't obvious?
I suppose in the future we'll all be required to put "This is a work of parody of Strawberry Shortcake (tm American Bumcrammers, all rights reserved) and American McGee's Alice (tm American McGee, all rights reserved) and of Gaming Culture in General (tm Electronic Arts, all rights reserved)" in minimum size 14 font just to avoid being insta-sued by legal webcrawlers.
The enemies of Democracy are
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
I can hate Herr Bush (--- note sneaking reference to Godwin's law) just fine all on my own.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
this doesn't make any sense. no one looking for Strawberry Shortcake would end up at that Penny Arcade comic. the PA people didn't hawk it, didn't pretend to be hosting a Shortcake fan site.
I'd be much more comfortable if they just said, "Strawberry Shortcake is trademarked. If PA wants to use her or any other trademarks of American Greetings they need to run it by us first."
On April 17, 2003, American Greetings received
a complaint about the cartoon namely that it was "creepy" and "offensive."
ah, the moral majority.
that's a smooth move by some concerned citizen. PA's probably just going to ignore the email you sent to them, but they wont ignore American Greetings' lawyers.
well good for you. now the web will be safe for young children and other innocents.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
At least you'd be one up from many Slashdot folk, who don't receive mail from mom because they live in her basement...
Freedom: "I won't!"
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
parody - A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.
Hopefully you can agree that the above is an accurate definition, and you might even go so far as to find legal and court references to the definition of a parody. With that in mind, I'd love to hear how you can call the artwork a parody of Strawberry Shortcake(R).
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
The fact that you have yet to describe where and how this picture actually parodies is not supportive of your argument, really.
My argument was that requiring paradies to be explicit about what they are a parody of is unnecessarily restrictive. I don't really care if you can see how it is a parody or not; I'm saying why must it be made plain before parody protection is invoked?
The enemies of Democracy are
Sure, piss them off. They'll take your point of view REAL seriously then.
What next, AOL telling Megatokyo to stop using l33t because it's dumbing down the youth population? (AOL's philosophy.)
Do you think most anyone without an serious technical degree knows that it's not necessarily the thing cash comes out of?
How about the 9-layer OSI networking standard, which has many of it's layers "merged" in practical use? Does anyone really need to know the names of all 9 layers? (Without a textbook, I don't.)
Why do you think engineers are entitled to a whole slew of terms that the public at large can't understand that have VERY SPECIFIC meanings within engineering, but lawyers are not?
Like it or not, law is a very complex set of rules because law has to deal with a very complex set of situations. When is a search legal? When is a confession admissable? Who is allowed to testify, and what are they allowed to testify about? How far does spousal privilege extend? When is something you told your spouse admissable that wouldn't be admissable if you told your priest? Why does the law treat those two situatons differently?
IANAL, but I've tried to be one in traffic court. I should have hired the real thing. We need lawyers because understanding something as complex as a legal system is no less of a full time job than understanding what the fields of a TCP/IP header do - or don't.
I suppose we should make TCP/IP headers all text so non-engineers can understand them, right?
paintball
You may be right.
Quick, let's get ESR an account.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
I appreciate that you think I'm wanger-less
That's "wang".
You're thinking of weiner.
You can't take the sky from me...
Well duh. Everything is about my dick.
bad sig...no donut.
Why can't anybody get a link that's Safe For Work?
Zodiac Survey
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.
Better yet, sign them up to thousands of catalogs.
Zodiac Survey
"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because an infant can't chew it."
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Political cartoons are commercial, and there are many commercial satire companies.
Whether or not someone makes money has absolutely nothing to do with whether something can be used under the parody exemption.
May we never see th
But I am a cartoonist, so I more or less have to be careful about what I draw infringing all the time. This case is ludicrous, however. There are three critical points:
S trawberry.g if
(1) Strawberry Shortcake is a childrens book character, an animated cartoon character, and for the sake of technicality, a recipe for a dessert.
(2) Strawberry Shortcake, in her current incarnation, looks absolutely nothing like the character being parodized.
