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Lucasfilms Nixes Star Wars Live Screening
An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle PI has an article about Lucasfilms sending a cease and desist letter to a local Seattle-based theater company. The company had been planning to do a live parody of Star Wars in which they would turn off the sound and redub it live. This brings up the question are parodies fair use? And if so, should copyright holders be allowed to order people not to parody their work?"
Lucas Films is overly obsessive over the conditions in the theaters in which Star Wars movies played... they spun of THX as a certification body to make sure visual and sound equipment is upto code for everything from theaters to the recording studio used for a video game.
It shouldn't be surprising that a group like this is going to get legal nastygrams for what they're trying to do here when you put that in context. Lucas Films isn't going to release any part of their movie to people who want to do parodies, if they want to do a real parody the right way they'd have to use their own video content. These people got used to using the real movie's video when they were only doing public domain movies, but they fail to understand that anything that came out after the introduction of Mickey Mouse won't be public domain until at least the 2010s, assuming the law isn't revised agian. Until that happens, copyright holders will have the power to shut down this type of "parody" as being not far enough removed from the original work to count.
The vast number of Star Wars parodies that exist show that parodies are protected. What isn't protected is charging people $10 to see the movie and then talking over the whole thing.
From the article:
That is not an unreasonable demand.If you ask me it sounds like Lucas was protecting Seattle. If anyone should be suing, it's Best Brain.
Username taken, please choose another one.
Of course Lucas wants it stopped, otherwise how would he be able to release "Star Wars: The Super-Extra-Special-Parody Edition"?
Nothing funnier than a room full of geeks dressed as Boba Fett shouting "LOOK SIR, DROIDS!" simultaneously.
IMHO, as long as they pay the same fee that any other theater would pay to screen the movie, they should be free to pariody it as they wish.
If They don't want people making a parody out of thier films, how about a cease and desist letter to a certain George Lucas?
It seems like the "Your Rights Online" section of Slashdot has outgrown its name into a pure copyright-bashing area. Where's the "online" in this story? All we have here is a group of artists who wanted to do a live performance while showing the video half of a still-under-copyright movie. Having copyright laws that block that from happening against the copyright-holder's wishes may be annoying, but it's the law and they've gotta deal with it.
The connection to online is just plain not there... either this story belongs in the main index section instead, or this section needs a new name.
What it comes down to is (a) the movie will be shown without its soundtrack and (b) some people will be talking in the theater while the movie is showing.
Sorry, but how the hell can this be the target of a C&D letter? Point (a) is up to whoever's showing the movie, and point (b) has no relation to the movie itself. Where does copyright law come into this at all?
> I clicked the little checkbox that is supposed to prevent me from seeing all this Star Wars trivia. Why am I still seeing these stories?
This is not the trivia you are looking for.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Parody is not talking over someone else's movie. Parody is making your own movie. It's a very, very, very clear distinction. Whether Lucasfilms was being jerks or not is up for debate, but this has nothing to do with parody.
Remember the company who sued the JibJab over the THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND use the political satire:
/ 14 16257
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/25
I realize there's a legal difference between parody and satire and that this case was over a lapsed copyrighted work.
This still sounds like a great opportunity for litegation against LucasFilms over fair use.
Okay, this makes Lucas look like an enormous ass. But, oh, wait, that's long since been established. We already know that Lucas likes to tell Star Wars fans where they can shove their opinions, so he's not really losing anyone's respect here. If Episode II didn't piss you off, Episode I did... if it wasn't the prequels, it was the remastering or the remastering of the remastering...
But I digress.
This brings up the question are parodies fair use? And if so, should copyright holders be allowed to order people not to parody their work?
No--this brings up the question, "What constitutes a parody?"
There's a lot of precedent for parodies being protected under fair use. And certainly, copyright holders should not be allowed to order people around with regard to parodies.
I think the real issue here is, the parody in question employs a public screening of Lucas' films. It would clearly be a protected parody if the movie were re-shot or acted out live. But actually putting on a public screening of the film--even with sound replaced--is not quite so clear cut a situation.
Maybe we'll get lucky and this will go to court and we'll get a favorable ruling. But it probably won't make it so far.
Here's proof. Free 27" flatscreen TVs.
Well, they're getting some press alright.
ILL Clinton - Maker of Machinima Movies
Just like Paramount shut down Star Drek , an unbelievably funny musical parody of Star Trek by David Rodwin. It ran for a year and a half in Seattle. No matter how funny, no matter how popular, no matter anything, it's all about money. Unfortunately, pieces of entertainment are no longer artistic works that become part of our culture. They are only "properties." We are allowed to "consume" them for as long as they're profitable, and that's all. Then they get locked away and carefully guarded in case they might someday be profitable again.
The Sunday Morning Fog is still hovering over my brain, but I seem to recall that the law makes a distinction between Parody and Satire.
Parody (in which an artist is commenting on the work itself ) is protected as Fair Use, while Satire ( where an artist is merely using the work as a tool to comment on something else entirely) is not.
So, as always, the devil is in the details. And whether this Mashup is considered Parody or Satire would depend entirely on the content of the derived work.
-Sean
A parody doesn't allow for unlicensed playback of copyrighted works. LucasArts are perfectly within their rights to request this!
Considering that Slashdot runs copyright stories multiple times a week, why does the submitter even question if parodies are fair use.
Among the very few things that are explictly proctected under fair use is parodies.
