#Intellectual Property

[prokopetz]

It's true that there's no practicable way to frame "style theft" as an intellectual property issue that wouldn't have horrifying consequences for independent artist, but that doesn't mean we can't have sympathy for all the artists who've spent their lives perfecting the craft of drawing moist-lipped, glassy-eyed, vaguely oily-looking anime girls in three-quarter profile and now everybody thinks they're a robot.

[incognitopolls]

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[thecolacorporation]

Last week I received a cease and desist letter, claiming that my F*CK THE LAPD design was in violation of LAPD intellectual property. A few days later my lawyer sent this letter, seen here in its entirety.

[maxwellatoms]

In one of your last answers, you said “series reboots are usually pretty gross and sad”, and I was wondering if you could expand on that? Assuming “reboot” covers any kind of continuation of a currently cancelled or finished show (and maybe that’s the wrong assumption!), from the outside looking in it feels like a pretty mixed bag. On one hand, if I love XYZ Show, it’s cool that I get more stories with these characters and another chance to support XYZ Show and its creators. On the other, it definitely feels like a lot of ideas can only get funding if they’re tied to something already, meaning creatives are having to now tie whatever cool idea they have to some reboot/relaunch/retread, which can feel pretty disheartening if you don’t want to do a reboot/relaunch/retread. Is that a similar feeling from your side of the industry?

Thank you so much for all your answers and insight!

Usually reboots and spin-offs are just cash grabs. It happens a lot in animation. In fact, I would argue that the entire industry is just one big cash grab now. In the 80s, everyone complained that cartoons were just half-hour commercials for toys. And they were right. And we're right back there, but now that you can't legally push toys all day, it's just general "IP". Mugs, posters, more spinoffs, whatever.

I was offered three show running gigs over the pandemic. All reboots that I would consider unwise to pursue because they were "of a different time" and didn't (in my opinion) have anything more to say. Two of them were properties created by notorious sex pests, so there's also that. The animation industry loves to prop up its sex pests.

I turned all of them down, partially because I didn't respect the original creators but also because none of them had anything going for them except just being "more of the same".

I don't think any of those projects survived the intervening years, so in retrospect I maybe should've taken the job. I'd probably feel a bit gross, but at least I'd have floors in my house.

The entertainment industry is in a bad spot. The whole thing. I've had I don't know how many pitch meetings in the last few years, and they all start the same way:

"Hey! Before we start, we just want to let you know that we're not actively producing anything right now. We think maybe soon, but we won't be picking anything up today..."

And then later:

"The little we are doing is IP, so if you have a new take on our IP or a new IP you're connected to that you can bring in, that'd be great."

I always wanted to make original stuff. There came a time when I'd had my fill of Billy & Mandy and wanted to do something else new and original. That never manifested, and I was constantly being offered IP to produce. I turned too many of those down, maybe, before deciding that it was probably better that I run the IPs that mean something to me rather than having some hack do it.

But now those jobs have all gone to celebrities and fallen live-action writers, who are also slowly being eaten by the system. WB was hot for Scooby stuff a few years back, so I pitched some ideas. A few of them were turned down for being "off-brand" in a variety of ways. WB has now made (I think) all of those off-brand shows (or something close) with celebrity show runners.

I was going through a whole Midlife Impostor Syndrome thing recently where I was wondering if maybe I don't just suck. Like, it's weird that for a couple of decades I'd have people calling me trying to get me to run shows, and now nobody will call me back about the possibility of a design job.

Talking to some friends and realizing that they were in a similar situation helped me feel like I wasn't alone. That was nice. Talking to some of the most talented colleagues in my industry made me made me realize that those people weren't getting jobs either. That was unnerving. Talking to complete strangers in other parts of the entertainment industry now has me thinking that the whole house of cards is coming down. That's real concerning, yo.

It's hard not to think it's purposeful, when deranged billionaires own the entirety of our media and want to shape a society where they can't be criticized. We're letting wealthy tech bros firebomb the very heart of our culture, and it's weird that no one is talking about it. Because (for now) we still have that capability.

