Firefly 4: Also, we can kill you with our brains
Discussion of the Mutant Enemy series, Firefly, the ensuing movie Serenity, and other projects in that universe. Like the other show threads, anything broadcast in the US is fine; spoilers are verboten and will be deleted if found.
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.
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.
Completely different ball game to selling shit, though.
Yeah, that's kind of my point. Which is why I used the words "unauthorized merchandise for sale" in my post. Which you quoted, right before you started "Uhm"ing at me about fansites as if that had anything to do with it.
If your memory needs jogging:
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If your memory needs jogging: [link] [link] [link]
...which have nothing to do with shirts, which is the issue at hand.
Completely off the present topic, but for fan-type-folk, Alan Tudyk guest stars on CSI this week. I saw a couple of clips. There's no Wash there.
Forgive my foggy brain. If Susan is in the legal wrong of it, what's the brouhaha?
I'm insanely devoted to fandom, and I like Susan personally a great deal (she is a fantastic artist), but she seems clearly in the wrong.
The marketing bill is amusing, but from an ethical standpoint (my own ethical standpoint) promoting the thing you love comes with no strings attached.
There was an amount of exploitation in Universal's own campaign that fed the beast by giving fans a sense of ownership over the flick. I have an ethics issues with that, and feel that Universal should quietly settle the matter because they look foolish.
which have nothing to do with shirts, which is the issue at hand
I'm confused. Didn't Strega bring that up to counter your refutation of her B5 point?
She did, but it doesn't counter it - whilst it says JMS doesn't like bootleg DVDs, RPGs and such, it doesn't mention shirts. Now, maybe I'm wrong on that score and he doesn't like them. I don't know. I'll mail him.
Allyson, I'm not convinced Susan *is* clearly in the wrong. She debatably was, but as it stands her work isn't referencing Firefly/Serenity, isn't linked to on her site and doesn't contain any copyrighted work. In an ideal world Universal's law firm would quietly drop the issue, or go after one of the 3150 other shirts available: [link]
Allyson, I'm not convinced Susan *is* clearly in the wrong. She debatably was, but as it stands her work isn't referencing Firefly/Serenity, isn't linked to on her site and doesn't contain any copyrighted work.
As it stands now.
What keeps discombobulating me is that some fans seem to be arguing that since she complied with the C&D, she's exonerated from having to pay the licensing fee. I'm not understanding that part of it. Why doesn't she have to pay? What's the reasoning?
