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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.
you're thinking of Trademark, this is copyright. He can grant license to and take license from pretty much anyone he damn well pleases. The rules are a little hazy for music because of radio, but print media's pretty cut & dry.
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Please come back when you learn the difference between trademark and copyright.
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
I'm sure the interent will be free of Pepe pictures by this time next week.
Again, that is trademark. Copyright has no such requirement.
http://notanumber.net/
In terms of copyright infringement you can. Hormel for example will have the lawyers send people approval to use their copyright logo of SPAM when it is used in a way they like, the lawyers send this approval because the people are actually violating copyright so they are approving it to protect they rights, without having to fight positive use of their IP. However if used in a way they don't like and the person is using the IP illegally then they can sue the heck out of them for damages.
Being the Alt-Right has twisted the IP to express an idea the created doesn't want, he could sue them.
It isn't open source, it is IP so the owner kept his rights on how the material is used.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Sorry I'm not familiar with Mr. Furry's work but the times I've seen his Pepe it has appeared fairly different from the one most commonly in use online.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Also, in nearly all of the renditions I've seen, it's been used in a satirical sense, mostly to poke fun at anti-fascists, and, even more hilariously, at fascists themselves.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
if I freehand copy an X-Men comic book that doesn't give me copyright to it.
As for the funding, thanks to the DMCA it's trivial to send take down notices. And yes, the artist probably does have an Ax to grind. His character's been made into a symbol for a group of at best Nazi sympathizers and at worst actual Swastika flag flying Nazi's. A character he intended for childrend's books. Any sane person would be furious.
If they'd done it to the Coca-Cola polar bear or Mickey mouse what do you think the reaction would be? Would you still be writing the phrase "an axe to grind" or questioning the artist's motives?
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Haven't those poor people been through enough already without you taking their memes away too?!?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Lets just hope the Kekistani that have come here to anonymously maintain their cultural practice of shitposting aren't too traumatized by the ordeal.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
You are obviously a fucking suit. Leave Slashdot. Scat! Get outta here.
If it's not directly commentary on the character Pepe (satire), it likely isn't fair use.
Though the fact that they're not monetized does help the case.
Likely it will be too expensive to pursue a fair use case for each and every instance, so the DMCA will win out.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Correct. So people who have made direct copies can be told to desist. However, likenesses that are not copies are more like trademarks.
This could be a good thing, if it further strains the tenuous legal precedent that keeps 'the mouse' in business.
That said, the image of pepe is like an infowars.com link. My reflex when I've been tricked into loading a page on alex's festerpit is to click it closed without further review. Pepe images or avatars on comment forums are useful the same way as 'ignore this' markers.
Except copyright is valid for 70 years past the life the owner. Thank you Disney. He is well within his rights. Trademarks require active enforcement like someone else was mentioning about Hormel. Copyright is up to the owner. He'll be limited on damages based on past behavior but he can certainly get them to stop violating his copyright. There are limitations for parody but good luck proving that's the intent from alt-right sites.
There is a bit of a difference between a full Disney movie and say... Fan art. https://www.plagiarismtoday.co...
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Looks spot on to me. Matt Furie's an amateur, so he doesn't always draw his characters perfectly, but the overall design of the character is surprisingly easy to recognize. Which is probably why the alt-right jumped on him. Making an easy to recognize character that's not also generic is surprisingly hard.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
For definitions of 'win out' equalling to 'play automated whack a mole against scripts'.
Have you been on youttube lately?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That still implies the existence of a license and agreement. He is arguing that left-wingers can use his copyright while right-wingers can't, in both cases without any sort of agreement or explicit license. If he had an explicit license (eg. CC-NOT-THE-RIGHT), then you could potentially go ahead and invalidate the contract (depending on locality) for discriminatory business practices.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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
I agree with that too.
I simply think that if something has been woven into the cultural fabric, using it in obvious satire should be allowed.
Like, it should be completely legal to use a character, even a recent one, to criticize (or praise) a politician by invoking the attributes of said character. Currently that's copyright violation.
Like comparing a caricature of a politician as Tony Soprano should be unambiguously fair use (IMO), but because the commentary is not on the original subject, it is not (the fact that it's political may tip it into fair use though).
A shorter term would allow recycling of good IP, which is a wholly different argument I have many opinions on too...
I just don't think it's cheap to take a something woven into the cultural fabric (even if recently) to comment on something else, especially if it's for commentary and not profit.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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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The relevant part from your link being:
"but always remember that your creations only exist through the good graces of the copyright holder and they can change their mind at any point"
Full fan movies and fan art fall into the same category legally speaking. The copyright holder has a large deal of freedom in choosing who, if anyone, to bring a case against.
Probably not a good idea to send a legal threat to someone who is a trained and bar'd attorney. Furie is going to quickly discover the mistake he made.
Mike Cernovich is one of the parties being sued, and he pointed out that it's a rather big law firm that charges an arm and a leg that is suing him.
Now let's be serious. Do you honestly think a partner at such a firm wouldn't automatically fire someone for pursuing cases like this without a source of funding? This is damn near SLAPP territory (and probably will be in the case of Cernovich, who is based in CA). There's money behind this because big law firms don't just pursue for altruistic reasons Daily Stormer readers who shitpost and post dank memes.
You can repeat it over and over and continue to go with the lie, but Mike Cernovich is not and never has been alt right. If you are going to keep repeating it then we know you are either a liar or an idiot that falls for MSM bullshit since they're the ones who keep repeating it. Guy's wife is even non-white.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the creator voluntarily relinquished control of Pepe to the Internet at large. What of that?
sig: sauer
They can change their minds yes, but you missed the earlier part of the article:
Did you ever hear about the 'artist' who put together a gallery of screenshots of different peoples Instagram photos? He's been in court previously for claims of copyright infringement wrt using someone elses work as the basis for his... and he won.
