#disney... don't copyright me

[scribeofmorpheus]

once again, thinking of cassandra in my time of need

[esperderek]

I have to have a chuckle at the Screenrant article posted recently about the Galactic Starcruiser, which totally wasn't about Jenny Nicholson's video honest.

In part, because early in Nicholson's video, she talks about how unnatural it is to have your influencers speak in adcopy and copyright rather than the more colloquial nicknames, and how it makes the people speaking about the product seem very insincere and, well, paid off. Because normal humans don't speak that way, but advertising does.

What's the first two lines in this article?

"As a life-long fan of Star Wars, there was nothing quite as exciting as finding out that I would be working on the immersive Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience. Located at the Walt Disney World Resort, the Galactic Starcruiser opened on March 1, 2022, and welcomed passengers to board a two-day, two-night cruise through the stars, during which they could live out their own Star Wars adventure."

No one talks like this naturally. No one writes like this naturally.

This is supposed to be your passioned defense of the place you worked at, the people you worked with, and the memories you made along the way. C'mon! Why don't you open with a story, perhaps an anecdote about the best moment you had working there, or the devastation of the day you lost your dream job. We need to feel your humanity! But there's nothing of that here, to the point where you can just hear the TM behind Galactic Starcruiser.

The first half of this article continues in this vein, reading like a press release Disney marketing put out, just with past tense rather than present or future tense:

"Essentially, the Starcruiser experience was a 48-hour movie that passengers were actually a part of. It was all facilitated through the "datapad," which was accessed through the Play Disney Parks app."

"To facilitate the overarching immersive experience and storytelling, the Starcruiser built a jam-packed itinerary for each and every guest that would consist of a variety of important activities: the captain's toast at muster, a bridge training exercise, lightsaber training, and more. These types of events were essential to understanding what was happening, as they would give passengers the chance to interact with characters and build their story. This is why the Starcruiser could never be just a hotel; every part of it was designed for enthusiastic interaction."

Like, c'mon. I used to work in television. I've seen and used adcopy in my former job, and this is some serious adcopy. It honestly wouldn't shock me if the author dredged up some old adcopy they had lying around about the topic and just transferred it over, changing the tense. You're not here to sell us this product, because there is no product to sell. It's gone, it's been gone for a year, you don't have to sell us on IT. Speak about your experiences.

The next part is yet another topic that Jenny Nicholson pointed out, the bad faith excuses that influencers and advertisers made for the extreme price point:

"What many people don't know, however, is that the price included much more than just a room. The passengers' food, park tickets, recreation activities on board, non-alcoholic drinks, and more were all included - with merchandise being one of the few additional costs on board."

Which is absolute bad faith reasoning, especially when there are plenty of other vacation options that are ALSO all-inclusive, but are MUCH cheaper and offer MORE amenities than the Galactic Starcruiser did! Including Disney Cruises, owned by the same company! Seriously, you can go on a halfway decent sounding cruise or all-inclusive resort somewhere warm for, like, a week or two and spend far less than GSC cost.

Then the last part is essentially: "All the workers liked working there and the bad reviews afterwards make the workers who worked on it feel sad. :("

Which, like, companies have been hiding behind that reasoning for ages. Curiously, the author never offers....any reasons or stories. WHY did working on it impact you so much? What set it apart, what were the people like, what did you like about working there, why are you so passionate about it even a year later? There's nothing, just a generic sort of "We worked hard." and "We're sad it's gone." Why? How? What happened? The video you're obviously writing this in response to is filled with personal anecdotes and stories, it's the backbone of the video! Again, you need to give us something to show your humanity!

Especially when you consider that Nicholson repeatedly points out that the only highlight about her experience, the only thing that kept the damn thing going was the workers.

She had nothing but praise for them, and nothing but contempt for the higher ups who wasted and abused that enthusiasm, to the point where one of her last points was "Hey, Disney is basically exploiting labor."

Much like Jenny, I'm also not condemning anyone who had a good time working there. Good! If you were having a good time at work, that's great. If you have good memories about the people, awesome. But I'll note two things:

a) That doesn't meant you weren't being exploited, and

b) That doesn't mean you have to be a useful idiot for the corporation you worked for afterwards.

I'm not conspiracy brained enough to go "Oh, Disney TOTALLY forced this article into being.", because a cursory examination of the author's prior works and such suggests a lifelong passion for Star Wars, she did work at the hotel, and she's a Star Wars Editor (whatever THAT means in this day and age) for Screen Rant. Apparently one of the heads of Screen Rant says that Disney had no hand in it either.

Though, I can see why people would think that way. It READS like a press release, not something a normal human being would write about an experience they feel passionate about.

[monzabee]

mr. big (social media au) - cs55

masterlist ||

Summary: The one where there he was, wearing armani on a sunday, your boyfriend, Carlos.

Pairing: carlos sainz x romance writer!reader (model used: random people i found on pinterest)

Warnings: none other than some cursing? carlos being an old money dream as always

Request: "For a smau, would love to see romance writer!reader with Carlos (he is just Disney prince vibes) where fans aren’t quite sure how they got together but the influence him on her work is greatly appreciated" by my lovely @percervall

Author note: OKAY JUST REALISED I AM A CARRIE AND BIG APOLOGIST, WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT (i might be freaking out about them, but i will always be a charlotte girl)!!! (might honestly turn it into a series because who doesn't love a satc x old money crossover???)

