Better Copyright Through Fair Use and Ponies

Balinares writes "With even harmless parody sites like Peanutweeter now getting shut down by twitchy lawyers in the name of brand dilution concerns, the situation with fair use has become bleak. Yet some companies are learning at last. Variery reports that when parodies of their latest production started popping up online, Hasbro not only allowed it to happen, but started contributing some of their own. Now their My Little Pony reboot has gained a huge following and reached cult status. Fair use does make everything better. That, or it's the ponies."

Comments

Bleak.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

the situation with fair use has become bleak

The situation with fair use has always been bleak. It doesn't help that its an amorphous concepts--uncertainty in the law makes it hard to comply with and has a chilling effect on free speech.

The situation with copyright generally has gone from bad to worse. It used to be it was only a civil offense if a violation was non-commercial. Now it's a criminal violation if the infringement exceeds a certain dollar value--so quoting a song lyric on a medium-sized listserve is arguably enough to make you a felon.

Re:Bleak.

[Anonymous Coward]

An even more surprising thing about Japanese doujinshi culture is that Japanese copyright laws make no exemption for parodies as fair use. So under Japanese law, all doujinshi are technically infringing, regardless of whether the doujinshi makes a critique of the original work (and most would fail this definition.)

Doujinshi's function as a breeding ground for future talent has secured its survival; doujinshi event organizers get more grief from morality police than copyright holders. But I think there are two characteristics of the Japanese population in general that allowed doujinshi to first come into being:

1) Japanese have not just a higher level of appreciation, but a stronger urge to participate in art.
2) Japanese have less inclination to take people to court, period.

I think these are two qualities we can all admire.

Euphemisms

[bill_mcgonigle]

parody sites like Peanutweeter now getting shut down by twitchy lawyers

Lawyers can't do squat except write some fancy papers. The implied threat of violence from the government is what shut down Peanutweeter.

I suggest going to buy stuff from James Hance now, before he gets put out of business too. I'll feel especially sorry for his daughter when that happens.

Who owns the discours?

[mvdwege]

The last paragraph nails the problem:

"Really it all comes down to a question of control for big media companies," McIntosh says. "They can either attempt to clamp down on remixers and fan communities or they can embrace the new creative digital world and see transformative works as a positive thing for their franchises."

The question we should ask ourselves is: who owns the public discours? I think the keyword is 'public'. You put something out there to invite a reaction, then it should not be reasonable to expect to control it forever. Anything that is not blatant copyright violation or fraud should be fair game.