The law on this (and precedent)... is interesting, and not quite as clear cut as most thing.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Use of pepe by the alt right is parody protected by the first amendment
Nah, user pays. You don't pay to have you work validated as having social worth or making that claim for copyright protection, than you don't get it. There is simply too much content out there to bother protecting at enormous tax payer expense, especially when the content industry is renowned for cheating on taxes to the nth degree. Don't pay for copyright and prove worth, than you don't get it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I know I often get frustrated looking for things because blocked videos.
I imagine it's harder to block altered content on a site like reddit though.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Promissory estoppel requires that the person making the promise could or should have reasonably forseen the action based on the promise. Just because you have a liberal fanfic policy doesn't mean that you have promised that all possible uses (e.g. politics that you find abhorrent) are allowed.
I'm sure estoppel will be asserted as a defense (it's on much stronger ground than any fair use defense) but it will likely only have the effect of limiting punitive damages.
It's definitely not clear cut, but Prince has at least a good legal argument, that his art comments on the original work. The Cariou case hinged on the fact that Prince never straight-up said he was commenting on the original photos, but the appeals court made it clear that any reasonable art-lover would know that he was.
Now fast forward to the Instagram photos. Remember, he's been through this before, and has found that appropriation art can be fair use if it comments on the original. In the case of the Instagram photos, the "commenting on the original" was literal. His artwork literally made a comment on social media.
Don't you think that's just a little bit clever?
Oh, the guy is a grade A dickhead, don't get me wrong. But the ingenuity is undeniable.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Winning a lawsuit is time consuming though, and potentially expensive (especially if you lose).
Most people who post these memes don't have enough of a vested interest to fight this.
You can choose to not enforce or go after every breach of the law.
So he can target right wing group because he can.
The law doesn’t accept look see the other guy is doing it, as much as your parents don’t.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That said, I can understand why the creator is upset. Bill Watterson was pretty pissed off about "peeing Calvin", but I don't know offhand how his lawsuits turned out. In his case, people were selling counterfeit merchandise, so there's a financial aspect not present with Pepe.
Although it hasn't been to the Supreme Court yet, some lesser courts have forbidden the use of copyright law to forbid use by a disfavored faction. The reasoning is that copyright is in the context of earning money for the holder, and stopping that does the opposite.
Now theze cases were music being played at potical events, and music has ways to pay for its use in the matter of course, independent of who uses it. There is no such thing for Pepe here. Also, use by right wing could devalue the value, but on the gripping hand, if he isn't selling right to use it, no money is lost.
But copyright is not a full property right, just one in the context of creating a trur monopoly to earn the owner money.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That still implies the existence of a license and agreement. He is arguing that left-wingers can use his copyright while right-wingers can't, in both cases without any sort of agreement or explicit license. If he had an explicit license (eg. CC-NOT-THE-RIGHT), then you could potentially go ahead and invalidate the contract (depending on locality) for discriminatory business practices.
Nope. It's his IP, he can do with it as he pleases, including letting some use it and other not. There is no legal requirement for a license and he is free to selectively enforce his IP rights as he sees fit.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
There is no leadership in the "alt-right" anymore than there is leadership in the ANTIFA movement. On purpose. They are mirror images of each other, both being Fascist in nature.
And by Fascist in nature, I mean in the "We don't like you, we are going to beat you up and shut you down" nature.The only difference is, there are more people who support the ANTIFA crybabies (those who need their "service animal" to comfort themselves when they get arrested for rioting).
As for Pepe the Frog, and the Alt-Right, thanks to the ANTIFA movement, I know way more than I wish I did. Kind of a corollary to the Streisand Effect.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There is no difference in satire & parody. And anyone can use homemade fair lasting clips cut from movies if you block out or switch out the sound/text or other fair use. for example make a review or just bash the movie to your hearts content. jesus are slashdot full of retarded bots?
Mommy! Mommy! The people I'm bullying are hitting back and it's not FAIIIIIIIIIIR! MAKE THEM STOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!!!1!
You're not getting anything you haven't brought on yourselves.
Ooh, hit a nerve, did I? Couldn't even get all the words out? Self-defense against genocidal maniacs get you scared for some reason?
I'm surprised fair use is even being argued here. 20 years ago we wouldn't have argued over fair use. There's far right, far left, and then there was Slashdot, YRO informing the greater /. public at large about how laws were being created to change the legality of things we loved the most, hacking, figuring out how stuff worked.
When Bill Clinton brought forth the DMCA ALL of us banded together for the fight. We picked it apart, tried telling all of our family and friends (whom most of the time just stared back at us slackjawed with expressionless faces) go contact your senator! Write a letter! We lost that one, but those early days of slash are what formed my opinions for a long time to come. Open source wasn't just a license, it was a license for freedom of expression and derivative works.
Unfortunately I see knucklheads on this site now that have no clue about what this site is anymore. Maybe it's not the same, no more cowboyneal, cmdrtaco. Hell, I even miss Michael and his shitty submissions. Hey, we're still here though. A lot of people here are from long ago, and we mustn't forget that as shitty as the alt-right racists are, this is a derivative work. Yes, we hate how it's being used, but it's a derivative work none the less and that freedom MUST be defended.
To those claiming it isn't fair use, how was this fair use? Because it is derivative. I can't think of anything more vile than seeing my creations entwined in a orgy of bestial romance, but even vile works deserve to be protected under the 4 rules of copyright exception. Pepe falls under derivative, plain and simple.