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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."
If anyone doesn't think viral marketing works - then they should read this. The first I heard about Serenity was on a friend's blog. I think they'd got into a preview screening on the basis that they'd blog about it. I then watched the first eight minutes of it which was being shown to promote the film and enjoyed it. I then went to see the film and enjoyed it and thought it was worth it too.
There are very few films I go see at the cinema and because I don't have a TV most of the promotions for them pass me by - and a lot don't appeal.
Video Game cheats, hints a
Ok, having only briefly looked it over... I think what Universal is objecting to is this knucklehead selling merchandise for profit, utilizing their images. This isn't promoting the film, this is promoting his bank account. If I am reading it correctly, they're not telling him to stop promoting the film, they're telling him to stop promoting his products using their IP.
So, well, what's the problem?
For Universal, don't mess with the kind of people who have a lotttt more spare time than you do. The group is the kind of group that *will* get into a good television show (especially as good as Firefly was). These fans were and still are super-dedicated to the show and have and will have a lot of energy to spare for the show that is practically their religion.
However, that being said, Universal will disregard everything that they (and anyone else) do. It's going to take a hot poker to get Universal to do anything pro-consumer. Remember, all of the decisions are made by a group of women and men sitting at a table trying to figure out how to maximize profit. And that they are going to try to do, even if they are shortsighted about it.
This is the clue bat. This is your head. This is the clue bat hitting your head.
As others have already pointed out, it's not copacetic to sell merchandise like that. You think you can start selling Star Wars t-shirts and Lucasfilm will be OK with that? Not likely.
But that is entirely beside the point. The point is that Universal believes this is a valuable franchise, and acts to protect it. They are not trying to shut down the fan community. Simply, there are people at Universal who think a Serenity sequel is a possibility, and they want to maintain control over that so when they fund the next movie they're going to get a proper ROI. That is all.
It's basically good news that they want to defend this.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Watch how I sue.
Actually his t-shirts are just the chinese characters, drawn by him, that translate as "serenity". No pictures or artwork from the movie at all. Think Universal should be able to control the expression of single word? (as opposed to a substantial quote from a movie)
As an addendum, Universal has stated that they also want the sky back.
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.