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.

[king neckbeard]

It may be best expressed under a different doctrine, but I would think that a nice, clear set of rules exists for which a use is unquestionably deemed fair, and that anybody that has the gall to sue under something within that box is hit with hefty fines. For more ambiguous usage, we'd still have the four factor test.

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.

Re:Oh god.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never thought I'd have to read about My Little Pony here. Today is a sad day for me.

And Slashdot just became 20% cooler.

Re:4chan

[Anonymous Coward]

...and hugboxing galore. Now, the most even-handed community, aside from r34 fics and pics (which are spoilered as a rule), is actually the MLP General's on 4chan's /co/ board: http://arch.413chan.net/mlpgeneral/ Very little evangelizing (since they had to be contained back in February), still somewhat critical opinions on content there, and it's just, well, general pony talk now.

Clearly it's the ponies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ponies make everything better!

(Seriously though, make-show-to-sell-toys is a good analogue for make-mp3s-to-sell-merch-and-concert-tickets for musicians, so it works out).

Brony here

[ChromeAeonium]

Just before everyone starts hating, it isn't all that bad. I'm normally more a fan of a bit more violent programming, but it is a unique change of pace (and does have the occasional joke that would go over it's target audience's head...good night folks!), and MLP kinda grows on you. Yeah, go figure. I'm not saying it's for everyone, nor am I saying it would be my absolute first choice of cartoon, but don't knock if you haven't tried it.

Re:Brony here

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't tried it, so I won't knock it. I will however, stand over there uncomfortably when others are discussing MLP .

That's how it starts with everyone. It's OK.

The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt it, but the point of Remix Culture is that the listener/viewer is no longer sure as to what's corrupting what.

To that end, I've actually never seen more than a few seconds of the actual show, but who could resist Weird Al Yankovic doing 80s pop songs? Polkas on 45? 30 years later, someone drops a new meme on it, turns a parody into a parody of a parody, and suddenly it's funny all over again.

Just yesterday, Pinkie Pie herself showed up in the as an example of how not to do software testing on the GitHub Bumblebee thread on software testing, I think it's OK to admit it. I think the MLP viral fad is funny. I enjoy it. There, I've said it, and I feel better.

After the Presidential Press Conference announcing the long-overdue demise of OBL, watching the trailer for Serenity, the lead single and polka track off the new Weird Al album, Reggie Watts, Wu-Tang, or Rebecca Black (just kidding) sung by ponies, you won't care.

All links SFW graphics, a few naughty words, and thoroughly NSFS (Not Safe For Sanity).

Re:Brony here

[SharpFang]

You got the old preconception of "hidden concept aimed at adults". While MLP has some cultural references, it remains quite tame both on the obvious and non-obvious layer. The hidden part is in "inconsistencies". There are some not-quite-obvious plot holes. Parts, where a character could act, according to the archetype they represent, and prevent all the trouble, yet they didn't and hilarity occurs. And later in the show, similarly inconsistent behavior on the part of the character is displayed with a little more visibility. And near the end, in all obviousness. And as you begin to notice the archetype is a facade for a completely different archetype, suddenly the old events click into place, and the behavior becomes not an awkward omission, but very a intentional act, that adds a whole new layer on the old episode, the story completely retold with a twist.

Just to say the gentle and wise Princess Celestia fully deserved the brony nickname "Trollestia".

Re:Brony here

[elsurexiste]

My brother is a brony, and he made me watch the show. The first episode I saw is the one in which Pinky Pie goes schizophrenic... yeah, you read it right. I didn't expect this kind of content, so it was quite a shock. The next one was Rarity making dresses, essentially a joke on professions like ours: everyone asked for changes, time was ticking, unhelpful customers, freaking out and messing up... This, once again, surprised me: shows for the little people are devoid of content or flavor, like a rice cracker; MLP had instead some major stuff going on. Not all episodes are like this, mind you, and I haven't seen them all (nor planning to). Just don't discard it just like that! It's not like Rocko's Modern Life, where sexual references are small and sparse, in MLP the interesting themes (shall we call them adult?) work along the plot.

I would argue though that the best thing MLP brought to the world is the OC that flooded 4chan for a while. Also, this.

Re:Brony here

[The Archon V2.0]

The first episode I saw is the one in which Pinky Pie goes schizophrenic... yeah, you read it right.

