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Free Lightsaber Event Now Battling Lucasfilm's Lawyers (siliconbeat.com)
For eight years the arts collective Newmindspace had been staging free lightsaber battles, and in December they set a world record with 9,951 "combatants" simultaneously participating in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle. But then in January they received a letter from the copyright attorneys for the Star Wars franchise. "We immediately stopped using the words 'lightsaber,' 'Jedi,' 'Sith' and 'The Force,' " the group's co-founder told the technology blog of the San Jose Mercury News, saying they've still been "aggressively pursued" for the last three months. '''In March we received further communication stating 'The Light Battle Tour' and 'light sword' were still too close to their trademarks, and we moved to settle the dispute to avoid legal action." Their new solution involves referring to the weapons as "catblades", and they've re-branded their upcoming series of events (which begins on April 30 in San Jose) as the "Cats in Space Tour".
Otherwise stated, because fuck you that's why.
Imagine if this had stopped 'Star Trek" conventions through the years. Would the franchise be nearly as popular as it was/is?
Here is a clue for the 1% media fucktards and their lawyer army. Something that gets people engaged and excited about your supposed "IP" is free word of mouth advertising. Word of mouth advertising is free, and far more effective than any other kind that you pay dearly for. The trade of is you cannot tightly control the message. Boo hoo.
Silence is a state of mime.
Instead of reaching out and asking if these people would want to become a sanctioned event, or a simple, could you please work with us to not violate our IP, they chose to instead swing the FUCK YOU hammer.
Lawyers are garbage.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Seriously, is that the best name they could come up with it?
I would have went with the "Generic Glowing Space Sword" battle, which gets the point across while giving the middle finger to Disney and their copyrights.
They could have also done a Spaceballs themed Swartz battle, assuming that whoever owns that copyright also isn't an asshole.
So there is this huge event made by geeks that costs them not a dime, advertises their franchise with what is pretty much a public stunt show and they SUE against that?
"But what if they misrepresent it?"
Please! We're talking hardcore geeks here. Anything that could remotely, possibly be consider by someone not-canon would be axed if not nuked with more zeal and closer attention to detail and accuracy than any of the lawyers who have no idea about the franchise itself, only about its IP laws, could or would do. If anything, these things are going to be closer to canon and whatever the "designers" of the franchise create than any amusement park you sell your IP to ever would (because they don't give a fuck about canon as long as it is gimmicky).
So please explain that to me. It makes no sense.
Oh. It's covered by copyright law. Ok, never mind, carry on, that's not supposed to make sense.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
All say "boo". Walk away and find another franchise.
Honestly, never "got" Star Wars anyway, certainly not the modern prequel crap, and can't bear to sit through any of them.
But the problem is that people think it's "a franchise for the fans" when it's just "a franchise for the finance". They honestly don't care about your fan club, they just want money from you. And fucking idiots keep giving them money.
Let it die. Go "Oh, yeah, that was a good movie when I was a kid". Then forget about it. Not even out of spite. Just forget it exists and move on. It had its time. Like "The Matrix", it was great, it was milked for all it was worth, let it then die, and at least remember the first as a great movie.
Incidentally: Star Trek, Dr Who (??? Seriously don't understand this, despite being British), etc. are all the same.
Let it remain in your childhood as a fond memory, rather than playing a kid for the next 40 years and handing people money for doing nothing and screwing over actors.
Every movie and TV show I ever watched as a kid? Nowhere near as fun as I remember. Just keep them in your head, they are funnier there, and cost nothing.
Yeah! And enough with books and music and television and movies. Everyone should stay in their basement and never expose themselves to anyone else's creative works, much less celebrate them!
Or, you know, we could continue to behave like humans have behaved since the beginning of recorded history.
Sharing stories and celebrating them is a fundamental part of human interaction. We use stories to share our knowledge, beliefs and morals. Stories entertain and educate and act as a form of common ground that people can use to connect to and understand one another.
From wikipedia:
Like Harry Potter, almost no single element of Star Wars is "original", its just a blend that was there at the right place and right time and got popular. So can we stop treating the creators of these franchises as creative gods and merely make them mere mortals again and doing what other creators have always done? That is copy and imitate and through enough thought and practice, sometimes put their own slightly original spin on something?
Copying and imitating them in turn shouldn't become illegal just because they had the good fortune to get popular.