I'm reading in the comments here (see one by "ZEEK"), that 11th Hour has done official licensed work for Universal in the past (for their Serenity RPG). From reading on, it seems she may have, and if so, this starting to sound a little more muddled than Universal Shoves Fan in Locker; Steals lunch money. How is this not like "Stan Lee self-publishes Captain America inspired novel"?

In the same thread, 11th hour asks people not to speculate about that (but I think it's likely pertinent, so I am not taking out my mention above) and then says:

The initial notice that Cafe Press sent me was a C&D order, to which I responded to immediately. The "Demand" notice, which prompted this thread, came after the C&D, and also after I had already overhauled my shop in response to the C&D.

What some people do not realize, is that the main issue with my shop was that there were references to the Serenity movie in the product descriptions. This is the part which surprised me. One can feature a design that does not infringe on a copyright... however, if the description refers to the TV show or movie, then it's a violation of intellectual property.

Every design in my shop is/was original, but there were two source designs which allegedly fell into the grey area. I removed those designs. All the rest were absolutely fine, and those are the designs which are still there now. There are designs which incorporate Chinese characters in a creative way. Some of the designs feature the characters for the word "serenity", but there are no references to the movie of that name. And that is perfectly legal.

It was the references and "marketing" of the shop that was the main issue folks. Lesson learned: As to Cafe Press shops, it can be the descriptions, not the images, that will bring the law down on you. So don't refer to the "Serenity" movie.

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References made above are - to my knowledge - correct. She got a C&D, removed what she thought were the items at issue, and then effectively got the invoice ('you must agree to pay us $8500' etc).

If I had got the C&D, I would have removed all the items personally, because I don't want to get steam rolled by Universal. That said, if she isn't infringing on Universal's property now, does she have a legal right to disbute the matter? Yes. Does she have the money to do it? No.

By links all over the shop, I mean on Browncoat Invoice, certain words are keywords which have related information associated with them.

Personally, I think what happened with SERENITY is absolutely not a surprise, and I have little sympathy for people selling - for example - the SERENITY logo and who complain about getting C&D notices. That said, they are still pursuing Susan -- she's the only person they're pursing -- and she has a limited chance of getting them to discuss the matter due to the size of the company she's dealing with.

More studios than ever are embracing fans as a cheap way of publicity. And that's great. However, those studios need to think about it a bit more. Not running a forum for people to sell shit whilst a movie is on release is a good start.

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That said, they are still pursuing Susan -- she's the only person they're pursing -- and she has a limited chance of getting them to discuss the matter due to the size of the company she's dealing with.

She needs a lawyer, a good one, one who specializes in copyright cases, because if she did licensed work for them, I can honestly see why they are going after her. It's more complicated than amateur fan art. Don't get me wrong; I still think it's petty, but it's more understandable than targeting a fan whose never done professional work for them.

She should take down her shop entirely until then, even if there's not one thing that could be taken as infringement (and to give her her due, there doesn't seem to be anything now, but still, I'd just take EVERYTHING down, or maybe sell shirts that say something like, "Save Susan," or "11th Hour S.O.S." only pithier [and not a movie or series quote, which is too bad, because there's some fun to be had with "Universal" and "no power in the 'verse"]).

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I'm not overly sure how designing some of the licensed artwork is an issue. She did the two RPG covers for Margaret Wise Ltd, not Universal directly, so personally I wouldn't have thought they know anything 'bout it anyway.

The last cover she did is here; [link]

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Okay, so, the C&D was referring to her using their IP to describe her original, non-infringing art?

Or did that art infringe?

Where's Narrator when I need her?

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Kevin, I can see finding it curious that they found out this person is the same person who did work for Margaret Wise Ltd. But beyond that, can you really not see the larger issue?

ILLUSTRATION: Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder have written BtVS novels. They're published, not by FOX, but by Simon and Schuster (or whatever publishing house). Simon and Schuster pays licensing fees to FOX (like MWLtd would have paid to Universal, for the game) so that Golden and Holder can work with FOX's property.

(Here comes the hypothetical part) Now, let's say that Christopher Golden decides to self publish a (hypothetical) novel on the web. Let's say it's his own story, but it's meant to appeal (hypothetically) to BtVS fans, and that without any permission, he (hypothetically) markets it as being inspired by BtVS.

He's done licensed work with their product, and now he's (hypothetically) self-publishing and selling, for his own profit, stuff he's putting forth as evoking and inspired by BtVS. And it's not even promoting the BtVS DVDs or anything else when doing it. Instead, he's trying to use their property to promote his own for-profit endeavor.

That's what this is like, except Golden both knows better, and could afford a lawyer.

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It seems to me that ethically, Universal is treading muddy water, but that Susan legally tripped the wire.

The best outcome for both parties would be to settle and slap a gag order on the whole stinky business.

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I think so too, Allyson. I think Universal is being a stinker, particularly since they asked the fans to push the movie, and bought into the whole "it's because of our desire to work with Joss Whedon in the future that we're giving him this chance the fans that there's a movie," hype and used it to market the movie.

I think if she took everything down and got a lawyer, she could make this go away. They don't really want to take her to court.

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More studios than ever are embracing fans as a cheap way of publicity. And that's great. However, those studios need to think about it a bit more.

Or maybe the fans do, since they're the ones with the complaints afterwards.

If she's genuinely surprised to discover that yes, it is bad to market original merchandise in a way that makes it sound like it's licensed... Jesus, I don't even know what to say. That's why people pay big money for a merchandise liscense. But it sounds to me like Universal's filthy desire to make a few bucks off of a property they own (and which the fans themselves hoped would be profitable, right?) is interfering with some fan's noble desire to make a few bucks off of a property they don't own. So there must be something I'm still missing, because that'd just be dumb.

I remember in the B5 usenet groups, occasionally someone would pop in to tell JMS about some unauthorized merchandise for sale, so he could sic Warner Bros on 'em. See, because they were fans, some of them thought that it was a bad thing to steal from the people who made the thing they liked. We've come so far since then.

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Or maybe the fans do, since they're the ones with the complaints afterwards.

...The studios are the ones with the legal complaints. They had absolutely no boundaries during the years it went through production to release. That would be, I suspect, a large part of the reason why there's so much bootleg Firefly stuff.

I remember in the B5 usenet groups, occasionally someone would pop in to tell JMS about some unauthorized merchandise for sale, so he could sic Warner Bros on 'em.

Uhm, I remember the opposite - I'm pretty sure JMS pulled the WB lawyers *off* fans several times. WB, at the time, hired a fan to run the official website, and also set up AcmeCity, a site which encouraged the use of pictures and images on fan web sites and explicitly allowed the creation of logos and images without fear of law suits.

Completely different ball game to selling shit, though.

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