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Warner Bros. Sued By Meme Creators Over Copyright Infringement

Posted by Soulskill on from the second-generation-internet-entertainment dept.

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.' "

4 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Pot, meet Kettle by femtobyte · · Score: 5, Informative

    Frosted breakfast toaster pastries aren't an exclusively owned intellectual property. Nyan Cat doesn't have a "Pop Tart (tm)" label on the image; just an image of a food (?) product of which many generic variants are available.

  2. Re:Copyright of IDEAS is ridiculous by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the article:
    "Both Mr Torres and Mr Schmidt own copyrights and trademarks of the characters."

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  3. Re:Madness must stop. by operagost · · Score: 5, Informative

    de-facto public domain

    No, in fact, they're not public domain. Declaring them public domain based on their pervasiveness would mean that Mickey Mouse is also public domain-- and we all know that isn't true.

    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

    Pretty sure Fatso the keyboard cat was simply posted on YouTube and the meme snowballed.

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  4. Purpose and character by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.