Please also note that all of my works are protected under copyright, and not available for reposting on other platforms.

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55, yourbestfriend, readersdigest and 438,927 others.

yourusername: busy, busy, busy bee.

user: thank you mother for feeding us with another hot billionaire novel

yourusername: you are more than welcome

user: how is she not only one of the best romance authors, but also a fashion icon??

user: can't wait to read what carlos inspired this time!!

carlossainz55: you are not wearing you glasses again, cariño

yourusername: why don't you come put them on yourself??

user: oh, they are so cute it's sickening

user: GIVE US THE MANUSCRIPT AND END OUR SUFFERING

view all 2,387 comments.

user: how did they get together again??

user: i think he ran into her at one of her book signings in madrid?

user: i thought it was when she went to the paddock for some good old r&d?

user: i heard somewhere that a friend set them up

yourusername posted a new story!

carlossainz55 posted a story!

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55, landonorris, goodreads and 682,928 others.

yourusername: life lately & "between love and loathing" out june 23rd.

user: we love the romantic getaway, and a new book!!

user: we're being fed in more ways than one, and i am not complaining at all!!

user: oh shit, we're about to read the best romance novel of all time

view all 13,726 comments.

carlossainz55: i'm so proud of you, you have no idea

yourusername: way to make me cry

yourusername: i love you though

carlossainz55: te quiero más

user: I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY ARE THE OLD MONEY COUPLE WE NEEDED ALL ALONG AND WE DON'T KNOW HOW THEY STARTED DATING

user: it will remain forever a mystery

user: but at least we have content to keep us going through these hard times

carlossainz55

Liked by yourusername, scuderiaferrari, charles_leclerc and 977,520 others.

carlossainz55: one of us made the pancakes, and one of us stood there looking pretty.

yourusername: hey, it was your turn to make breakfast

carlossainz55: and i loved every second of it

yourusername: even doing the dishes?

carlossainz55: especially doing the dishes

user: this is by far the most romance book thing this man has done

user: i still don't understand how they started dating, but good for them i guess

view all 35,726 comments.

landonorris: hey, i didn't get any pancakes, did you? @charles_leclerc

charles_leclerc: didn't even know we were having pancakes, where are our pancakes @carlossainz55

landonorris: and cooking in a towel?? how is that sanitary??

charles_leclerc: he's breaking at least a dozen health codes

carlossainz55: i hate you both

yourusername: you are all a pr nightmare

scuderiaferrari: i agree

user: damn he got lucky

yourusername

Liked by f1wagss, carlossainz55, sarahjessicaparker and 736,928 others.

yourusername: and there he was, wearing armani on a sunday, carlos sainz.

user: SHUT UP!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

user: what kind of an iconic cunt slay is this

user: and just like that... they became the coolest couple on the internet

user: NEW NOVEL IDEA, SEX AND THE CITY RETELL WITH CARLOS

user: girl wtf

yourusername: no let her cook

yourusername: you might be onto something here

user: don't know if i want to be her or be carlos

view all 44,736 comments.

user: everybody say thank you mom for blessing us

carlossainz55: amor

yourusername: amor x2

user: oh she's working overtime god bless you

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Often when I post an AI-neutral or AI-positive take on an anti-AI post I get blocked, so I wanted to make my own post to share my thoughts on "Nightshade", the new adversarial data poisoning attack that the Glaze people have come out with.

I've read the paper and here are my takeaways:

Firstly, this is not necessarily or primarily a tool for artists to "coat" their images like Glaze; in fact, Nightshade works best when applied to sort of carefully selected "archetypal" images, ideally ones that were already generated using generative AI using a prompt for the generic concept to be attacked (which is what the authors did in their paper). Also, the image has to be explicitly paired with a specific text caption optimized to have the most impact, which would make it pretty annoying for individual artists to deploy.

While the intent of Nightshade is to have maximum impact with minimal data poisoning, in order to attack a large model there would have to be many thousands of samples in the training data. Obviously if you have a webpage that you created specifically to host a massive gallery poisoned images, that can be fairly easily blacklisted, so you'd have to have a lot of patience and resources in order to hide these enough so they proliferate into the training datasets of major models.

The main use case for this as suggested by the authors is to protect specific copyrights. The example they use is that of Disney specifically releasing a lot of poisoned images of Mickey Mouse to prevent people generating art of him. As a large company like Disney would be more likely to have the resources to seed Nightshade images at scale, this sounds like the most plausible large scale use case for me, even if web artists could crowdsource some sort of similar generic campaign.

Either way, the optimal use case of "large organization repeatedly using generative AI models to create images, then running through another resource heavy AI model to corrupt them, then hiding them on the open web, to protect specific concepts and copyrights" doesn't sound like the big win for freedom of expression that people are going to pretend it is. This is the case for a lot of discussion around AI and I wish people would stop flagwaving for corporate copyright protections, but whatever.

