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Pepe the Frog's Creator Is Sending Takedown Notices To Far-Right Sites (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie has made good on his threat to "aggressively enforce his intellectual property." The artist's lawyers have taken legal action against the alt-right. They have served cease and desist orders to several alt-right personalities and websites including Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and the r/the_Donald subreddit. In addition, they have issued Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests to Reddit and Amazon, notifying them that use of Pepe by the alt-right on their platforms is copyright infringement. The message is to the alt-right is clear -- stop using Pepe the Frog or prepare for legal consequences. Furie originally created Pepe as a non-political character for his Boy's Club comic, but Pepe later became an internet meme and during the 2016 U.S. presidential election the alt-right movement appropriated the frog in various grotesque and hateful memes.
I would wager pretty good money that most of the far-right renditions of pepe are not digital copies but instead new artwork.
Who is providing the funding behind this legal action? Pepe was never a particularly successful commercial endeavor. The artist musst have backing from somebody with a political axe to grind.
when they tried it with "American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake" and it won't work here. The thing is you can Parody Pepe the Frog all day long if you want. But that's not what you're doing. You're parodying the Anti-Fa movement _using_ Pepe.
Parody is only fair use when the thing you're using is what you're making fun of. Otherwise you're just borrowing other folks work/art/ideas because you couldn't get your point across with your own. Either try harder or come to terms with the thought that your ideas don't have a strong enough foundation to stand on their own.
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Big deal. The MPAA has billions of dollars in its war chest, and it never succeeded in keeping the AACS keys off of the internet, and ultimately gave up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
... are not digital copies but instead new artwork.
Copyright law is based on protecting Mickey Mouse. Drawing any likeness of Mickey and trying to display it publicly can get the attention of Disney's lawyers and in most cases they'd have a very real stance with copyright laws to defend their case.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The relevant portion.
Thoughts on Pepe becoming the mascot for 4chan?
Pepe offers you complete support, attention, and embraces how capable you are of birthing your own Pepe. As your God, my hope is to enhance your Pepe birthing experience by empowering you through it. Obey Pepe. Obey Me. Bow down to your leader. Worship me. Give me genital love or non-genital love. Both are wonderful.
But 4chan went crazy for Pepe, yes?
I believe that the most important thing I can do as an artist is to protect the voices of anonymous people on the Internet and help ensure that that those voices are honored. It is my job to help 4chan have the experience that they want without judgment or criticism. In the end, I want 4chan to feel they were supported by being heard, respected, and part of the decision-making process. Instead of promoting my own agenda, it is my goal to promote 4chan. Different things work for different people. Let me support you in the way you choose to draw Pepe.
What about people profiting off of Pepe?
I believe in supporting people’s decisions to profit off of Pepe in order to provide them with the most positive business experience possible. I strive to be an advocate for Pepe in both love and enterprise and hope to help business people to have an empowering and joyful experience while making an ocean of profits as limitless as the universe.
While he still has control over his original Pepe works the idea that he maintains control over anything else after those statements is ludicrous.
Isn't that because they were trying to enforce copyright on a number? Someone that's never been done before (and probably should never be done).
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ov...
In fact, his pursuing rigorous legal claims over such a stupid use makes him prone to parody or satire, which opens up fair use even further.
Well played!
-Styopa
Didn't you know? There were only 2 political thinkers in all of human history: Mao & Hitler.
Anyone who isn't a Maoist is automatically a Nazi.
you can even use Pepe to do it. What you _can't_ do is borrow a completely unrelated piece of art to do it. e.g. you couldn't do a comic of Mickey mouse talking about how much you hate the Pepe take down notices. Disney can and will sue you and win. That's because Mickey Mouse has nothing to do with the parody, and you would have used it just to get attention for your parody.
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Huh? How is killing off a character in a storyline is not the same thing as relinquishing control of the (ugh, hate this term) intellectual property?
Believe me, Disney/Lucasfilm hasn't relinquished control of Han Solo. Oh, wait, spoiler alert.
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First of all, I doubt it's even a million. Second of all racism is hardly merely a "political opinion".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
1) It's a few thousand nationwide if you're lucky, and 2) Slapping the label "racism" on something you don't like doesn't invalidate it. Border security isn't "racist". Deporting illegal immigrants isn't "racist". Wearing high heels on a rainy day isn't "racist". Your team losing the big game isn't "racist". A bird crapping on your windshield isn't "racist"....The left really fucking needs to learn a new tactic of persuasion other than bullying people into submission by calling them "racist".
Furthermore, there's a whole shitload more involved with being a "nazi" than just being racist.
We don't call them Nazis just because of their repugnant political opinions, we call them Nazis because they wear swastikas, give Nazi salutes, and chant Nazi slogans. You know, like Nazis.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
This is how they gaslight you. They claim the Kekistan flag isn't related to the Nazi swastika flag at all, but they know that it really is and use it as a signal to each other. If you point this out they accuse you of wild conspiracy theories and of calling everyone a Nazi.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Here's a pro bono tip for you, avoid sprinkling semicolons around if you don't know how to use them. Yes I know you do it in an attempt to look smarter, but it ends up having the opposite effect.
Mmmmmm nope. American AC used them correctly; semi-colons can be used to closely join two independent clauses to connect closely related ideas.
In and of itself, no. But if you're for increased border security and deporting illegal immigrants specifically because you don't want people of latino persuasion in the country, then yes, that is racist. And from the people I've met, they aren't really concerned about people from Ireland overstaying their visas. They're specifically worried about people of European descent becoming a minority in the USA.
I don't know anything about you so I have no idea what you believe. And there are a good number of people who believe we should have increased border security (I'm one of them!), but there are also a good number of people who just so happen to be for these things specifically because they think that there are too many non-Europeans in the country as it is. That is racist.
This is how they gaslight you. They claim the Kekistan flag isn't related to the Nazi swastika flag at all, but they know that it really is and use it as a signal to each other. If you point this out they accuse you of wild conspiracy theories and of calling everyone a Nazi.
This is how you prove you have no understanding of internet culture in one easy step. While at the same time, failing to understand that the entire basis of the meme is reflecting identity politics back at the left. Eg: "You get special privileges because *insert gender/race/sex here*, thus you can't be *insert thing here*" Kekistani memes do the same, by creating a fictional front and turning that identity politics back on it's source. Since kekistani's are "true" in the oppositions eyes, as seen by your post. You're actually discriminating against them by holding the position that you do.
Which means, that not only are you a bigot. But you can also be a racist, sexist, and anything else they want. They're mocking you, using your own rules and you don't even understand it. Either because you live and breath identity politics and are unable to reflect on the fact that you actually are everything you claim to hate. And to the "normies" aka everyone else except "cuckistanis" you look like an idiot, especially since you're getting so worked up over a cartoon frog.
Om, nomnomnom...
The entire idea of using Pepe as a racist symbol was itself a parody orchestrated by 4chan to show how fucking stupid the media is.
The media reported on it because they fell for some fake 4chan tweets. They media reported on it a lot.
Then people started using it to mock the media. I have no idea whether or not actual racists use it now, or what it means if they actually do use it.
Either way, it's clearly parody and political expression. He won't win a copyright lawsuit if the defendant has a competent lawyer.