Worth noting (for anyone curious) that every one of the six main characters has at least a short scene where they suffer some severe problem of that sort. Looked like quiet, sweet, loving, friend-to-all-animals Fluttershy was going to get away without one. And then the season finale happened and she earned the nicknames "Flutterrage" and "Psychoshy".

Essentially, every pony has their special talents that help them shine. Fairly standard kid show stuff, but this series occasionally inverts that by showing that if their special talent is consistently frustrated it has rapidly-mounting negative effects for the pony's psychological health. So it's a cartoon about friendship and rainbows with occasional catatonia, schizophrenia, psychosis, dangerous workaholism, delusional breaks from reality, and nervous breakdowns.

Personally the show initially gained my respect by using mythological creatures, and giving them the right names. I saw a silhouetted monster and said "Hey, that looks like a manticore." Sure enough, they called it a manticore! There's stuff they made up, too (heh, diamond dogs), but I really did not expect to see reasonably accurate phoenixes, manticores, hydra, and cockatrices in a show like this.

nt

[shentino]

Fair use as a defense has absolutely NOTHING to do with why our rights in the digital world are going away.

The fact is even if you are on rock solid legal ground, you are first of all hamstrung by a severe cost advantage corporations possess by virtue of their large legal budgets and chances are you'll get drilled into the ground and bankrupted before you survive a trial, and second of all your fate is in the hands of twelve people that are probably going to be complete morons about copyright law, thanks to the plaintiff's attorney's striking anyone with even a clue of how things work.

Consequently, anyone who would in theory be entitled to make a parody, satire, or other such fair use of a copyrighted work will, if facing the wrath of a corporation that wishes to censor them, find themselves fighting a huge battle even if the law is on their side, and will more often than not either settle and cough up protection money rather than get bruised in court, or simply not take the risk in the first place.

Big media, knowing this, sees no downside to suing the crap out of anyone and everyone that even remotely looks like they are infringing, and they have no incentive to be reasonable or even negotiate with the smallest semblance of good faith. Compared to an indigent defendant they have nothing to lose from being wrong, whereas the defendant has plenty to lose even if they are completely right.

Bleem is a prime example. They paid for their victory with their lives, as the cost of being sued by Sony wound up bankrupting them, and they never had the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their battle, and they serve as a stern warning to any who would dare defy Sony in the future.

Re:nt

[nine932038]

I've occasionally wondered why one doesn't simply set up shop in a country that has more equitable IP laws and a more balanced judicial system. It certainly seems like the US has a system that favours deep pockets, but I wonder if the same would be true in other countries. I'm fairly certain that having deeper pockets doesn't necessarily work as well in Canada as in the US, though I admit that my knowledge of legal procedure isn't much beyond microscopic.

Re:nt

[drinkypoo]

Lik-Sang is an even better example. They were nailed to the wall for the crimes of providing hardware permitting people to play backups and hardware permitting users to defeat region coding. They were sued so hard they couldn't even afford to show up in court.

Lik-Sang: NEVER FORGET. Die, Sony, Die.

I think the wisest thing is to just increase the volume of work. If that restricts it to low-hanging fruit, so be it. Put that material out there any way you can. Mock their icons at every turn.

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.

Dysfunctional Family Circus

[mykepredko]

I'm showing my age, but I still miss the "Dysfunctional Family Circus" and it is probably a great example of copyright owners shutting down a parody site rather than rolling with it.

You could argue that it was over the top (dad as a drug addled, homosexual S&M freak) but I daresay it didn't damage the brand and, in my own case, it gave me reason to start looking at the strip again (I thought it was nauseating when I was 10 years old) simply to start thinking about captions to contribute.

myke

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.

Re:4chan

[Kitsuneymg]

/co/? Even-handed? RainbowDashLaughing.avi Nope. /co/ is a cesspit. It's far worse than /b/ ever was. Youtube 'pony thread simulator'. That's /co/. I'm not sure WHERE to go for a lightweight introduction, but 4chan ain't it. I'd say either http://www.synchtube.com/r/Yaridovich or maybe chat.freenode.com #flankbook-np or #flankbook-pr. All three places love newfoals. http://www.synchtube.com/r/Filly is a 'cleaner' mlp channel, but sometimes, the mods are still asleep.