The panic about AI resource use in terms of power/water is mostly bunk (AI training is done once per large model, and in terms of industrial production processes, using a single airliner flight's worth of carbon output for an industrial model that can then be used indefinitely to do useful work seems like a small fry in comparison to all the other nonsense that humanity wastes power on). However, given that deploying this at scale would be a huge compute sink, it's ironic to see anti-AI activists for that is a talking point hyping this up so much.

In terms of actual attack effectiveness; like Glaze, this once again relies on analysis of the feature space of current public models such as Stable Diffusion. This means that effectiveness is reduced on other models with differing architectures and training sets. However, also like Glaze, it looks like the overall "world feature space" that generative models fit to is generalisable enough that this attack will work across models.

That means that if this does get deployed at scale, it could definitely fuck with a lot of current systems. That said, once again, it'd likely have a bigger effect on indie and open source generation projects than the massive corporate monoliths who are probably working to secure proprietary data sets, like I believe Adobe Firefly did. I don't like how these attacks concentrate the power up.

The generalisation of the attack doesn't mean that this can't be defended against, but it does mean that you'd likely need to invest in bespoke measures; e.g. specifically training a detector on a large dataset of Nightshade poison in order to filter them out, spending more time and labour curating your input dataset, or designing radically different architectures that don't produce a comparably similar virtual feature space. I.e. the effect of this being used at scale wouldn't eliminate "AI art", but it could potentially cause a headache for people all around and limit accessibility for hobbyists (although presumably curated datasets would trickle down eventually).

All in all a bit of a dick move that will make things harder for people in general, but I suppose that's the point, and what people who want to deploy this at scale are aiming for. I suppose with public data scraping that sort of thing is fair game I guess.

Additionally, since making my first reply I've had a look at their website:

Used responsibly, Nightshade can help deter model trainers who disregard copyrights, opt-out lists, and do-not-scrape/robots.txt directives. It does not rely on the kindness of model trainers, but instead associates a small incremental price on each piece of data scraped and trained without authorization. Nightshade's goal is not to break models, but to increase the cost of training on unlicensed data, such that licensing images from their creators becomes a viable alternative.

Once again we see that the intended impact of Nightshade is not to eliminate generative AI but to make it infeasible for models to be created and trained by without a corporate money-bag to pay licensing fees for guaranteed clean data. I generally feel that this focuses power upwards and is overall a bad move. If anything, this sort of model, where only large corporations can create and control AI tools, will do nothing to help counter the economic displacement without worker protection that is the real issue with AI systems deployment, but will exacerbate the problem of the benefits of those systems being more constrained to said large corporations.

Kinda sucks how that gets pushed through by lying to small artists about the importance of copyright law for their own small-scale works (ignoring the fact that processing derived metadata from web images is pretty damn clearly a fair use application).

[sorsaky]

Mae x Noa → Evermore |Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes| MV

You are stronger and smarter than you think

Check out my new edit! This time, it features Noa and Mae from "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes." I thought the song "Evermore" fit perfectly for a ship edit, so I had to make this for all my fellow Nomae shippers out there! 💖 I hope you enjoy it!

Just to clarify, I don't support bestiality or zoophilia in real life. This edit is purely for fun and creative expression, celebrating the fantasy world these characters belong to. Shipping fictional characters is a common and enjoyable part of fandoms, and if it's acceptable for movies like "Beauty and the Beast," then it's also fine for Noa x Mae!

Program: Sony Vegas Pro 17 Song: "Evermore" from Disneys Beauty and the Beast - Cover by Kenny Duerlund https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp5TnZ0jHtg Time Taken: 3 days Media: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdr5oedn7q8

You can contact me here:

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorsaky/

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

[therobotmonster]

Remember when I told you Disney wasn't going to "save you" from AI?

Megacorps like Disney have mountains of exclusive data they "own" that they can use to create their own internal, proprietary, AI systems. They have every sketch, development photo, unused concept art piece, cut scene, note, doodle, rotoscope/animation reference footage, every storyboard, merch design document, you name it.

And that's on top of every single frame of every movie and TV show. Every panel of every comic.

That's why Disney supports the efforts to clamp down on AI for copyright reasons, because they own all the copyrights. They want that power in their hands. They do not want you to be able to use a cheap or free utility to compete with them. Along the way, they'll burn the entire concept of fair use to the ground and snatch the right to copyright styles. Adobe has confessed this intention, straight to congress.

When the lawyers come, you won't be accused of stealing from say, artist Stephen Silver. You'll be accused of stealing the style of Disney's Kim Possible(TM).

But don't listen to me. Listen to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: The Sun

Aleister Crowley: and now as we approach the winter solstice Crowley: great god apollo, great master brain thinker guy thoth Crowley: all the little thelematic sprites and boggles Crowley: now is the time that the great beast says Crowley: DO AS THOU WILT!! Crowley: I'M THE GREAT BEAST!!!