Here is the old version: http://lakes.ring.com/bsetter/sberry/SB1.JPG
And the new version (albeit smaller):
http://www.dicentertainment.com/Logos/
(3) In said parody, the only thing from the trademarked characters are in fact the hats from the old version.
Which leads to the conclusion that this is indeed a shaky case.
I am surprised, however, that I had not heard much in regards to an unrelated crossover parody published back in 1982 or 1983 in National Lampoon, showing a Smurf... Ummm... Smurfing Strawberry Shortcake like she's never been Smurfed before. One would think a lawsuit like that would get *some* publicity. I've only found one reference to this parodyu, and nothing else.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
parody - A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.
You'll notice that the definition itself doesn't specify any particular target or purpose other than comic effect and ridicule.
PA did imitate the style of the Strawberry Shortcake characters, as well as the style of American McGee's fairytale-turned-horror games.
They were specifically making fun of American McGee for rehashing Alice with another fairytale, and the parody included the Strawberry Shortcake characters for comedic effect.
Their maligned comic is a parody, by definition.
Is it the law now that PA and the people that host their site are shielded from civil action as long as they comply with requests to take down offending content? Whether the request has any legal merit or not. ... So they could put up new offending content every day as long as they took it down after they got a request? Or am I confused somehow? Like I am usually.
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.
Actually, the definition of the word "parody" includes no such stipulation. The comic's a parody, by definition.
The real question to ask is not wether it's a parody, but wether the law defines restrictions on the content of parodies that PA is not in compliance with.
I hate to be pedantic, but the difference is rather signifigant.
Thanks for nmap, Fyodor. Lovely program.
May we never see th
That my friend, is where the beauty of our most celebrated constitutional rites lies.
You may have a point, but they have an even better one. They shouldn't have to care whether or not their statements are moral or fair to anyone. PA is geared towards a certain audience, just as any other form of entertainment. You may not have found their crack as Naziism to be inappropriate, the rest of their audience (I assure you) thought it was funny as hell.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
You see, American McGee, regardless of what you think of his work, had the wisdom to choose something outside the domain of our ludicrous "intellectual property" law. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written in 1900. That's about 30 years before the event horizon of copyright (c. 1928). And that event horizon is why you'll never see American McGee perverting many of the other icons you might expect (*cough* Disney's junk *cough*).
The parody is not of Strawberry Shortcake, but rather of American McGee. It is a common technique in Parody to use another, only somewhat related property to drive the point across.
Your definition is only a small part of parody. What you list is the dictionary definition, not the legal or practical definition.
He also has a color version of the comic up on his site.
Mmmm.... Cherry Cheesecake...
I was just about to rant about ppl who like that flash in your sig but most likely don't know what it's a parody of... But then I realised it's ironicness since it's a parody of a manga/anime* using a [copyrighted? trademarked?] product ...
*I'd like to see if you do know which manga/anime ^_^
All they are doing is the same thing they do every few days, post a comic that the regulars will find funny. I'm a regular reader, and I thought it was funny. Funny enough that I forwarded it onto other less regular readers. Maturity? That doesn't matter, they're playing to their target audience.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
I know that, when taken as a single joke, the Nazi comparison seems pretty harmless. I just feel like these thing add up. I'm certainly not trying to dictate in any way what people can and cannot say. I just think the way I think and don't feel that it hurts anyone to hear an opinion that may not have occured to them before.
Now, since I've made this all about me, I think I'll just bail now. Thanks for not threatening to kill me ;)
bad sig...no donut.
American Greetings may elect to take Penny Arcade to court, but the legal expenses shouldn't be as extreme as some people might lead others to believe.
There are two types of people: those prepared for the zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten.
At first I thought the toon was funny but about as subtle as a brick. having read your post I was wrong compared to some of you guys they are as subtleas Ambrosr Bierce.(still funny tho.)
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Hehe, wait, so what do you mean, you think I was too subtle? ;)
Ghastly shows support for Penny Arcade as well.
Warning: It is not recommended that you go to this comic from work!
I know it's a little late now that there are like 400 comments but how can American Greetings trademark something that's already part of the language? I'm pretty sure people were calling that delicious dessert "strawberry shortcake" way before AG invented that stupid character.
