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The Real Monsters Behind Godzilla
eldavojohn writes "A Wired blog looks at the real monsters behind Godzilla: his lawyers. Do you think Godzilla is basically a glorified T. Rex? Guess again, as his lawyers have tirelessly argued: 'He's erect-standing. He's got muscular arms, scaly skin and spines on back and tail and he breathes fire and has a furrowed brow, he's got an anthropomorphic torso. The T. rex has emaciated bird-like arms and stands at a 45-degree angle.' Read on to find out why they targeted the site davezilla.com but not mozilla.org. Another abuse of the American trademark & copyright system? You decide — just don't make a float of him or you'll find yourself paying an undisclosed sum to Toho Co. Ltd."
Helpless people on subway trains
Scream to God, as he puts liens on their assets to cover the cost of legal proceedings!
GODZILLA!
1. godzilla is decades old. ip law should time out after a decade, at worst
2. this is corporate takeover of our culture. its our culture. not their ip. we need to hammer this point home
3. ip law exists to serve us. but it has been pervered to extort money for decades, even way after the artist is long gone. ip law doesn't even serve the artist, it serves the distributor
the story of the 21st century will be the story of the death of ip law. it is simply morally unsound
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We have ethical machines to deal with lawyers like these.
He's got an S, a more different S, consummate Vs, spinities, wings, a beefy arm for good measure, angry eyebrows floating above his head and he comes IN THE NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
How would slashdotters feel if somebody started selling a Linux branded cabernet with a picture of Tux on it without permission?
Most likely? Drunk.
Just because it's foreign (and maybe a little silly) doesn't mean it's not a high-powered brand. Middle-class American white folks might not realize it, but Ultraman is the third most merchandised character in the world, right after Mickey Mouse and Charlie Brown (and before Superman). And the people who command that kind of market share have lawyers? Color me shocked.
Breakfast served all day!
How would slashdotters feel if somebody started selling a Linux branded cabernet with a picture of Tux on it without permission?
Most likely? Drunk.
What's so unpleasant about being drunk?
Bow-ties are cool.
godzilla is decades old. ip law should time out after a decade, at worst
"Godzilla" is a trademark, and exclusive rights in trademarks are perpetual by design. Should Coca-Cola be allowed to pass its own products off as Pepsi, just because Pepsi has been around since 1903?
ip law between corporate entities is still sound, and always will be sound
ip law as applied to civilians, civic organizations, parody, hobbyist websites, etc.: dead
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The weird thing is some of the Godzilla movies have entered the public domain. We used a piece in a TV commercial (years and years ago - think Morris worm) and Toho showed up and said no (or face the wrath of our suitcase baring legions). So we took the actual image of Godzilla out but still used the rays destroying tanks, people running, smoldering buildings and there was no problem. Used it again on MTV a couple of times.
Someone should do a bootleg Kiss Vs Godzilla for the asshole IP Olympics.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Equally stupid is the following "argument":
If you want to get a rise out of the soft-spoken Moss, ask him something like, "Isn't Godzilla just an overgrown Tyrannosaurus rex?"
"He's erect-standing. He's got muscular arms, scaly skin and spines on back and tail and he breathes fire and has a furrowed brow," Moss says, repeating arguments Toho often makes in its lawsuits. "He's got an anthropomorphic torso. The T. rex has emaciated bird-like arms and stands at a 45-degree angle."
Actually, at the time he was conceived, about every image on the planet including a T-Rex showed it:
- Standing erect (they had to break the tailbone structure to do this, but they were convinced they were right because "it's a lizard, it has to drag its tail."
- With significantly larger arms (though not quite as big as Gojira's).
Take a look and compare Gojira to the T-Rex from the 1933 version of King Kong , or to any other movie featuring dinosaurs up until the late '80s. What do you get? You get a "Rex" standing upright on its hind legs, walking forward, dragging its tail.
The only reason Gojira has human-ish arms is that they were putting a rubber suit on a fucking human to get the effects.
This is a joke. Gojira is, in fact, just a mutated oversized Rex. They gave him fire breath because the Japanese, like most Asian cultures, have a dragon obsession and fire breath is cool.
Just for reference, the name "Gojira" (the actual Japanese name for Godzilla) was derived from combining the Japanese words for Gorilla (gorira) and Whale (kujira). It would have been hilarious if Godzilla's inventor had envisioned the actual beast to be a mix of the two creatures.