Crowley: now that its the winter solstice Crowley: its time to pay tribute to the spirits of the season Victor Neuburg: how're we gonna do that boss? Crowley: we're gonna eat this big block of hashish and fuck Crowley: love to keep the holiday traditions alive

Crowley: great sun god ra, hear our prayers and Lauren M Davis: [appearing in a flash] who dares call upon my fiery majesty? Davis: whom the egyptians named ra, the greeks named apollo, the aztecs named Huitzilopochtli? Davis: as the duly noted owner of the sun, that is infringing on my intellectual property Crowley: your...? Crowley: oh man i am too high for this right now

Lauren M Davis: since the dawn of time, mankind has yearned to destroy the sun Davis: i do the next best thing Davis: i own it! Davis: as surely as disney owns day of the dead Davis: as surely as family guy owns double dribble Davis: as surely as snapesnogger owns nagas Davis: i will copyright the sun!

Davis: Gaze upon the fiery majesty of the sun ©!!! Davis: NO on second thought, don't! Davis: no one look at me! Davis: you! plants! Davis: you dare to photosynesize with my holy rays?? Davis: I hope you got a good lawyer

Crowley: you can't own the sun Crowley: the sun is Crowley: Crowley: its Crowley: its you know Crowley: it's Victor Neuburg: its a star isn't it? Crowley: SHUT UP NERDBURG I KNOW WHAT THE SUN IS Crowley: I WAS JUST Crowley: I WAS JUST PAUSING FOR EFFECT OR SOMETHING Crowley: I DON'T EVEN LIKE YOU AT ALL, JUST SHUT UP!

[masterhallmark]

Credit for discovery: @misscloudiedays

So a lot of people are confused as to how Epic Mickey Rebrushed meaning Disney probably isn't getting profits works, so let me explain real quick:

What's the Sitch?

If you go to the Steam Page, Disney is not publishing EM Rebrushed themselves like they did with the original EM games, another company ,THQ Nordic, whom Disney does not own is.

This likely means they sold the licensing rights to that company rather than accepting profit cuts.

How this works

Copyright holders often do this if they think the product would make less profits than what they sold the licensing rights for. For example, this happened with the author of the Witcher books, who thought the games would flop and sold the licensing rights instead of accepting a percentage of the profits. He later acted like the victim when the games actually ended up being wildly successful. This also happened to the writer of the American Pokemon Theme Song, who didn't know the Pokemon franchise was going to go on for decades and remain popular, though he was more chill about it and worked something out.

Basically, Disney likely had so little faith in the game, they chose to sell instead of accept profits, which would mean whether you buy or pirate the game wouldn't affect them, since they would have already gotten the agreed upon amount, and they'd probably piss themselves if the profits Purple Lamp gets is more than what they sold it for.

Would they actually do that?

For anyone who questions if Disney would really be dumb enough to do this, REMEMBER THIS IS THE COMPANY WHO:

SHUT DOWN AND ENTIRE VIDEO GAME DEVELOPMENT COMPANY JUST BECAUSE EPIC MICKEY 2 DIDN'T MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS EPIC MICKEY 1

THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULD ABANDON CONSOLE GAMING IN FAVOR OF MOBILE GAMING

THOUGHT KINGDOM HEARTS COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAVE SEQUELS

HAD A CEO WHO THOUGHT ADULTS DON'T ENJOY CARTOONS

AND THE MOST RECENT BLUNDER OF ALL, THOUGHT DISNEY FANS WOULD PREFER A LUMA KNOCKOFF OVER STARBOY IN WISH, BECAUSE THEY WANTED A MARKETABLE PLUSHIE

Yeah, I think they're that dumb.

Bottom Line

For those participating in the Disney boycott, it is probably safe to get the game, and will not be a breach of your boycott. Buying the game would instead show support to those who actually care about the game while not benefitting the company that abandoned it.

That being said, this is not guaranteed to be completely correct. Keep an eye on things as it develops, and make your own decisions on the matter.

[ot3]

Hey! The link to your FAQ wasn't working for me so I don't know if this question has been asked before. I really appreciate your perspectives on AI art. Do you happen to have any resources that you read/listened to on intellectual property rights and the issues with it? I just don't really know where to start with it.

[heres where i cut out a big paragraph of me, once again, bitching about how blog pages don't work on the tumblr app and i think that's fucking stupid]

anyway i dont have any generalized sources on the subject but the tl;dr of it is: intellectual property rights exclusively benefit people who have the resources to pursue sustained litigation. 99% of the time, what IP law is being used for is to reinforce corporate ownership of work that was done by their employees.

the whole disco elysium debacle is a great case study.

The shareholders of ZA/UM accused the trio of, among other things, intending to steal intellectual property (IP) from the company — a curious accusation, considering that the world of the game is based off of a novel written by Kurvitz himself. The case of Disco Elysium illustrates the shortcomings of IP rights as protection for artists. Consequently, it contains a lot of lessons for the labor movement when it comes to the arts, and serves as a reminder that creative workers are, at the end of the day, workers. But this is not just an academic exercise. It’s a human story about the intimate consequences of capitalist exploitation. “I got my soul ripped out of me,” Kurvitz told me over Zoom in April of 2023. “I got my skull cracked open and my brain lifted out of it by a fifty-five-year-old financial criminal.”

another example: alex norris of webcomic name, which you will probably recognize when you see it, has been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years to try and keep up with the protracted legal battle over maintaining ownership of his own work.

