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Warner Bros. Sued By Meme Creators Over Copyright Infringement
Krazy Kanuck sends this quote from the BBC: "Warner Bros is being sued for the alleged unauthorized use of two cats that have achieved internet fame. ... The complaint alleged that the cats were used without permission in Scribblenauts, a series of games on the Nintendo DS and other platforms. Court documents alleged that Warner Bros and 5th Cell 'knowingly and intentionally infringed' both claimant's ownership rights. 'Compounding their infringements,' court papers (PDF) said, 'defendants have used "Nyan Cat" (designed by Christopher Torres) and "Keyboard Cat" (created in 1984 by Charles Schmidt), even identifying them by name, to promote and market their games, all without plaintiffs' permission and without any compensation to plaintiffs.' "
That escalated quickly.
nyan cat is watching you litigate!
Not sure if that will work well when there are literally hundreds of more blatant rip offs on the very medium they used to become a meme. Is that not part and parcel of being a meme? Having others riff off what you did?
... How do you like them poptarts?
Well -- we all knew they were up to something -- now we now it really was world domination, just not the way we all expected.
Can we all just agree that idea of "copyrighting" characters is ridiculous? Trademark is one thing, but characters created without trademark should be considered travelers within the realm of culture, IMO. Actual direct digital copying of DRAWINGS of said characters, of course, falls under copyright.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
are the submarine patents of culture.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Apb reloaded that busted ol game by the crap company without a clue created a whole bunch of nyan themed stuff too.
Sue them too. it would give me a lol.
I don't want to defend Warner Brothers, but this suit is stupid. These characters are totally pervasive on the Internet - de-facto public domain, so to say. They're also quite old. Extremely few of the people who use them have a clue that they're copyrighted.
If you create a meme and plaster it all over the Internet, you can't expect to keep people from using it, for profit or otherwise. That's just beyond ridiculous. If the creators of Hello Kitty were to sue every small clothing maker who used images, we'd have millions of stupid lawsuits like this under way.
If it was a character with a strong brand association, say like Mickey Mouse or Mario or anything from a cereal box, there might be a case. These characters exist solely for the purpose of sending people LULz everywhere on the webs, so it's really not the same thing, as they aren't commonly associated with any known brand or company.
These media conglomerates salivate in their sleep while dreaming of litigating the crap out of anyone they can get away with so that they can maintain a stranglehold on culture.
I am totally in favor of culture biting them in the ass, using the very laws they weas^H^H^H^Hchampioned.
I was under the impression that once something becomes a meme, it is essentially public domain since it's extensive public use would forfeit any intellectual rights the creators may have had.
From my point of view, they see that Warner Bros has lots of money and are making a cash grab even though they can't show any evidence of them trying to retain ownership of their creative works in the past. Where was the flurry of take down notices to the social sites these memes were propagated on? Where was the cease and desist letter to the Colbert show when Keyboard Cat was used numerous times there?
I'm all for the little guy being protected against the 800lb gorilla -- but in this case I hope the judge takes a sniff of this lawsuit and dismisses it outright.
Court documents alleged that Warner Bros and 5th Cell 'knowingly and intentionally infringed' both claimant's ownership rights.
They infringed both claimant's ownership rights and what else?
Doesn't Nyan cat use the image of a Pop Tart as the body of the cat?
So I seen deze 2 cats, hanging out on the Warner Brothers lot, and I think... I seen deze 2 cats somewhere before
Clearly the creators are confused. When big media takes something and uses it, that is just fine and everyone should look the other way. But if they (the big media maffia) even accuse anyone of taking something of theirs (or even that they would like to be theirs but really isn't) then that person is guilty and owes them irrational amounts of compensation.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Lawyer: "... And that concludes my final argument, play me off keyboard cat."
Keyboard Cat: &music&
Did I use it right this time ? Huh, Did I ? ;-)
I eagerly await the answer...
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
This is the world IP holders like Warner Bros. want to live in. These are the laws they want. They must now lie in the bed they spent so much lobbying money to make.