I know that there's a lot of RTFA going around, but how can people with exposure to the issues multiple times a week even ask such a question, unless:
1. It's obvious flamebait.
2. Nobody RTFAs or even bothers to understand the laws they are talking about.
Not that copyright law is great, but really, why question if it protects parody when the law explicitly states that copyright does not prevent reuse of the material in the case of parodies.
Parody IS fair use, and, more than that, constitutionally protected freedom of expression, but using actual Star Wars in the background is a violation of their IP.
It's a bummer, but there it is. They could make a parody movie of it (a la "Spaceballs") but they can't reproduce the content exactly, while over-dubbing, without getting permission.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
They point is that they were not paying those fees. They were showing the movie for profit without going through the proper channels to get permission first from Lucasfilm or Fox. If they were doing it for free, or had gotten permission first, there probably wouldn't have been a problem.
- The film is thirty years old and has been seen by hundreds of millions of people. It is outside of the copyright period in effect at the time of the film's initial release.
- A film seen by so many people becomes public domain as a result of having entered the cultural consciousness. The fact that is not legally secure only proves the absurdity of the USA copyright laws.
Damn. Where the hell did you learn about copyright law?
The US modified our copyright laws to conform to the Berne convention in 1976, thus making Lucas's Star Wars release in 1977 covered by the life-of-author+50 measure. So you're wrong on the first quoted claim.
The second quoted claim, that somehow over-use of copyright can erode it, is a misunderstanding. TRADEMARKS can be eroded to lose their legal meaning (i.e., Xerox), but copyrights cannot. Even if everyone on the entire planet has seen a work and can recite it from memory, the work is still protected by copyright until it expires.
Actually, the film is no longer 30 years old. In the 1997 re-release, it's been modified and cleaned-up enough so that copyrights are in full effect.
You wont be able to find a 30 yeard-old print now. Impossible. And you can bet in 25 years, there will have been a few "improved" re-releases to further milk^H^H^H^H protect the SW franchises.
As long as these people CAN convince the judge that what they are doing is a parody, LucasFilm doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Wrong.
Why?
Imagine this. I decide I want to sell Star Wars bootleg videos in the street. So I break out DVDAuthor and superimpose MST3K-ish "parody" subtitles onto the movie. Now, according to you, I can go ahead and distribute my "parody" SW version with impunity?
Fair use doesn't work that way. Just because something's a parody, doesn't automatically make it fair use. In every case, the rights of the defendant must be weighed against those of the plaintiff, and except in very clear cut circumstances, the plaintiff has the upper hand because fair use is an affirmative defense -- you must prove that it applies to your infringement, not just assert it.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
The word "android" certainly predates Lucas. Check any dictionary.
The word "droid", on the other hand, was introduced by Lucas/Alan Dean Foster in the first Star Wars movie. Knowing about all the merchandising that resulted from Star Wars, it's not hard to believe that Lucas trademarked it.
Based on my (somewhat limited) knowledge of copyright and trademark law, he's within his right to ask for damages in the case of "droid" if the word is trademarked. Also, I believe you may use the word "android" all day if you want.
Cheers,
E
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Strange that Lucasfilms won't let this theatre company perform. Charles Ross does a One Man Star Wars live theatre peformance where he takes the classic first 3 films and does all the main scenes. He condenses the 3 films down to 1 hour. Amazing to watch and incredibly funny as well. More info can be found at http://www.onemanstarwars.com/one_man_star_wars1.h tml.
Or to just see a video clip is here: http://www.onemanstarwars.com/OMSWDemo.WMV
Lucasfilms most definately knows about him as he was flown down as their guest for one of the recent conventions. He will also be performing at the big Celebration III for the new movie.
The same guy also does the One Man Lord of The Rings which is also incredible.
Even more basic is the fact that you also can't SHOW a copyrighted film in a theater without a contract from the copyright holder. Let alone sell tickets.
You can't take a copyrighted anything and modify it without the permission of the copyright holder.
Under the Compulsory License provision for audio recordings, You CAN take a copyrighted and commercially released song recording and make your own original recording of the melody and arrangement with parody lyrics (a la Weird Al Yankovic)as long as you pay the compulsory license fee to the copyright holder. The copyright holder CANNOT deny you permission to do this. But under this arrangement you can't sample any of the actual audio from the actual original.
If you want to sample actual audio from the original, you can't do it unless you get contractural permission from the copyright holder--and that usually involves licensing and money.
But rights for film, theater and television are called "grand rights" and are different than rights for songs and audio recordings.
The point here is that this theater wanted to use George Lucas' actual film (which is copyrighted) and change the soundtrack. They might have been able to create their own original film, without using any footage or images from the real Star Wars. But what they were trying to do here is clearly a no-go, legally.
A couple of years ago, as reported here on Slashdot, a company wanted to release DVDs of movies like "Titanic" with the nudity hidden, by digitally painting clothing over the nude actors. They wanted to pay the licensing fees to the copyright holders and sell the DVDs to people who were offended by R-rated movies but would be willing to buy them if the reasons for the "R" were removed. The copyright holders, including the film company that produced "Titanic" rightly stepped in and prevented this from happening.
If you create a work of art and you copyright it, you have the absolute right to control the way that this art is seen in public, and to protect yourself from having what you created altered in any way that doesn't suit you.
The "parody" question comes into play when somebody makes a piece of art that is 100% their own creation which parodies an existing work of art (Mel Brooks' movie "Spaceballs," which is a parody of "Star Wars"). But that is clearly not what the theater in question was wanting to do.
So, no, modifying copyrighted material for parody is not fair use. The laws defining the concept of "fair use" don't mention parody at all.