I have been fighting this case since 2019. It arose out of an agreement to make a boardgame based on my webcomic in 2017 but the publishing company has used this as an opportunity to take all of my intellectual property, and has even claimed ownership of Webcomic Name as a whole. I can't go into more detail here, but the details of the case are publicly available to read online.

Then, in a 2024 update:

I have essentially won the main case based on the decisions made last summer. The Judge has clearly stated that I own my comics, and that the other party has infringed on my copyright. It is not over yet, as there are still a few things that need to happen. Hopefully things will all be wrapped up this year. After 6 years of legal battling, I can’t wait to be free of all of this. Hopefully, this second case will backfire, and they will be sanctioned for filing it. But to get to that point requires a frustratingly large amount of work, time and money.

An interesting thing about both of these two specific instances is that they involve creators who had entire bodies of work produced around the specific IPs that were stolen from them before they even began partnering with corporate entities to produce works. which is insane! you can spend years writing novels, drawing comics, and if a company comes in with enough lawyers they can own those ideas.

this is pretty distinctly different to me than instances of work you do while being employed by a corporate entity being owned by that corporate entity, because at least you know what you're getting into there to some degree, but i still think that's bad too. consider stuff like the owl house and gravity falls, two disney shows made by people who very very clearly did not like working for disney. disney owns their ideas, their characters, their worlds, because that's the price you pay for having an animated show produced.

essentially it's very very clear upon even the slightest examination that intellectual property in no way exists to codify who the creator responsible for specific creative concepts or works is. it exists to turn nebulous things like 'ideas' into market commodities, and to funnel the profits made by the labor of individual artists and writers into corporate bank accounts.

the only person who has ever really benefited from IP law as an individual trying to lay claim to their own work is ken penders, who notoriously won his suit to have ownership of characters and storylines he created. heartbreaking: Worst Person You Know Gets An Unequivocally Deserved Legal W.

The comics continued under Flynn’s direction as if nothing happened, but things started looking grim in late 2012, when Archie suddenly fired its entire legal team. The company had been unable to produce Penders’ work-for-hire contract, which would have given control of his creations to Sega. Penders claimed the contract had never existed. A heavily circulated Tumblr post outlining the case (which has been corroborated as a reliable source by Penders) explains that while Archie did provide a photocopy of a contract allegedly signed by Penders in 1996, Penders claimed that the document was a forgery. That it was neither an original copy nor a contract from the beginning of the writer’s tenure at Archie meant that its validity was questionable. Making things worse, Archie couldn’t produce an original copy of any previous contributor’s contract, meaning that any writer or artist who had worked on the Archie Sonic line could potentially follow in Penders’s footsteps and reclaim their work. “So are you saying prior counsel blew it?” the presiding judge asked Archie counsel Joshua Paul in a May 2013 court session. His reply was unequivocal: “Absolutely, your Honor.”

So yeah. Owning the work you do as an artist is only something that happens when the people trying to profit off of it show unprecedented and staggering level of incompetence in their legal teams.

Then, alongside not owning the concepts and ideas you produce while working with corporate entities, there's the issue of NDA regarding specific pieces you've produced. This causes a LOT of trouble for freelance illustrators/character designers/concept artists, etc. Looking for work is very hard when the past three years of pieces you've drawn can't be added to your portfolio. Some people have password protected pages on their portfolios that they use for NDA work, but I believe the right to do this varies depending on your contract. I'm not 100% sure. In cases where the project you worked on eventually comes out, that's one thing, but there will be instances where the entire project gets canned after all the work is done, but is still under NDA so essentially all of your work has been taken from you, crumpled up into a ball by a studio executive, thrown in the trash can, and legally you are not allowed to go pick it out of the bin and try and flatten it out again.

This has all been pretty art-focused because that's the kind of circles I run in and where a lot of my interests lie but the truth is none of this is even remotely close to as evil IP law gets. I've saved the most egregious for last: The Lakota Language Consortium

The Lakota Language Consortium had promised to preserve the tribe’s native language and had spent years gathering recordings of elders, including Taken Alive’s grandmother, to create a new, standardized Lakota dictionary and textbooks.  But when Taken Alive, 35, asked for copies, he was shocked to learn that the consortium, run by a white man, had copyrighted the language materials, which were based on generations of Lakota tradition. The traditional knowledge gathered from the tribe was now being sold back to it in the form of textbooks.

When you're in defense of IP law, this is what you're siding with. This is the rational endpoint of IP and it is neither a fluke nor an example of the concept being twisted against its original design. Art, culture, language, it belongs to whoever is most capable of turning it into a product. The economic incentives of producing and distributing arts and culture demand this is how things be.

Meya says his work is a vital tool in preserving the Lakota language, which did not previously have a standardized written form. He estimated that there are fewer than 1,500 fluent Lakota speakers left and that over the last decade and a half, the organization has helped add 50 to 100 more. “Just because money is involved in it does not inherently make it an evil thing,” Meya said in a recent interview with NBC News. Most of the products his organizations make are free, he said, but the cost of printing textbooks has to come from somewhere. “That tends to be sometimes part of the rhetoric, ‘Oh, there’s money involved. It must be, you know, part of the overall colonization effort.’ Well, you know, that’s just not realistic.”

