Firefly Fans Fight Back Against Universal

Gossi writes "What happens when a film studio and a fanbase get into bed? Fans of Joss Whedon's Firefly, and the movie by Universal Studios — Serenity — are not amused. After being encouraged to viral market Serenity, the studio has started legal action against fans (demanding $9000 in retroactive licensing fees in one case and demanding fan promotion stop), and going after Cafepress. The fans response? Retroactively invoice Universal for their services."

Comments

Re:Some people are just ... stupid.

[Triskele]

This is one of several comments that assert that since Universal own the IP and there was no format agreement, then Universal were completely right to c&d and even bill their volunteers. Sad loser geeks eh?

However this is missing the point of how viral marketing campaigns are supposed to work. Viral marketing can be scary particularly for large control-freak companies, as the essential point behind viral marketing is to give away control of the brand to the fans / early adopters and let them be a mouthpiece for your product, a voice that other fans and their less fanish friends, family and acquaintances will trust when they wouldn't even notice a conventional marketing campaign via TV, radio, print and billboards.

I wouldn't be surprised if Universal's marketing dept were over the moon with all the fan promotion including Serenity T-shirts (free advertising by the wearer). And at the same time their IP dept were doing the only thing they know how to do. Plenty of YouTube vids were posted by marketing depts only to be retracted by their own lawyeres.

It seems to me that part of the deal with viral marketing is giving away control to the fans and while this may be informal (how do you contract for that 20th C-style?) and the fan volunteers have a right to be treated with respect for their work. Even if that means they make a little money out of the owner's IP. Under the technicalities of the law that may be "unlicenced" use, but there is an implicit grant of rights in marketing a product that we consumers have let slide and given the corporations free rein to trample over. Otherwise every time we told a mate about a great product we'd have to pay a licence fee and balance that by billing the corporation for marketing services. Just as these Browncoats have tried to show...

Re:Missing the point

[free space]

"how, and why, did we end up with such incompetent management up in the ivory tower?"

Offtopic, I know, but here's my theory: It's due to a universal (pun not intened) misconception that a manager should focus on the "big picture" and delegate responsibilites to subordinates. So your average manager is totally out of touch with the customers, the employees, and the market. The only thing he or she sees is charts, reports and presentations, and somehow key decisions should be made with this stuff.

Oh bullshit

[theshowmecanuck]

There is a line between blogging about the movie and showing trailers on your web site, and marketing licensable items (like shirts). The first two are viral advertising, the latter is, well, marketing something that someone else owns as your own products.

From the fucking article:

Members were encouraged to form regional groups to promote the film and perform activities that would help generate word of mouth, like creating bumper stickers and gift cards to accompany the DVD release.

I don't see any mention of marketing t-shirts as viral advertising.

Now while I generally think of movie executives as dick heads, but to be fare, they put up a lot of money to finance a movie that returned not so much. If they make a few million dollars on this, then good for them. They put up US$39 million dollars in production costs, around US$15 million in advertising costs, and about US$8.5 million in distribution costs. The film made US$38.3 million GROSS at the box office (meaning before the theaters take their cut). If the movie ran over production budget, or flopped, etc. You wouldn't give a rat's ass about the folks who would have lost their shirts. They paid for the right to market shirts.

Just because you REALLY REALLY like something, doesn't mean you can take if for your own and do whatever you want with it. This is also the reason we have patents (real patents, not business rules patents). If someone spends time and a lot of money to develop a new something, whether directly as an investment, or in their own time (so they can't earn money elsewhere), why do you think it should be OK for someone else to profit off of it. Or is it a matter of "if it's the little guy getting ripped, then defend the hell out of him, but if it is the big guy, or they have something you really really like, then fuck it, rob him"?

Man on the street to another guy: "Excuse me, but do you know what time it is?"
Second guy: "It's three P.M."
First guy: "Thank you... and I really really like your watch... I want to sell it to that guy over there."
Second guy: "What? Excuse me, it is my watch, I paid for it."
First guy (gathers a mob around him): "We don't care. We want it , and we're going to sell it."

I know this can easily be called a troll since there are going to be a lot of fanboys reading this thread, but really. And I happen to really really like Serenity (saw it twice in the threater), and watched and really really liked Firefly when it first came on TV... and was supremely disappointed when it was canceled. But I still think that showing trailers on your web site is one thing and selling someone else's idea as your own is another.

One word: estoppel

[DrJimbo]

IANAL but I think the browncoats have an excellent chance of prevailing with an estoppel defense:

• [Universal] has done or said something to induce an expectation
• The [Browncoats] relied (reasonably) on the expectation...
• ...and would suffer detriment if that expectation were false.

This is one of the many defenses IBM is using against SCO. IBM claims that for 20 years the owners of the AT&T contracts let IBM publish its own home-grown code and therefore SCO is estopped from now trying to interpret the contracts differently.

Since Universal Pictures knew about the "infringing" activities and did nothing when those activities helped promote their film, their retroactive licensing fees should IMO be estopped. I don't know if Universal's cease and desist orders can be estopped or not. Since people built business models based upon Universal's tacit acceptance of the use of their trademarks, I think a good argument could be made that Universal delayed too long and have thus invalidated their own trademarks. If trademarks are not vigorously enforced, they are forfeited.