[impulsivedecisionsat3am]

THE TIME HAS COME

i finally finished the parx blinkies!!

this took me like one and a half weeks? mainly cause i forgot that entertainment existed SORRY

(low quality ones below the cut)

(no i cannot control the fact that geoff’s hair and other stuff are blinking. it’s a computer thing, not something i did on purpose lol)

[lackadaisycats]

Hello, I recently remembered the polish fireworks (or something similar?) that used your art on the product.

Now that Lackadaisy has expanded to a different medium and reached a bigger audience, would it be legally troubling to have random fireworks with your intellectual property on it floating around?

Maybe they stopped using your artwork and the problem has already solved itself, I was just curious.

Oh. Yeah. It was actually a US based company in Texas that was printing my art on fireworks packaging. I contacted them about the copyright infringement years back. They blamed their manufacturer overseas, but said they'd put a stop to it. Still, every July someone reaches out with some photos from a fireworks pop-up tent, having spotted some of my art therein. I suspect it's just old inventory the sellers are still fishing out of a warehouse somewhere, though, because it's always the same art on the packaging.

It would be troubling if it happened anew without proper license, yes, since that's a form of theft and a sort of loss of agency for me as the creator/IP owner to determine how my work is represented. Even if someone made an attempt to license Lackadaisy for such a thing, I'd probably decline. I'm not morally objected to people enjoying fireworks responsibly, and I guess you could say they're thematically on brand, but knowing what my pets and other people's pets go through every year due to the noise...ehh. I don't want traumatizing non-fictional animals to be part of my business model.

[moonmothjpg]

⸸ L I K E A R I T U A L ⸸

[tiredlawyer]

A DMCA take down is illegal when abused like this.

If this stands and isn’t taken to court are we allowing this company to:

* take entire control of Luigi’s likeness

* profit of off Luigi’s likeness

* control the use of his face and likeness

* are they claiming IP on the CCTV footage and images released by the NYPD? Gov owned cameras but they are claiming the right to profit off it?

* the question of ownership after this person redrew the image in her own style, it is a definitive enough step to usually invoke its own protections to the artist.

* and so much many more projections this idea could spiral off into - it’s wild

Them stepping in is insane on all counts but holy shit this is insane if not dealt with.

[otto-wood]

Happy Anniversary, Intellectual Property! April 14, 2023

[salamanderinspace]

The James Somerton thing is one of those rare cases where the amount of force applied by a viral video exposee / public shaming is probably the exact amount that was necessary to stop a bad actor from acting badly. However. The aftermath of public violence is often fear. So I would caution people against taking the "live your life in a way that avoids hbomberguy making videos about you" atmosphere too seriously. Remix is ok. Pastiche is ok. Transformative works are ok. Citing sources in a way that isn't perfectly consistent with MLA and APA standards is generally fine. The problem with a vibes-based crime is that there are always going to be grey areas. Somerton went way past the grey and over the line, but don't let the fact that one person did crimes in the shittiest possible way scare you off of crimes entirely. Push the envelope.

[parxarchive]

the soul and star prints via jawn’s webstore

[prokopetz]

Some people say that in order to be effective, post-apocalyptic fiction needs to strike a balance between having the cause of the apocalypse reflect contemporary anxieties, and framing that cause in a way that's at least somewhat plausible. These people are cowards. Write that story where the extinction of the human species was caused by overzealous copyright enforcement. You know you want to.

[incognitopolls]

"Other purposes" such as training generative AI, printing on t-shirts, etc.

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[ego-sandwich]

I've been obsessing over this sign ever since the Guilt mv

[thoughtportal]

patenting does not equal invention. patenting is the colonization of intellectual property. invention requires the collective efforts of a diverse group of people over time.

[excelsiorblue]

The Other Side, Dean Cornell // Sneaking Out of Heaven, Waterparks