Artists looking to force their way into the class of people who gets protected by these laws are not looking out for their community. They are not protecting anything but their own perceived financial interests. Intellectual property will never, ever benefit the most marginalized members of creative communities and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is huffing some serious copium.

Frankly, I don't believe anyone can or should 'own' things like Ideas or Specific Aesthetic Flairs. But even if you do believe in that, IP law isn't the framework for handling it.

[meruz]

hi!! im sure ppl have asked this b4, but i scoured your asks tag for an hour or so looking to see if you answered anything abt it and couldnt find anything, so i was just wondering if youve made any posts on your process for making n selling merch b4? and how you know which franchises you can make merch for w/o getting into trouble w copyright n trademark stuff (hopefully that makes sense, im not sure,,,)

hi! got a bunch of asks abt merch stuff lately im gonna put it under a cut.

preface: i don't know if i'm the best person to ask about all this stuff because I'm doing merch on a strictly hobby basis LOL. I have a fulltime job which takes care of the bulk of my finances, I don't really make big quantities of anything and my main priority at cons is to just make enough money to see my friends in different cities at minimal expense. i pretty much always get a refund when i file my con taxes because my profit after all the deductions is like fucking..nothing.. lmao. So if you ultimately lose money following my advice don't blame me. OK NOW lets get into it

my process for making merch: when I have an event scheduled that I want to make merch for I start by brainstorming a bunch of stuff I wanna make. for mgscon this is what I wrote down in my sketchbook lol

i made a legend to denote which ones are actually just reprints. it gets easier to plan out merch when you already have merch. out of the new merch ideas here i actually only made like 4 of them. and out of the reprints i only reprinted like three. i also came up with like 4-5 other merch ideas after writing out this list that i actually did do. LMAOO UM. my point here is that nothing rly goes as planned.

when i get a merch idea i start with thumbnails what i want it to look like (sometimes this is based off merch ive seen before so its very realized and sometimes its really vague bc im kind of pulling it out of my ass)

then BEFORE i go into making the final art I research how I'm going to make the merch. whether its printing/constructing it myself or looking for a manufacturer. There's a lot of different places that you can get custom merch made, i used to go shopping around at local printing shops but nowadays it's really common to do it all online. For both these jet tags and the washi tape I did some of my own research into manufacturers and also asked friends for their contacts/referrals/recommendations etc. most manufacturers either have their specs/template publicly available or will give them to you when you ask. so once I've locked into a manu and gotten the specs I'll start designing the final art.

then it's sending it off and waiting! easier said than done.

i will say this process is a lot lengthier for some types of merch than others LOL. for prints... I've been doing prints for like a million years and I plan out almost none of it. I draw everything at print resolution so a week before I have a con scheduled I'll simply go through all the files I've accumulated since my last con, squeeze whatever drawings I want into standard print sizes lol (ie. 8.5x11, 11x17, 4x6 etc), and print them at a local shop. takes like a couple hours max.

how you know which franchises you can make merch for w/o getting into trouble w copyright n trademark stuff?

I mean. honestly I don't know. selling fanart is the kind of thing that IP holders kind of just let slide as long as they don't think they're losing a substantial amt of money on it. there ARE a couple franchises people avoid because they've been known to send IP lawyers after fanartists... disney is the big one and they're known for being pretty petty abt it... that's why you don't really see people selling fanart of the disney princesses at cons. ive heard pokemon will also crack down if your project seems to be making a lot of money lol, part of why i think a lot of pokemon fanzines operate on a charity basis. I do feel like the pokemon company has bigger fish to fry than someones artist alley table though so i wouldn't sweat it too much.

it's also generally considered impolite/bad taste to sell fanart of small franchises. webcomics and indie games especially if they only have like 1-2 devs who rely on the income that game makes.

I'm not a lawyer so you shouldn't consider this legal advice BUT I will say... I don't think you should let IP law stop you from selling fanart lol. especially if it's low quantities/not mass produced and you're not making crazy amts of money I think you kind of have a leg to stand on. Besides, most cases it seems like the worst you'll get is a cease and desist.

you Will notice that when people start turning their artist alley endeavors into a real business they'll generally ease up on selling fanart (the case most prominent in my mind is omocat lol). but i love fanart and thats why i will never make money and thats a promise [snake saluting gif]

SORRY IDK IF ANY OF THIS WAS HELPFUL. I've been doing merch and cons for a long time (10+ years lmao, you can find record of this on this very blog) and i think im kind of old fashioned about it. i recognize the artist alley/merch scene is a lot more demanding now than it used to be but start small at local low-risk events, online sales etc and work your way up and remember to have fun and itll be ok i believe this wholeheartedly.

its literally just layers of acrylic like any other dinky charm. I'm sure pretty much any manu that does acrylic charms could do it but this specific charm/template i did order through a group order server. they're pretty well known! heres a link to their twitter

@wheatormeat sorry for taking a full month to answer this... anyways. This is tricky because I've actually been changing up my sticker manu everytime LOL IDK if I've found one I actually love.

these ones i ordered thru an alibaba manu because I was jumping on a friend's group order to save on shipping. it was ok. they arrived a liiiitle late and printed a lil dark but i think thats kind of my fault LOL I use dark colors i always need to lighten things before i get them printed and i think i just didnt lighten these enough. otherwise i rly love the quality!