I'm torn though. I really do want an injunction because it will hurt (albeit slightly) Warner Bros. but at the same time, Scribblenauts is kind of awesome and doesn't really deserve an injunction. Also, I don't want injunctions like this to be standard for mere allegations. Dilemma thy name is IP law!
Toss the "stick it to the man," "taste your own medicine" rubbish aside...
$1000 says WB wins, considering the justice system is rigged to favor the party with the most money.
Come on, who are we trying to fool here?
It's slashdot staff who create the headlines, not the submitters, so the blame for this lies squarely with soulskill. Of course, dealing with the sloppy work of colleagues is something the staff have shown no interest in for more than a decade.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
a character with a cat's face and a body
resembling a horizontal breakfast bar
with pink frosting sprinkled with light red dots,
flies across the screen, leaving a stream
of exhaust in the form of a bright rainbow
in its wake, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
they were actually making money off of someone else work without compensation.
Which is irrelevant in determining fair use.
How so? The first factor in a fair use determination under U.S. law (17 USC 107) involves whether or not the "purpose and character" was commercial.
a) It's not "big greedy WB milking internet memes", it's "game dev, 5th Cell, inserting an easter egg in a game for fans amusement"
b) What's likely to happen is these two guys getting slapped silly by huge WB's lawyer team (unless they manage to settle out of court)
c) And what else is likely to happen is whether they win it or not, after that whenever a developer thinks about a meme-based easter egg, a man in a suit will come from HQ telling him to cut it out, because they don't want to spend time and money researching and licensing trademarks and/or getting in a lawsuit.
But let's not think about it and cheer it on! Boo, big WB! Yay, Internet freedom fighters! Trademark ALL the memes!
WB is big, you are not. Therefore: no infringement.
Just because they didn't know the instantly WB used their stuff doesn't mean they aren't defending them. I know you probably never had any intellectual property in your life, but defending a trademark is very time consuming, and costly for normal non billion dollar companies. Add that up also you will be defending your trademark against a mammoth titan with a million dollar legal team and you know come back to reality that the notion of "Hey! they should have defending their mark!" is not a valid argument. It would take one at least 6 months to even get the case ready to present to send off the constable to serve the summons in civil court. The court system is fucking slow. Getting a case ready to defend against God is even slower.
Are you saying if star wars were characters never defended it wouldn't have become the meme in society that it is today? Again your logic is bullshit.
Perhaps it is Nyan cat that is violating copyright:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPPpTLKmaiE
But seriously, is there anything that is not derivative anymore?
Sorry, the Buy More was a fictional store in the TV Series Chuck.
So you can't do that either. But you can Purchase More if you like!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Good.
Kellogg's Pop-tart should sue the creator of Nyan Cat. Can't we all just get along? They have more lawyers than you.
It's just that the rich don't need to sleep under bridges, whereas the poor sometimes do. So laws against doing things that those without means must do (sleep outdoors, urinate in the park behind trees and shrubs, beg for money) are applied equally to those rich enough that they wouldn't have to break that law in the first place. Sigh.... exasperated sigh....
The wikipedia quote is "I was doing a donation drive for the Red Cross and in-between drawings in my Livestream video chat, two different people mentioned I should draw a “Pop Tart” and a “cat”.
Cut and paste dude.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Features and TV. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s I wrote for a very popular SF show and am still on very good terms with the principals, including the creator/showrunner, etc. I often have dinner with him and his wife, and we regularly all get together with other writers, producers and the original leads for holiday celebrations. But if I pitch or otherwise submit ideas to any of them, it's never before signing their standard release forms.
If you ever read one of those it appears as if pitchers are completely abdicating their IP rights to the pitchees, but it's actually there to protect both parties, and it's nothing personal. The show's creator even made his brother sign a release form before he would hear his idea for an episode. It's just SOP.
A parody is a derived work.
Sue the fuckers
The "WB" logo also is a meme, even though it is only two letters inside the outline of a shield. Of course, WB employs an army of lawyers who use trademark and copyright law to zealously protect its intellectual property, including its logo.
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Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.