Yep teach them not to kiss high speed bricks
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
My name is Rinda Vas from American greetings, and I am sending you this cease and desist order based on a posting you made on Slashdot.org regarding the email address Rinda.Vas@amgreetings.com. This posting of the email address is a violation of our trademarks, and we'll have to ask you to stop. Thank you
Rinda Vas
Rinda.Vas@amgreetings.com
The guys from Penny Arcade won, regardless of what Am Greetings thinks...
:)
Thousands of extra eyeballs saw their strip thanks to Slashdot. Even if a tiny percentage of those viewers went to the official site, and a similarly tiny percentage spent some money, I would expect that Penny Arcades page impressions, clickthroughs (they have such amazingly discreet advertisements, other sites could learn a lot from them), and subscriptions have boomed at least a little bit.
Worse for Am Greetings, they failed miserably at supressing the image. It's available to anybody who looks for more than a minute or two, google is returning mirrors to it now - so AG managed to burn up some more customer goodwill without achieving anything positive.
Why bother trying to sue them to get permission to repost the picture? A victory like this can't be awarded by the courts, it takes several million slashdot readers to make such a win possible
Congrats to Gabe and Tycho for a top-notch site. I'm not affiliated with it in any way, but I read it just about daily. I hope they gained a lot from this little event.
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.
I'm going to go against the /. consensus here I think..
... it just didn't make any sense. What were they saying about Strawberry shortcake? Nothing, it was just a random sexualization of that character.
I just don't see the first cartoon as being defensible by the PA people. Sure, the parody of American Magee was interesting, and defensible, but bringing in the Strawberry Shortcake character did seems a little bit off. In fact
In sum, the first cartoon, I have no problem with the greetings people wanting it pulled, I think that was fine.
This one on the other hand is a zinger and a well-aimed one too =)
simon
home page
such as:
"New -- this summer...an action tale that will rip out your spleen and eat it with ice cream. Arnold Schwarzenegger is...Pippi...Longstocking! This film has not yet been rated."
?
I think it's just the general anger and bitterness. You're looking too hard. There isn't a "joke" as such. This is just the Penny Arcade people using their forum to bitch and whine about American Greetings in as abusive a way as possible whilst being absolutely sure that they have the legal protection that they can claim it was parody and not free speech.
Essentially, it's funny because it's totally in your face but using a (slightly) different method of saying what it's saying.
Or, for quick reference...
Of course, make sure to include the nazi who started all this: Rinda E. Vas (rinda.vas@amgreetings.com) - Corporate Counsel!
My thinking is that when Media Relations gets wind of this, they're going to be all over Rinda for creating such wonderful publicity. Start making noise (tactfully please)!
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
According to the first definition of parody on dictionary.com:Even though the were not ridiculing American Greetings, specifically, they were imitating the characteristic style of Strawberry Shortcake for comic effect. Thus, it's a parody.
Yep.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
No Text!
Thad
The cartoon doesn't directly accuse A.G. corporation of being Nazis, but that specific (fictional/cartoon) woman.
Thad
There's no point in getting screwed in court over a joke no matter how good.
But, don't go silently. Publish all those C&D letters in place of the jokes/cartoons together with
counter arguments. Tell your audience what is happening. Correspond with the lawyers - it costs you nothing but postage; it costs the people paying the lawyers a lot everytime they have to respond.
If it's a matter of copyright - ask for proof! It's amazing how many organisations are unable to provide proof they own a particular IP.
I never noticed those at the top before. Probably because they are so dang hard to read.
Ok, so I should have been able to notice that, but seriously, a white font with a black shadow on a grey tab on a blue page is not eye-friendly.
It also doesn't help that there is a banner ad below the menu bar. I'm accustomed to ignoring anything from the banner ad on up. I doubt if I'm the only one.
Thats for the pr0n link! I'm at SCHOOL you INSENSITIVE CLOD!
The first link dosn't even mention "for profit" or parody at all. Neither link talks about parody. parody is diffrent from fair use. the PA strip didn't use any copyrighted images or text, other then the name.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.