i realized i never posted these online and also this is not a good picture (the lighting in my living room sucks rn) but i printed these tmnt stickers thru stickerninja they feel really solid but they needed kind of a lot of space for the cutline. but their customer service was very nice and helpful!

these ones i got printed at washimill and i was so impressed with how fine their cutline is... pricing and quality of the sticker itself is alright they feel a lil flimsy? idk. but i do like the printing. i kind of elected to go with them solely because i was already ordering washi tape. A LOT of my manufacturing decisions are made based on how much money i can save on shipping tbh.

and thats my sticker manu reviews dont forget to like comment subscribe idk if i have one im gonna stick with forever or anything im rly indecisive. ideally id like a manu based in the u.s...? because im based in the u.s. and international shipping is pricey. but idk if i keep ordering washi tape maybe ill keep using washimill. who knows...

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Why do you think there's so little official LGBT Sherlock content? Even outside BBC Sherlock there's basically nothing, no tv shows or comics or books.

Like yes there's subtext but here's none that have it in plain text

It feels like every big corporation is too afraid to do it and I don't get why, especially after the success of shows with queer leads like heartstopper.

I'd love a book or tv show that was like, the original scripts of Watson's books or something, that turned out to be super queer.

Hey Nonny!

LOL there's "official" BBC Sherlock LGBT content?? Honestly had no idea, never saw any official merch on this side of the pond being explicitly for the community. The show itself, or at least the earlier seasons, felt like it was headed that way, didn't it, though?

And I feel you, I really do. I think before, though, it never blossomed above more than subtext because there was always the looming possible threat from the remaining copyright holders in the UK and the States still having a say in the remaining stories and in turn how Holmes and Watson are portrayed in said stories (even if it was just on 8 or so stories specifically), so no one really wanted to test that I guess. Now that the copyrights expired and Sherlock Holmes the entity and its stories are completely public domain, there really is no excuse anymore.

THAT SAID, I encourage you to check out Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Furtive Festivity, which is a short ACD-canon Holmes and Watson film that's explicitly queer, and it's SUPER CUTE. PLEASE GO SUPPORT IT 💜

I'm hoping that maybe, POSSIBLY the third RDJ Holmes will go that route (Jude Law scoffed at a reporter calling their relationship a bromance, that it is explicitly a romance), but I don't have much faith in the "big corporations" ever doing it like WB or Disney. But who knows, I do hope, in my lifetime, we see an explicitly queer Holmes/Watson film or show produced by a Big Name Company.

BBC Sherlock Could Have Been It, though, and they KNEW IT.

And I think that's what hurts the most about S4 for me. I dunno.

[yuri-is-online]

WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT that's like taking Kalim Al-Asim and changing his name to jafar Bombtower

it's so fucking shit

(also please don't unleash the horrors on me I'm an Arab, please don't take away my bomb jokes privilege)

Well my friend, it's not exactly like you're wrong.

What I don't understand is why they needed to change it in the first place but I do have some guesses?

Apparently, Honest John's "real name" is J. Worthington Foulfellow, so Ernesto Foulworth does make sense for his name but ah. I had to Google that because I sure as shit don't remember that being his name. Fellow Honest sounded stupid sure, but it was a fun name. The translators probably assumed that it would make scentance structure awkward and changed it to try and avoid a "whose on first" situation but... I'll be honest I really don't care. Gidel could have been changed because someone thought it sounded too much like "gelding" which is a term for a castrated horse but Gino???? GINO???

I bring that up because when names get changed by a big company like Disney, there are typically one of two main reasons. 1) It is too close to something that could be considered offensive and therfore tarnish the brand (even if the reasoning is silly) or 2) it has something to do with copyright. In this case, I've offered the third reason of making dialog easier to understand, but it also could be that some translator wanted to flex their obscure Disney knowledge by giving Honest John his real name back.

What was tripping me up was where the fuck they got Ernesto from... but there's a character in Coco named that? So perhaps whoever named him was thinking of that? Whatever the reason the name just sounds stupid and I'm not going to be using it. There was no good reason to change it ffs

[lupinus-bicolor]

i havent seen this scene in its entirety (probably for copyright reasons, suck my ass disney) so i decided to clip it and share with u guys. sorry for the audio quality, I've subtitled it below the cut lol. if/when this gets copyright claimed just hmu I'll link it

DP: Ok I'm just gonna ask, what's with the suit? First thing I did when I flamed out, I took mine off.

W: Drop it.

DP: It's not that ugly.

W: Stop talking about my suit-

DP: Did you make it yourself? Been there.

W: Quit. Now.

DP: The xmen make you wear it? Those sons 'a fucking bitches. They are not your friends, I'll tell you that. Friends don't let friends leave the house looking like they fight crime for the Los Angeles Rams.

W: Shut the fuck up about my suit.

DP: Woah woah woah woah watch your frown lines, angel baby, I'm just trying to bond a little bit-

W: Yeah well then talk about somethin' else.

DP: Fine.

W: Stop it.

DP: If they can fix your world what's the first thing you're gonna do when you get outta here? Rubbing alcohol shots, maybe a wiper fluid chaser?

W: What did you say?

DP: When you get back, what's the first thing you're gonna do?

W: No, before that.

DP: If... They can fix your world?

W: What do you mean "if"? You lied to me, you don't have a fucking clue if they can help me fix things do you?

DP: No I mean- Ow! Fuck! Fuck! I didn't lie!

W: You lied!

DP: No I made an educated wish! Because I need you! This. This is why, right here. Because if we don't do something, they die. I don't know anything about saving worlds, and why would I even care? Because my entire world is right here in this picture. It's only nine people and I have no idea how to save it alone. I know how to fuck people up for money, but you! You know how to save 'em! At least, the other Wolverine did. Agh! I guess I'm stuck with the worst one.

W: Did you say you made an educated fucking "wish"?

DP: They call me the merc with the mouth, they don't call me "truthful Timmy, the blowjob queen of Saskatoon".

W: One more word. Please, give me one.

DP: Gubernatorial. Ah!

W: You know what, you're a fucking joke. No wonder the Avengers didn't take you, or the xmen, they'll take fuckin' anyone. I mean you are, you're ridiculous. Immature, half-wit moron. I have never met a sadder, more attention-starved jabbering little prick in my entire life, and that says a lot 'cause I've been alive for over two hundred fuckin' years. I tell ya, that bald chick was right about one thing. You will never save the world. You couldn't even save a relationship with a goddamn stripper! And motherfucker I wish I could say you'd die alone, but it's one of god's best jokes that you can't die, except that it's on all of us! You got nothin' to say, Mouth?

DP: I'm gonna fight you now.

W: Oh are you?

W: Not talkin' now, are ya?

DP: Ah, you dirty bitch!

DP: Baby knife!

DP: I take it all back, the Honda Odyssey fucks hard! Too bad you don't, needle dick.

W: Oh we're just gett'n started, bub.

[rjalker]

well. just noticed something about Steamboat Willie I don't think anyone else has pointed out yet...

let me make it easier to see

Edit:

Uhh, well hard to really make it easier, but here's with a little bit more contrast and brightness.

This is the title card for Steamboat Willie, showing Mickey with an alternative outfit! Striped pants, white gloves, a cane and a hat! Minnie gets the same hat, heels, and a polka dot skirt!

These designs are also public domain because they're in Steamboat Willie!

You can watch it here on the web archive. and on youtube. and probably lots of other places at this point.

[ID: A screenshot from the Web Archive's video player showing the video paused at 00:04, showing the title card that reads, "Disney Cartoons presents A Mickey Mouse sound cartoon: Steambie Willie, A Walt Disney comic by UB Iwerks". The rest of the text is blurrier, but seems to say, "recorded by cinephone system, copyright [illegible]". On either side of the text are Mickey and Minnie, smiling at eachother. Mickey is holding up a hat in one hand, and a cane in the other with a wide grin of greeting. He has a white face, a buck tooth in his open mouth, white gloves, and light grey shoes and shorts, with the shorts having dark buttons and darker vertical stripes. Minnie has her hands clasped as she smiles at Mickey with lowered eyelids in a flirting pose. She has the same hat as mickey, with a flower stick behind it. She has two circles on her chest like a bra or bow, with a polkadot skirt with a wavy edge. She is wearing light grey heels. End ID.]

Edit 2:

Here's some slightly more cleaned up versions from MS Paint!

[ID: the same versions of Mickey and Minnie mouse, now with the background solid gray so they are easier to see. End ID.]

Made lineart and colored it for fun. You can download them here from the web archive :)

[ID: Two more versions of Mickey and Minnie shown above. One is just black and white lineart, the other has color added. They both have light green shoes, tan and black hats, and purple with grey accented clothes. Mickey's cane is tan, Minnie's flower is light purple. End ID.]

[ultimatemahoushoujo]

Help me find a lost old anime

I am looking for an old anime, I hope you'll be able to help me find it!

Around 2010's I remember watching an anime on youtube, I remember it had the name of the anime and it was cut into various videos like "part (11)" or "part (4)" because of copyright probably, so I don't know if it was a series, an OVA or a movie.

But there's a part I perfectly remember...

It's an old anime, with those soft traces, mature and sharp features and "small eyes", I don't remember if it was a fantasy or a period anime, but this scene is set on a palace, with a balcony (maybe an oriental palace). The character in this scene is a "female fatale", wearing a dress like Jasmine (Disney Live Action Aladdin), she confronts the "good girl", and cuts off her face and hears it like a mask to replace, impersonate her. I don't know if it was to atract the male love interest, or a political thing.

I don't remember blood, I remember clearly she adjusting the mask as her real face and smiling, laughing.

I remember finding the anime beautiful, and very different than any other I've seen, probably because of this dark and mature animation, and even thou I was a child, I was drawn to this anime, even if it scared me, so I watched it in secret.

I remember it on youtube around the 2010's, maybe 2008 - 2012

Please reblog as much as you can!

Let´s find this lost anime

[mumbojumbo-fanblog]

‘Disney don't sue me’

MUMBO IS THIS ABOUT THE COPYRIGHT STRIKE? MUMBO?

Whether it is or not the shade is crazy lmao